Kerala Luxury Houseboat and Beach Tour

Stepping off a long-haul flight is easier when someone has already thought of the details, and a representative from Heritage India Private Tours waits in the arrival hall at Cochin International Airport with cold towels and a name card. Your chauffeur, who will drive you for the full twelve days, loads the luggage into a spacious air-conditioned car for the 45 km run to Fort Kochi, which takes around an hour and a half. The route skirts Aluva and crosses the backwater bridges near Ernakulam, and on the way you receive a printed programme and the direct numbers of our operations team, available at any hour.

Your base for the first two nights is a heritage hotel on the harbour front, and Brunton Boatyard, a rebuilt Victorian shipyard with teak beams and four-poster beds, is our usual choice, subject to availability. Rooms face the water, so ships, ferries and dolphins pass beneath your balcony through the day. After a rest, take tea in the courtyard and walk out along the promenade as the Chinese fishing nets begin their evening work beside Vasco da Gama Square. Dinner at the hotel's restaurant can feature recipes from the old Anglo-Indian and Syrian Christian households of Kochi, such as duck roast and meen pollichathu.

Overnight stay in Kochi.

Fort Kochi has become South India's most creative small town, and today's walk with a local guide focuses on art, architecture and design rather than a checklist of sights. Begin at Aspinwall House, a waterfront trading compound that hosts the main exhibitions of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale when it runs, then visit Pepper House, a converted spice warehouse with a library and courtyard café. Continue to the Kashi Art Café on Burgher Street for coffee among rotating exhibitions, and pass the tiled Dutch bungalows on Princess Street. Your guide also shows you St Francis Church, where Vasco da Gama lay buried for fourteen years.

After a long lunch and an afternoon by the pool, a private motorboat collects you from the hotel jetty for a two-hour sunset cruise around Kochi harbour. The boat passes the container cranes of Vallarpadam, the old naval base on Willingdon Island and the colonial Bolgatty Palace, built by the Dutch in the eighteenth century. Fishing canoes and dolphins share the channel at this hour, and the crew serves chilled fresh lime and banana chips on board. Back on land, end the day with a candlelit dinner in the hotel's waterside garden, where the menu changes with the morning's catch.

Overnight stay in Kochi.

Leave the coast after a relaxed breakfast and drive inland on the Kochi–Dhanushkodi highway towards the Western Ghats. The first two hours run through rubber and pineapple country around Kothamangalam, then the road starts to climb past the Neriamangalam bridge and into thick forest. Your chauffeur will make unhurried stops at Valara waterfall, which tumbles beside the road, and at a viewpoint near Adimali over the green valley below. The full journey of about 130 km takes around four hours, and a picnic hamper can be packed by the hotel if you prefer to eat at a scenic spot rather than a roadside restaurant.

In Munnar, you stay at a hillside resort or a colonial bungalow inside a working tea estate; Windermere Estate, set among cardamom and tea above Pothanmedu, is our usual choice, subject to availability. The rooms open onto lawns that drop away into the valley, and log fires are lit in the cooler months. Spend the afternoon at leisure, taking tea on the veranda or walking the estate paths with a resident naturalist. Dinner is served in the bungalow's dining room, often a mix of Kerala dishes such as chicken stew and appam with a few British-era favourites like bread-and-butter pudding.

Overnight stay in Munnar.

An early alarm is worth it today. At around 4:30 am a local jeep collects you for the bumpy hour-long climb to Kolukkumalai, which sits close to 2,200 metres on the Tamil Nadu side of the border and is one of the highest tea estates in the world. The last stretch is an unpaved estate track, so the jeep is essential. At the viewpoint, clouds fill the valleys below, and the sun appears over the Bodi hills while the tea bushes turn from grey to green. The estate's small factory still uses machines from the 1930s, and you can watch the morning's leaf being withered and rolled before tasting the result.

Return to your hotel for a late breakfast and a rest. In the afternoon, a guide drives you through the high estates of Lakshmi and Chundavurrai, where tea pickers work the slopes and children walk home from school past stone churches. You are then invited for a private lunch or high tea at a colonial manager's bungalow, where a member of the estate team explains how tea is graded and blended. On the way back, stop at Blossom Park on the Muthirapuzha river, or simply return early for a massage. Munnar evenings are cool and quiet, so a fireside drink before dinner is a fine idea.

Overnight stay in Munnar.

The drive from Munnar to Thekkady runs about 90 km and takes roughly three and a half hours, following the ridges through Pooppara and Rajakumari before entering the cardamom hills of Idukki district. The countryside changes gradually, with tea bushes giving way to tall shade trees under which cardamom grows in damp clumps. Your chauffeur can stop at Ramakkalmedu, a windswept hilltop with a large statue of Kuravan and Kurathi, mythical hill-dwellers of local legend, and views down to the Tamil Nadu plains. Coffee and fresh fruit are available at small roadside cafés all along the route, and stops are entirely at your pace.

In Thekkady, your forest lodge sits close to the boundary of Periyar Tiger Reserve; Spice Village, built with thatched cottages modelled on tribal homes, is our usual choice, subject to availability. It is a calm place with a pool, a small library about local wildlife and an excellent Kerala kitchen that sources its vegetables from its own garden. In the late afternoon, a guide walks you around a family spice farm in Kumily, showing how cardamom is harvested and dried and how cinnamon bark is peeled from young branches. Evening entertainment is low-key, perhaps a naturalist's slide talk about the reserve's leopards and elephants.

Overnight stay in Thekkady.

Bamboo rafting is one of the community-run programmes of Periyar Tiger Reserve, and it is the most rewarding way to see the park from the water. The day starts at around 8 am, when trained forest guards, many of them former poachers who now protect the reserve, lead your small group on a short walk through moist deciduous forest to the lakeshore. You then board a raft made of lashed bamboo poles and drift across a quiet arm of the lake, watching for elephants, gaur, otters and hornbills. Lunch is carried in and eaten in the forest, and you return to the lodge by around 5 pm.

Bamboo rafting is limited to a small number of guests per day and must be booked in advance, which our local team handles as soon as you confirm. If you prefer a shorter outing, a two-hour guided nature walk or the standard morning Periyar Lake boat ride can replace the full-day trip. The evening is free for a rest, a drink beside the pool or a visit to a Kathakali performance in Kumily, where you can watch the elaborate make-up being applied before the show. Dinner tonight could feature Kerala pork fry or a vegetarian thali made with fresh cardamom and pepper.

Overnight stay in Thekkady.

Descend from the hills after breakfast on the road through Vandiperiyar, Kuttikanam and Mundakayam, where rubber and pineapple farms line the slopes. At Kuttikanam you may stop for a coffee and a view across the hills of Peermade, once a summer retreat of the Travancore royal family. The full drive to Kumarakom covers about 115 km and takes around three and a half hours, passing through Kottayam, a town known for its churches and early printing presses. As the land flattens out, canals and paddy fields take over, white egrets stand in the flooded fields, and the air grows warm and humid again near Vembanad Lake.

In Kumarakom, your lakeside resort is set among coconut groves and canals, and Kumarakom Lake Resort, with private pool villas and traditional Kerala architecture, is our usual choice, subject to availability. After lunch, meet the resort's Ayurvedic doctor for a short consultation, during which he or she asks about your health and sleep and suggests treatments for the next two days. The first, often an abhyangam massage with warm herbal oils followed by a steam bath, follows in the late afternoon. Spend the evening on your veranda watching the boats move along the canal, then enjoy a seafood dinner by the lake.

Overnight stay in Kumarakom.

Mornings in Kumarakom are best spent outdoors, and a resort naturalist can take you on an early walk through the Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, where cormorants, darters and herons nest in the mangroves. Later, return for breakfast and your second Ayurvedic treatment, perhaps shirodhara, in which a steady stream of warm oil is poured across the forehead to calm the nervous system. The rest of the morning is free for the pool, a book or a village cycle ride along the canal paths, which are flat and shaded and pass small churches, toddy shops and coir workshops where coconut fibre is twisted into rope by hand.

In the late afternoon, a private motorboat takes you across Vembanad Lake to Pathiramanal, a small forested island whose name means sand of midnight. A short trail circles the island under tall trees, and it is a favourite resting point for migratory birds in the winter months. The sun sets over the western shore of the lake as you return, turning the water orange and gold, while lines of fishing canoes head for home. Back at the resort, a private dinner can be set up on the jetty or lawn, lit by oil lamps, with dishes such as karimeen pollichathu and tender coconut payasam.

Overnight stay in Kumarakom.

After breakfast, your private premium houseboat collects you from the resort jetty, so there is no road transfer at all today. The boat is a single-bedroom luxury kettuvallam with air-conditioning, an upper deck for sunbathing, a shower bathroom and a crew of three, including a chef who cooks to your preferences. Leaving Kumarakom, it crosses the open waters of Vembanad, the largest lake in Kerala, before entering the canal network of Kuttanad, where paddy fields lie below the water level behind narrow earthen banks and farmers drain the fields through sluice gates before each sowing season. Your chauffeur drives the car ahead to meet you tomorrow.

Lunch on board might include prawns in coconut milk, beans thoran, rice and fresh pineapple. In the afternoon the boat glides past villages where life still revolves around the water, with ferries carrying schoolchildren, coir workers and fishermen casting nets from canoes. You can stop to visit a village temple or a toddy tapper's grove, or ask the chef to show you how he prepares the fish curry. Houseboats moor for the night by about 5:30 pm, and the crew lights lanterns on deck while the chef prepares a candlelit dinner. With only one cabin on board, the evening is completely private, with frogs, crickets and the stars over the paddy fields for company.

Overnight stay in Alleppey.

Wake to the sound of birds and the gentle slap of water against the hull, and enjoy a breakfast of appam, egg curry and fresh fruit as the boat makes its way back to the Alleppey jetty by around 9 am. Your chauffeur is waiting for the short drive north to Marari Beach, about 15 km away, which takes only half an hour along a quiet coastal road lined with coconut palms. On the way, if you are interested, stop at the old Alleppey lighthouse, built in the nineteenth century, which you can climb for a sweeping view of the coast and canals.

Marari is a long, quiet stretch of golden sand at the village of Mararikulam, largely free of the hawkers and crowds found at bigger beach towns. Your resort is set behind the dunes among coconut groves; Marari Beach Resort, with thatched villas and an organic farm, is our usual choice, subject to availability. The afternoon is entirely free, so swim, read under a palm or walk along the shore where fishermen haul in their nets by hand. Strong currents sometimes affect swimming during the monsoon, and lifeguards indicate safe areas. At sunset, the beach turns orange as fishing boats return.

Overnight stay in Marari Beach.

Early morning is the coolest time for a guided bicycle ride through Kattoor, the fishing village next to the resort. Your guide leads you along sandy lanes between coconut palms and small homes, and you stop to watch fishermen mend nets, women sort sardines and mackerel on the beach, and children walk to school. The ride takes about two hours at an easy pace on flat ground, and you can stop for tea at a village stall where the owner fries banana fritters to order. If cycling is not for you, the same route can be covered on foot with the guide, or simply skipped in favour of a lazy morning swim.

After lunch, a short drive of about 10 km takes you to Arthunkal, where St Andrew's Basilica was first built by Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century and remains a pilgrimage site for both Christians and Hindus. The rest of the afternoon is free for the pool, a final Ayurvedic treatment or a stroll on the beach to watch the kites wheel over the fishing boats. Your last evening is marked by a candlelit dinner on the sand, with the chef preparing grilled fish wrapped in banana leaf, prawn fry and a Kerala coconut dessert, as the waves roll in under the stars.

Overnight stay in Marari Beach.

The final morning allows one last barefoot walk on the sand before breakfast, when the light is soft and the fishermen are already pushing their boats into the surf. Check out at a relaxed pace after a final swim; if your flight leaves late in the day, we can request a late check-out or keep a room available for you until departure, subject to availability. Before leaving, many guests stop at the resort's shop to buy coconut-based skin oils or organic spices, or hand-woven coir mats from the village cooperative, as lightweight reminders of their time in Kerala that pack easily into a suitcase.

Your chauffeur then drives you north to Cochin International Airport, a journey of about 80 km that takes around two hours via Cherthala and the Ernakulam bypass, timed to arrive three hours before an international departure. If you have extra time, a stop at the Lulu Mall in Edappally or a final seafood lunch in Kochi can be added on the way, and the chauffeur will adjust the timing accordingly. At the terminal, the chauffeur helps with your luggage after twelve days together, and our office monitors your flight until it leaves. Should you wish to add a stay in the Maldives or Sri Lanka, both are short flights from Kochi.