Far beyond the obvious tourist circuits, there is Tamil culture, cuisine and temples (ancient and modern), colonial legacy, churches and forts (especially Portuguese and British in Chennai, and French in Puducherry), hectic street life, crowded beaches on the Bay of Bengal coast, cool hill stations in the Western Ghats, and the uniqueness of the southern tip of India. Travelling in SUVs and on modern railways, and staying at five-star hotels in cities and gorgeous heritage boutiques in small towns, it is easier than ever to enjoy the little visited gem of Tamil Nadu. Vanakkam.
Tamilakam, the region at the bottom of the sub-Continent and home to Tamil-speaking Dravidian-ethnic groups, has a written history dating back more than 2,000 years. It was divided into kingdoms – the most significant were the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyans, Pallavas and Vijayanagaras – which all jostled for power and extended their reach into nearby Ceylon until the early sixteenth century brought the Mughal wave from the north and European settlers via the sea.
The first trading station on the coast of the Bay of Bengal was established by the Portuguese in 1522, followed by the Dutch in 1605, the British in 1626, and the French in 1693, by when the “State of India” had become a thing. In the battles among these colonialists, Britain erected its first fortress on the Indian peninsula, in 1639, at Fort St George in the major port of Madras. Initially under the control of the British East India Company, this evolved into the Madras Presidency that ran much of South India before it was formally subsumed into the British Empire in 1785. It was not until 1858 that the British Crown assumed direct rule of the whole country.
In 1917, Madras became the first place in India to adopt a dyarchy, in which a British Governor shared some powers with a local prime minister, an important step towards self-determination (regional autonomy came in 1935 and national independence in 1950). In 1969, Madras State was renamed Tamil Nadu (“Tamil Country”).
There are more than 30,000 Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu. They are living breathing centres of community experience rather than tourist attractions, though local worshippers happily pose for plenty of selfies. Foreigners are welcome, apart from in the innermost sanctums where the darshan or sacred rituals are performed, and we are often swarmed by smiling devotees keen for selfies with their rare visitors.
Hinduism
The world’s oldest established belief system dates back more than 4,000 years in the Indus Valley of modern Pakistan, though the word “Hindu” was an exonym coined by British scholars as recently as the early nineteenth century. It has no founder, and although the Vedas, its primary scriptures, were composed in Sanskrit about 1500BC, it is only since the early twentieth century that Hindus themselves have sought to explain their own faith. With almost a billion adherents, 95% of them in India, where 80% of citizens are followers, today Hinduism is the planet’s third most popular religion.
It is a fusion of many philosophies, involving devotion to many gods, including:
* Brahma, responsible for creation
* Vishnu, preserver and protector of the universe
* Shiva, destroyer of the universe so it could be recreated
* Krishna, god of compassion and love
* Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and purity
* Ganesh, god of wisdom and understanding
Hindus generally believe in the doctrines of samsara, (the cycle of life, death and reincarnation), karma (the universal law of cause and effect) and atman (the ambition to achieve moksha or salvation by breaking the cycle, releasing one’s own soul and merging it into the Ultimate Reality of Brahman).
Five common elements shape the Hindu tradition:
* Doctrine, illuminated primarily by learned Brahmans
* Practice, through rituals including sharing food and honouring deities
* Society, organised in highly stratified caste structures
* Story, about the interplay between the vast pantheon of gods and humans
* Devotion, expressed through poems and verse
Hinduism maintains that truth cannot be dogmatically instructed, even by a guru, but must be sought from multiple sources because everyone’s truth is conditioned by their era, age, gender, social status, geographic location, and state of consciousness. Hence, the foremost Hindu virtue is tolerance.
They say South Indian food uses rice not roti, and you will see many boggy paddy fields dotted with brightly-dressed women workers. Madras curries were born here, pulsating with chili, tamarind and fennel seeds, the fieriness complemented with cooling raita yoghurt, and Chettinad cuisine is popular for its aromatic spices. All goes well with a bottle of local Sula Cabernet Shiraz or Kingfisher beer.
Wifi, cash and credit cards are all easy to use, and English is spoken widely across Tamil Nadu, though I must admit I for one often find it hard to penetrate the heavy accents.
The best time to visit is in winter from October to March, when it is lush and green but still hot and steamy. The summer from April to June reaches a scorching 40+°C, and the July to September monsoon brings landslides and floods.
There is a simple route through the state from north to south, starting at Chennai, heading down the coast to Puducherry, before cutting inland through the ancient temple towns of the central region, then exploring the south from Madurai to Kanyakumari. Both Chennai and Madurai have airports so it is easy to come in one and go out the other. For getting around towns, you can flag tuk-tuks and motorbike rides on the street of course, or book them via Uber (note that drivers usually prefer cash); in fact, Uber offers cars only between Chennai and Puducherry, and in the biggest cities further south.
The North Coast
The north coast is where you will find Chennai, the state’s capital, and Puducherry, its most charming town. Both have tangible European legacies as well as important temples from ancient kingdoms. However, the overwhelming excitements stem from the fact that everything has now been swallowed by the contemporary, inescapable, awesome ruckus all around.
Chennai
The city of Madras was renamed Chennai in 1996, and today it is the complete assault on your senses that you might expect of India’s fifth biggest city, currently over 12m and growing by almost 300,000 a year.
Much of what you will want to see is along and just back from the shore north of where the Adyar River runs perpendicular to the sea. Not especially rich in tourist attractions, the highlight of the city is nipping around in yellow-and-black tuk-tuks, whose drivers will surely show you laminated pictures of all the main sites. They swarm the pot-holed roads like bees in what can feel like a life-or-death trial, often driving on the wrong side against the traffic, slaloming around pedestrians wandering willy-nilly (some without shoes, men without shirts, and women in colourful sarees) as well as weaving past random goats and cows plus fleets of rickshaws, Honda Activa scooters and Royal Enfield motorbikes (crash helmets are very much optional), Ashok Leyland open-side buses, and even cars. That is without mentioning the fabulous associated noises and smells.
A calm starting point in this pell-mell is the Chennai Lighthouse, a proud symbol of the city. It is 45 metres tall, half way up Marina Beach, which is about a kilometre deep in parts, and at 13km the longest stretch of urban sand in the country. There is a lift (with an employment-creation full-time operator to press the buttons) up to the little viewing platform for an awesome look down the seashore.
As many as 10,000 people lost their lives here on the tragic morning of 26 December 2004, when the deadliest tsunami in human history hit Chennai. The entire coastline was submerged beneath 5m of flood water, washing away walkers and joggers on the promenade, and cricketers and kite-fliers on the sand.
Looking south today, beyond the high-rise rooftops the beach is littered with colourful fishing boats, whose morning catch is sold under hundreds of circling birds at a string of wooden hawker stands by the road.
North faces towards the most popular section of the beach, where there are lines of stalls offering T-shirts and sunglasses, piercings and tattoos, pongal milky rice, tiffin boxes, Masala dosa, pani puri and jaggery sweets. Cows roam wild and young kids ride horseback. There is no sunbathing; there are no facilities and in any case everyone is fully clothed.
Along the seafront is the University of Madras, built in imposing redbrick, and the Vivekananda House, a yellowish-pinkish drum where the eponymous popular swami stayed at the end of the nineteenth century. Also here are several memorials to Tamil politicians, and golden statues of local heroes, often wearing motif black sunglasses, although many are currently hidden by the construction sites all the way along that are putting the finishing touches to the urban metro system that is due to open in 2025.
Just back from the water is Sri Kapaleeshwarar, the most significant Hindu temple in the city. Dedicated to Shiva, it was built in the seventh century by the ruling Pallavas, though the twin towering gopuram gateways adorned with colourful figures that are typical of the Southern Indian architectural style, were added in 1906. Like most temples in Tamil Nadu, it is decorated in the state’s signature red-and-white candy-stripes.
There are numerous shrines in the complex, which as always serves as community centre, library, kitchen and dormitory as well as holy home of darshan rituals. Non-Hindus are not allowed to see behind the wizard’s curtain and are restricted to the courtyards, which bustle with worshippers coming and going all day and where you will be besieged by guides and beggars.
Sri Parthasarathy Temple, devoted to Vishnu, is one of the oldest extant structures in Chennai. It was built in the sixth century, also by the Pallavas, though new shrines were added in 1564. Non-Hindus are not allowed inside at all. At the back, it has one of the most impressive water tanks, a large square pool with steps at the edges used by bathers during major festivals and ceremonies.
Sri Vadapalani Temple, hallowing Murugan, the Tamil god of war and victory, was built in 1890 and renovated in 1920. It is always crammed with worshippers queueing for entry to the inner sanctums, and is particularly popular for weddings. There are more than 600 more temples in Chennai, but these are the big three.
According to the mythology of believers, Christianity first came to Tamilakam with Thomas the Apostle in the early years after Christ. This Doubting Thomas is acclaimed for founding the Church of Syrian Malabar Christians here, and even today he is regarded as the Patron Saint of India. In 1521, Portuguese missionaries landed in Madras seeking his body in what they believed to be his final resting place. They found a tomb and within two years had erected over it the structure of San Thome Church, officially St Thomas Cathedral Bascillica. That was renovated by the British in 1896 in the style of Gothic Revival then fashionable among British architects, making it a striking edifice. To enter it, as with all local churches, you have to remove your shoes, in line with traditional Hindu practices rather than contemporary guidance on health and podiatry. It is noticeably calmer than at the temples.
These Portuguese evangelists claimed the precise location of his death in 53 AD was at the top of a small hillock, now called St Thomas Mount and found in the south-west of the city towards the international airport. To mark the spot, they built the Church of Our Lady of Expectation on it in 1523. This chapel apparently enshrines relics of St Thomas, including “finger and toe bones”, as well as a “bleeding cross”. By legend, St Thomas fell onto this crucifix as he passed, and it is claimed that this chunk of granite sweat blood on the anniversary of his death, 18 December, every year from when it was discovered in 1558 until it mysteriously stopped in 1704.
There is an even older chapel in Chennai, the Church of Our Lady of Light, popularly known as Luz Church. Vasco da Gama was the first European to reach India by ship, landing at Calicut in Kerala on the Arabian Sea in 1498. Folklore says he was quickly followed by eight Franciscan priests, some of whom were lost at sea when they sought to spread their good news around the coast; apparently they were saved only when miraculously guided to safety by a bright light and, as you can imagine, this church, put up in 1516, honours that spurious event.
The British legacy here is surprisingly less tangible, and their most significant monument is not religious but military. Fort St George, built in 1644, was the garrison of early British rule. All that remains of it is the former infantry officers’ mess, which has been turned into a museum of the period.
Nearby is the Victory War Memorial that originally commemorated local people killed between 1914 and 1918, but it has since added victims of 1939-45, the 1948 Kashmir Aggression, and the 1962 War with China, plus the four Indo-Pakistan Wars of 1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999.
There are numerous five-star hotels in Chennai, which these days is a cosmopolitan business conurbation as well as a traditional melee of street and beach life, temples and churches. The ITC Grand Chola, near the airport, has the excellent Avartana and Peshawri restaurants. Closer to the main sites are the Taj Coromandel, an ancient and venerable institution about 5km back from Marina Beach, and the Leela Palace, a cool place ideally located on a promontory where the Adyar River empties into the Bay of Bengal. As across the whole state, most will welcome you with a fresh flower garland and a bindi red dot on the forehead.
Mahabalipuram
It is just 30km from central Chennai to the top of a beautiful sliver of land squeezed between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Great Salt Lake to the west. This makes it a popular weekend destination for local people fleeing the heat and chaos of the city for the tranquil beaches and five-star hotels that abound here at Kovalam. The very best of them is the Taj Fisherman’s Cove.
Towards the bottom of this 30km-long finger of paradise is the town of Mahabalipuram, where a series of temples and carvings, all chiselled from enormous boulders in situ in the seventh and eighth century reign of the Pallavas, are protected by UNESCO.
There are three main sites, easily accessed by tuk-tuk, for which you buy a single ticket. Shore Temple, near the sea, naturally, is an intricately shaped pair of towers.
In a huge sandpit, what is known as the Five Rathas look like five professionally-crafted massive sandcastles, plus a life-sized lion and elephant thrown in for good measure. They are in fact five temples all fashioned from five adjacent rocks.
The biggest cluster of monuments is near the lighthouse. These include numerous rock-hewn temples with complex reliefs, the highlight of which is Arjuna’s Penance, an epic story etched on two neighbouring boulders in which a pair of elephants are front and centre.
Puducherry
It is almost 100km from Mahabalipuram down the coast to Auroville, home of a retreat highly revered in spiritual circles. Founded in 1968 as an offshoot of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the nearby city of Puducherry, 2,500 mostly foreign residents here are living their own dream. For casual visitors, the principal attraction is Matrimandir, which looks like a gigantic golden golf ball on an immaculately attended fairway. Tourists are kept at par-five distance and advised to be quiet and contemplative, though as this is India, isolation and silence are not really done. Only deadly serious contemplators are allowed inside for week-long sessions of self-improvement.
Auroville is just 10km north of Puducherry. Back in 1673, when it was known as Pondicherry, this was a major factory or entrepôt controlled by the French East India Company, and in fact it became the headquarters of French colonial interests in India. Despite losing Pondicherry to the Dutch and then the British, and being driven from India altogether, this trading post was returned to France in 1816 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, from when it was ruled as a French enclave right up until 1954. This means that today the architecture, churches, monuments, statues and cuisine of what is known as the French Quarter of the city is a charming highlight for visitors to Tamil Nadu.
The French Quarter is in the district of White Town, which refers to the colour of the French people, not the colour of the elegant colonial buildings, as they come in all shades. It is worth noting that on the day we were here, the only white people around were us. The boulevards are overhung by a canopy of breezy trees that meet in the middle, dappling the asphalt with dancing shadows, under which there are cafés and pâtisseries with names like Café des Art, Le Café and Les Saveurs.
The heart of White Town these days is stereotypically Indian. Although Promenade Beach is more rocky than sandy, this is where thousands of local people come day and night to sit and swim. The coast road, Goubert Avenue, has been pedestrianised, enabling the flourishing of sugarcane juice and coconut milk vendors. So few foreigners come here that those who do are certain to be mobbed for selfies and feel like a cork bobbing in an ocean of human movement.
The centrepiece of the beach is the huge statue of Gandhi, opposite a smaller figure of Nehru. The old French relics, set back on Rue Dumas, Rue Romain Rolland, Rue Suffren and Rue La Bourdonnais, including the War Memorial, Governor’s Palace and Legislative Assembly, mingle with modern additions such as the Lighthouse and Bharathi Park.
Also here is Notre Dame Des Anges, built in Greco-Roman style during the reign of Napoleon III in 1855. It is beautifully shaded by large trees, and stands not far from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, parent of the Auroville spiritual retreat.
Just beyond White Town are two other salient churches. Of architectural significance is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, established in 1908 in the Gothic Revival style.
Of historical importance is the Our Lady of Immaculate Conception Cathedral. The first church in Pondicherry was erected by French Jesuits in 1691, but that was destroyed by the Dutch, rebuilt by the French, then razed by the British, before the French built the current structure on the same site in 1791. It may not be as boisterous as the local temples, but it is a lot rowdier than most chapels.
There are many decent boutique hotels in White Town, several in renovated ancient villas. In the French Quarter, these include the Grand Hotel D’Europe, La Villa and Palais de Mahe, and right on the beach is the Promenade.
The Central Temple Cities
It is possible to tick off most of the central region ancient temples, which are the star turns between Chidambaram and Tiruchirappalli, in a single journey. The total distance is less than 200km, but you would have to start very early and race through, not least because they are closed from 12.30 to 4pm. In any case, there are excellent places to break your journey along the way, breathing in rural life with roadside purveyors of papaya, pineapple and watermelon.
Chidambaram
Chidambaram, formerly known as Thillai, is just 65km down the coast from Puducherry on the banks of the Vellar River, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. It is renowned for its Nataraja Temple, dating from the tenth century when the city served as the capital of the Chola Kingdom. Its deity is Shiva in the form of Nataraja, the lord of dance. There are several gopuram gateways and shrines, all set around a classic large square water tank with steps down for bathing. As always, there is a vast mound of shoes outside, and inside there is a smell of feet mixed with incense.
Gangalkonda Cholapuram
From Chidambaram, we leave the coast behind and cut inland south-west for 50km to Gangalkonda Cholapuram. The huge Gangaikondacholisvaram Temple is the first of the trio of Great Living Chola Temples, which are collectively a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This one was built in the eleventh century and is dedicated to Shiva.
Dharasuram
The second of the Great Living Chola Temples is in the village of Dharasuram, 30km south of Gangalkonda Cholapuram. Airavatesvara Temple, also dedicated to Shiva, dates from the twelfth century.
Kumbakonam
In reality, Dharasuram these days is a suburb of the major town of Kumbakonam. Kumabakonam was an earlier capital of the Chola Kingdom, between the seventh and ninth centuries, and is home of many thousands of temples.
Kumbakonam has a decent selection of places to stay, the best of which is the Mantra Koodam.
Thanjavur
It is 40km south-west from Kumbakonam to Thanjavur, for the third of the Great Living Chola Temples. Brihadeeswarar, known popularly and accurately, as the Big Temple, is one of the largest in India and in my view one of the greatest temples to visit in the world. Built in in the early eleventh century, the centrepiece is a 6m-long statue of Nandi, Shiva’s sacred bull, which during ceremonies is repeatedly doused in milk and honey before thousands of seated worshippers.
Thanjavur was ruled by local kingdoms, the Nayaks from 1535, and the Marathas from 1676. Between them these two dynasties built a magnificent palace in the centre of town, which is today partly left in ruin and partly restored.
Thanjavur has a lovely heritage hotel, the Svatma, a short tuk-tuk ride from the main sites.
Tiruchirappalli
It is 65km due east from Thanjavur to Trichy, as Tiruchirappalli is universally known, a big sweaty city split by a wide river in which men stand chest-high fishing for their supper. This settlement served as capital to successive kingdoms starting with the early Cholas in the third century BC up to the Nayaks in the sixteenth century.
Ranganathaswamy is the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world, with fifty separate Vishnu shrines that are reached through seven separate gopuram gateways. The outer layers of the onion feel like an entire city sprawling higgledy-piggledy in which cars and tuk-tuks helter-skelter before the barriers where you need to remove your shoes. It is located on the island of Srirangam between the Kaveri and Kollidam Rivers.
Just south of Kaveri River, the Rockfort temple and battlements complex sits atop the main hill in town. A holy cave was first carved on the 80m-high ancient outcrop by the Pallavas in the seventh century, then fortifications were added by the Nayaks a thousand years later. A single lane curves up to the tiny entrance, where you stoop to have your head patted by the trunk of the ceremonial elephant standing guard. Then there are 437 red-and-white steps up, past numerous cavernous mini-temples cut into the side of the rock. There are two main temples: the Thayumanaswami, devoted to Shiva, and the Ucchipillayar, dedicated to Ganesh, from which there are good views across the city and back over Srirangam.
Trichy is not blessed with any great hotels, so the best place to stay is probably the Courtyard By Marriott.
The South to the End
South of Trichy there are of course many Hindu temples, but we leave behind the antique and the gigantic, turning to other treasures: the merchant mansions of Chettinad villages, the major city of Madurai, the hill station of Kodaikanal in the Western Ghats, and the iconic landmarks of Kanyakumari at the end of India.
Chettinad
Chettinad is a collection of 70-odd little villages that sprang to riches in the late nineteenth century. Chettiars were mercantile bankers who thrived by trading the peppers and spices characteristic of the local cuisine. They flaunted their wealth by building splendid mansions with extravagant façades and exquisite interiors.
Today, many of these mansions remain privately owned and closed to visitors, though some are open to sightseers and others have been converted into boutique hotels, restaurants and cafés. There are those still in rack and ruin (all very Boo Radley) and those immaculately restored (a bit Clarice Cliff) in a concerted project launched fifteen years ago.
The only major town is Karaikudi, which is roughly 100km due south from Trichy and has the largest concentration of superior examples, all with swaying palm trees and prowling monkeys. Its posterchild is the Raja Palace.
In Kanadukathan, it is possible to visit several grand houses, including CVCT, VVRM and Sabarathnam Chidambaram. The most impressive of all is Laxmi House in Athangudi, a small town full of workshops crafting the glazed cement tiles that beautify the renovating buildings all around the area.
Ayyanar is the main Tamil God – of Everything – and is especially popular across Chettinad, protecting homes, temples and other properties as well as whole villages, bringing rain and prosperity. Ayyanar takes the form of brightly painted terracotta horses, cows and elephants that are found lined up in rows like fences. Particularly fine examples are at the Solai Andavan shrine near Pallathur.
One of the best ways to get at Chettinad culture is to stay in one of several zhuzhed heritage hotels. The Saratha Villas in Kothamangalam is held to be the most spectacular and is a magical experience.
Madurai
Southern Tamil Nadu’s biggest and oldest city, Madurai, is 100km west from Karaikudi. Even by the standards of the region, its streets are a dizzying parade of bicycles, scooters and tuk-tuks, which are helped around major junctions by an army of elegantly sareed transwomen, who are employed by the city in a progressive integration programme as assistants to the traffic police. Everywhere you look there are hawkers offering chai, chicken and watermelons, all peppered with masala powder.
The centre of town is dominated by the vast walls entombing the Meenakshi Amman Temple. This seventeenth century shrine to the triple-breasted warrior goddess Meenakshi is widely considered a masterpiece of Hindu architecture.
All worshippers and visitors must leave their mobiles as well as their shoes outside, then take a long walk through the courtyards, which we did in the rain. Non-Hindus are restricted to these outer spaces, from where it is difficult to see much, even of the four massive gopuram gateways and ten other enormous towers never mind the four small golden domes. However, if you ask nicely in the Madurai Gallery souvenir arcade on Chitrai Street by North Tower, in return for a nominal purchase they will let you up to their rooftop for an aerial lookout through the trees.
Much smaller, but much more accessible to casual visitors, is the Koodal Azhagar Temple, built for Vishnu by the Pandyans in the eighth century and extended by the Vijayanagaras in the sixteenth. It is unusual both for its circular crown on the main tower, and for its advertising blitz for the www.m4marry.com website for arranged marriages.
The other major religious attraction in Madurai is connected to Vandiyur Mariamman Teppakulam Temple. The temple building itself is of no special interest, but its 300m2 water tank is extremely impressive, attracting thousands of pilgrims to bathe on its steps during the Float Festival every January. Linked by underground channels to the nearby Vaigai River, on a square island in its centre is the Maiya Mandapam.
India’s second largest religion is Islam (15%), and India has the third biggest population of Muslims in the world (175m), more than three-quarters of whom are Sunni.
About 5m of these live in Tamil Nadu, and the central mosque in Madurai is Kazimar Periya Pallivasal, founded in 1284 by Kazi Syed Tajuddeen, who arrived from Yemen claiming descendance from the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). It has a much calmer atmosphere on much quieter streets than the wild chaos around the Meenakshi Amman Temple.
Madurai was the capital of a local kingdom of Nayaks from 1529 to 1736. They were notable builders, adding shrines and fortifications to existing temples, and establishing an architecturally awesome Royal Palace. This was built in 1636 by Thirumalai, acclaimed as the greatest of their kings. Sadly, only a quarter of the original hybrid Dravidian-Islamic structure remains, but even what is left is magnificent. There is an enormous open-air hall with 25m-tall colonnaded corridors around all four sides, with a grand throne room at one end.
Madurai has a number of hotels that have been converted from older buildings. One of these is the Heritage Hotel, a series of colonial bungalows that were once part of the Madurai Club, which served British managers of a textile factory.
Kodaikanal
The Eastern Ghats are discontinuous mountains on Tamil Nadu’s seaboard, while the Sahyadri, known internationally as the Western Ghats, is a UNESCO-listed range that runs from north of Mumbai down the spine of India to the bottom. All the way along the Western Ghats, British colonialists erected settlements, known as “hill stations”, to escape the heat and oversee fruit and spice plantations. A prime case in Tamil Nadu is Kodaikanal, built in 1845. To get here, you first have to pass through beautiful tunnels of tree-lined streets beside the broadest horizons of paddy fields.
It is only 120km north-west from Madurai, but it takes more than three hours each way because of the twists and turns up through the protected Palani Hills, past streaming waterfalls, scavenging monkeys and wandering cows. There are great views of the lakes, dams and broccoli-looking magnolia, mahogany and myrtle trees draped in clouds on the plains below. One unusual shrub here is the kurinji, which blooms only once every twelve years, and to see it next you need to wait until 2030.
Kodaikanal itself tumbles down the hillsides at 2,225m above sea level, often with its head in eerie clouds. It is centred on an artificial star-shaped lake, on which there are rowing boats and pedaloes. Around its 5km perimeter there is a complicated and congested one-way system for cars that can be beaten by renting a bicycle.
We were lucky enough to be here on the public holiday for Gandhi Jayanti (Mahatma’s birthday, which is celebrated nationwide by not consuming or selling alcohol), so the whole place was fizzing with local visitors. There are coconut vendors of course, but also barrows of corn-on-the-cob and steamed peanuts, all dripping in chili sauce. There are market stalls for fancy earrings and bangles, leather goods, and sweaters (which you will need as up here the temperature can fall to 10°C in peak season). And there are many decent restaurants advertising both pure-veg and non-veg dishes.
There are also lots of hikes and lookout points all around. In town, the short Coaker’s Walk is heavily promoted; it is open from 7.30am until the clouds inevitably envelope the scene in the late afternoon.
For sleeping, your options are to stay right on the lake, at the Carlton, or up in the hills, at the Tamara. It is then no hardship to drive the same beautiful roads back to Madurai.
Kanyakumari
Since the summer of 2024, South India has enjoyed the same kind of high-speed high-service train that Western nations have. The Vande Bharat Express is a far cry from the overcrowded coaches with hard seats, no A/C and open windows, through which milky chai and flaky samosas are traded during interminable delays at station platforms, of romantic imagination but painful practicality. This superfast carriage takes only nine hours from Chennai and just three from Madurai to reach Nagercoil at the foot of the country. (It is still difficult to purchase tickets online without an Indian mobile number, however, so it is best to either ask a hotel concierge to buy them for you or go to a train station ticket office for quite the bureaucratic runaround.)
The journey south sees off the last of the Western Ghats, paddy fields, banana plantations, and windmill-turbine forests before reaching Nagercoil. From here it is just over 15km north-west to Padmanabhapuram Palace, by quirk of administrative reorganisation inside Tamil Nadu but close to the border with Kerala. This vast teak and granite structure, dating from the local Travancore Kingdom era of the late sixteenth century, is one of the most impressive examples of Kerala-style architecture, filled with intricately carved walls, ceilings and sculptures.
From Nagercoil it is less than 20km south-east to Kanyakumari on the southernmost point of the Indian sub-Continent. Little patches of sand around the front are full of colourful fishing boats unloading their catch. Our Lady of Ransom Shrine and St Roch’s Church are just behind.
Pilgrims from far and wide come here to take a holy dip at the meeting of three seas – the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean to the south – which all crash violently into the rocks. This is called Triveni Sangam.
The defining landmarks are on two islands about 400m offshore: a 41m-high statue built in 2000 of Thiruvalluvar, an ancient Tamil scholar, and a Memorial from 1970 to Swami Vivekananda, a nineteenth century Hindu monk. It is easy to get to these islands by ferries that chug slowly from the pier opposite; tickets cost 50 rupees though special entry is available for 300, which basically allows you to jump the inevitably long lines.
On the mainland waterfront is the wonderful Arul Bagavathi Amman Temple, built in the eighth century and devoted to Parvati, the Virgin Sea Goddess. From the outside it is just a red-and-white striped box, but from 4.30-12.30 in the morning and 4-8.15 in the afternoon even non-Hindus are allowed to walk around the ornate wooden pillars into the inner sanctum as long as, like devotees, men remove their shirts. Also here is a calming Memorial or Mandapam to Gandhi Ji, some of whose ashes were kept here before they were sent to be scattered in waters around the world.
Kanyakumari revels in its significant place on the map, with market stalls creating a major hubbub day and night. Amid the chaos, my favourite entertainment is fortune telling. Maintaining an old Tamil Nadu tradition, soothsayers have trained parrots to select a tarot-like card from a stack of twenty-seven, revealing your future along with the face of your chosen Hindu god, apparently.
A short walk from the main action on the front is the Annai Resort. It is functional not fussy and the best bed in a town that while attracting numerous local pilgrims and sightseers sees almost no foreigners and has limited facilities for those who do make it all the way to the end of India. After ten days in Tamil Nadu, we saw fewer than twenty foreign faces all the way along.
To return home via the international airport in Chennai, you can either take the Vande Bharat Express all the way, or get it to Madurai for an internal flight. Both are emblematic of the emerging modern India, facilitating access to the fabulously entertaining ancient region of Tamil Nadu. Nandri.