Secrets of Southern India

A whirlwind on the south-east coast, Chennai is one of India’s most spectacular cities, reclining for miles along the golden sands of Marina Beach. Haggle over a fine-silk kurta (the traditional collarless shirt) in Pondy Bazaar, or tour the city’s wealth of Dravidian temples and Raj relics. See the Bay of Bengal, visit Geore’s marketplace and Shiva Temple, or beat a tasty trail through the city’s hectic streets where vendors ladle out bowls of punchy idli sambar – steamed savoury cakes in a lentil stew – and serve vada fritters straight from the fryer. 

Pondicherry was under French rule until 1954, a history savored in the fragrant bakeries of the White Town and seen in the grand, European-style hotels festooned with bougainvillea. It all comes mixed with lively Tamil festivals commemorating Hindu gods and the spiritual air of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, something of a pilgrimage site for soul-searching yogis. 

Bustling Thanjavur dances to a modern beat, but it has ancient, sacred bones. This was the capital of the ancient Cholas, whose mighty temples peer over the city like russet-toned watchtowers. A highlight of any journey through the south, the centuries-old, UNESCO-listed temples and maze-like palaces are some of the finest anywhere in India, some of them still busy places of Hindu worship. Take time to admire the ornately frescoed walls and countless carvings and inscriptions: designs that would become a benchmark for Hindu architecture all over southern Asia.  

Made up of a constellation of mansions scattered through the hills, Chettinad recalls a decadent chapter in Tamil Nadu’s history. These grand abodes – more than 10,000 in total – once belonged to the Chettiar jewel and spice merchants who enriched their homes with the spoils of their lucrative trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Elegantly designed with archways, pillars and friezes, many of them are private residences. Others tempt visitors inside with interiors of gleaming materials sourced from around the world, from Italian marble to Burmese teak. 

For over 2,000 years, Madurai has danced on the banks of the Vaigai River, the sacred soul of Tamil Nadu and a grand seat of learning. One of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities, it is both a cradle of the Tamil language and a metropolis of devotion, where market vendors and artisan potters work tirelessly beneath the dazzlingly carved, rainbow-coloured towers of the Meenakshi Amman Temple, dedicated to Shiva’s divine consort of that name.

On the road to Kerala’s tropical Malabar Coast, Periyar spills through the Cardamom Hills like a blot of emerald-green ink, a landscape of tamarind groves, mango forests and lush peaks quenched by mists. These were the rich, fragrant lands of which Christopher Columbus had dreamt on his quests to the New World; treasures still await in the region’s spice, tea and coffee plantations, while Periyar National Park promises sightings of tigers, elephants and an astonishing array of rare flowers.  

Kumarakom is Kerala in a postcard: a palm-shaded maze of lagoons and coconut groves, with canoes and kettuvallam houseboats drifting along its surface. Daily life on the Keralan backwaters has remained largely unaltered for centuries, a world away from the bustle of the cities; discover age-old artisan crafts, watch skilled fishermen ply their trade and see local life play out on the picturesque shores of Vembanad, India’s longest lake, as you drift between the trees.

For centuries, merchants, explorers, pilgrims and preachers have all found purpose in this bustling port, stretched across the canal-laced shores of the Laccadive Sea. Their footprints are everywhere: ancient mosques and synagogues, Portuguese churches and Dutch-style houses, Hindu temples and fishing nets. Dive into the city’s heady, decadent chaos: from artsy cafes to grand hotels and theaters famed for their Kathakali, an elaborate, masked Keralan dance.