Boutique Kerala: River, Tea Trails, Spice and Backwaters

Welcome to Kerala. We meet you at Cochin International Airport and drive you 20 km to Cranganor History Café & Riverside Château at Puthenvelikkara, on the banks of the River Periyar. The drive takes about half an hour.

The rest of the day is yours. The house is a two-storey Indo-Dutch building with verandahs on every side, a 20-metre infinity pool along the river and a café that cooks the day's catch. Walk the riverfront, take a kayak out, or book a treatment at the Ayurveda spa. Across the water is the uninhabited island of Dharma Thuruth.

OVERNIGHT AT CRANGANOR

Cranganor stands on the banks of the River Periyar at Puthenvelikkara, 20 km from Cochin International Airport, inside the Muziris Heritage Area. The house has 150 metres of river frontage on one and a half acres, and looks across the water to the uninhabited island of Dharma Thuruth. It is led by a woman and run by a mostly female crew.

The building follows the Indo-Dutch style of the Kochi region, with the historic Paliyam Palace as its model: two storeys with colonnaded verandahs on every side, so the rooms open onto the outside. The site was once the home of Shangoonny Menon, Diwan Peshkar of Travancore and author of The History of Travancore. River Meadow Rooms sit on the riverside lawns with long river views, colonial furniture and bathrooms with tubs or private courtyards. River Panorama Rooms are upstairs with a view on all sides, and the Riverside Pool Deck Rooms are a few steps from the water.

A 20-metre infinity pool runs along the river's edge. The History Café serves Kerala cooking and the day's catch, with tables outside by the river. There is an Ayurveda spa with its own herb garden, and boats and kayaks go out from the riverfront. Cherai beach is 13 km away and Kochi city 25 km.

Check out after breakfast and drive about four hours into the Western Ghats. The road climbs past the Cheeyappara and Valara waterfalls to the Pallivasal tea estates, your first sight of Munnar, then on through the town into Bison Valley. You arrive at SpiceTree in the early afternoon.

Munnar sits at 1,500 metres in the hills once known as the High Range of Travancore, and the tea runs over every slope. Your Pool Villa at SpiceTree has its own solar-heated infinity pool looking down the valley. At 4pm join the tea tasting at 300 BC, the resort's bakery and tea lounge.

OVERNIGHT IN MUNNAR

A full day in the hills. In the morning we drive to Eravikulam National Park at Rajamalai, home of the Nilgiri tahr, a mountain goat found nowhere else. Below the park stretch the Kannan Devan tea estates, the highest in South India, with views over the plantations and the lake. After lunch continue to Mattupetty Dam, where wild elephant are sometimes seen on the road.

Then the tea museum, where the photographs and machinery tell the story of the industry, including the original tea roller, the Rotovane and the Pelton wheel. When Eravikulam is closed for the calving season, we take you on a jeep safari into the hills instead.

OVERNIGHT IN MUNNAR

SpiceTree is a small resort of 14 suites and 2 pool villas on the Muttukadu and Kumbappara hills in Bison Valley, 23 km beyond Munnar town. This is the spice-growing heart of the High Range, where small farmers still produce black pepper and cardamom. Every suite looks over the valley.

The Classic Cottages are colonial in style, with hand-chiselled granite walls, parquet floors and a Victorian jacuzzi set for the view. The Honeymoon Suite has a copper bathtub, a four-poster bed and a private plunge pool on its patio facing Chokkanmudi Peak. The two Pool Villas each have a solar-heated private infinity pool and a copper tub of their own. The shared pool is solar-heated too and filled with mountain spring water.

300 BC, the bakery and coffee shop, bakes its breads in a country oven and holds a tea tasting every afternoon from 4 to 5pm. Half of what the kitchen uses comes from the resort's own organic farm. Ancient dolmens stand a 15-minute walk from the property, reached on a guided evening walk. The Bliss Mountain Spa has two therapy rooms and a couples' suite. Every booking plants two trees.

After breakfast drive about three hours south along the spine of the Ghats to Thekkady, the spice capital. The road passes through tea, then cardamom, then pepper. You arrive at Spice Village, a CGH Earth resort built like a village of the Mannan hill people, with 52 cottages thatched in elephant grass. Your Spice Garden Cottage sits in the twelve-acre garden.

The afternoon is free. Walk through the spice market in Kumily village for cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace. In the evening we take you to the Kathakali and Kalaripayattu show: Kathakali is Kerala's dance drama of mythological stories in elaborate costume and make-up, Kalaripayattu its ancient martial art with swords and staves.

OVERNIGHT IN THEKKADY

After breakfast step out into the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, a few minutes from the resort. You take an hour's boat cruise on Periyar Lake, where elephant, sambar, bison and otters come down to the water. The lake was made in 1895 when the British dammed the river, and the drowned trees still stand in it.

Afterwards visit a spice plantation to see pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves and vanilla growing, and the Tribal Heritage Museum, with the tools, dress and rituals of the Mannan settlement. The rest of the day is free at Spice Village, where the naturalist runs walks through the garden.

OVERNIGHT IN THEKKADY

Spice Village belongs to CGH Earth, the Kerala family firm that began with the Casino Hotel in Kochi in 1954. The resort was conceived as a village and built the way a village is built, with local materials and native artisans. Its 52 cottages follow the dwellings of the Mannan people of these hills. Every roof is thatched with elephant grass, laid by Mannan thatchers using their own technique.

The twelve-acre garden holds more than 200 species of tree, many of them labelled, and a two-acre vegetable and herb plot. Cottages have coir mats on stone floors and open porches. There is no air conditioning; the climate at this height does not call for it.

Tamarind Restaurant covers Kerala and international cooking. The 50 Mile Diet restaurant uses only ingredients grown or caught within fifty miles. The Woodhouse Lounge is named for A. W. Woods, forest ranger of the Periyar reserve in the colonial era, whose portrait hangs above a 150-year-old billiards table. The Periyar Tiger Reserve gate is a few minutes away.

Check out after breakfast and come down from the hills to the coast, about four hours by way of Kottayam. You arrive at Eighth Bastion on Napier Street in Fort Kochi, CGH Earth's hotel named for the seven bastions the Portuguese and Dutch built around the old town.

The rest of the day is yours. Kochi was listed in National Geographic Traveller's 50 greatest places of a lifetime, and Fort Kochi is the old heart of it. The hotel keeps bicycles, and the Chinese fishing nets are a short ride away.

OVERNIGHT IN FORT KOCHI

After breakfast your guide takes you through the old town. The Dutch, British, French and Portuguese all built here. You see Vasco da Gama Square, Santa Cruz Basilica and St Francis Church, India's oldest European church, built by Portuguese Franciscan friars, where Vasco da Gama was buried before his body was taken to Lisbon. Continue to the VOC Gate, the Dutch Palace at Mattancherry with its murals of the Ramayana, and the Jewish Synagogue.

The Chinese fishing nets, the cheenavalas, have worked this shore since 1350, and the fishermen will let you help haul one in. In the afternoon take a cooking class with a local TV chef, then sit down to the Keralan lunch you have helped to make.

OVERNIGHT IN FORT KOCHI

Fort Kochi's legend counts seven bastions, raised by the Portuguese and strengthened by the Dutch. CGH Earth's hotel on Napier Street names itself the eighth. The plot it stands on has been built and rebuilt by colonial settlers since the early 1700s, and the old Dutch cemetery is down the road.

From the street the building is contemporary, all clean lines. Inside, nautical paintings, enamel work and Delft china fill the public rooms, and reception holds a scale model of the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company ship wrecked off Western Australia on her maiden voyage in 1629. There are three kinds of room, all air-conditioned with balconies: the Bastion Room, a version with a private terrace, and a version opening onto a garden verandah. There is an outdoor pool, a library, a tea lounge and a wine and beer parlour, and the hotel keeps bicycles for the short ride to the Chinese fishing nets, Mattancherry's spice market and the antique shops of Jew Town.

East Indies, the restaurant, cooks what it calls contemporary Indo-Dutch food: old recipes from the spice-trade ports of Indonesia, Ceylon and Malabar, reworked with Kerala ingredients and the day's catch. Ask for the Bruder, a Dutch bread still baked from the original recipe in the Fort Kochi bylanes. The hotel serves water in glass, keeping about 12,000 plastic bottles a year out of the town.

After breakfast drive about an hour and a half south to Kumarakom, on the shore of Vembanad Lake. At the Kavanatinkara landing you leave the car behind. Coconut Lagoon is reached only by boat, a ten-minute crossing. Your Heritage Bungalow is an old Kerala wooden house, taken apart in a nearby village and rebuilt here beside the canals.

In the afternoon we take you to the Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, 150 metres from the resort's landing. At sunset join the hour-long cruise on the lake, with a flute played on board, then dinner at the resort.

OVERNIGHT IN KUMARAKOM

A free day on the backwaters. Take a canoe through the canals that run between the houses, sit by the pool on the lake, or book an Ayurvedic treatment at the resort's centre. The naturalists run morning birdwatching on the water and a guided village walk, and the resort has bicycles for the lanes behind the lake.

If you want a longer day out, a country boat or motorboat cruise through the canals of Kumarakom can be arranged at the resort. Dinner is at the resort.

OVERNIGHT IN KUMARAKOM

Breakfast at the resort, then the boat back to the landing and the drive to Cochin International Airport, about an hour and a half, for your flight home.

Coconut Lagoon stands on the shore of Vembanad Lake at Kumarakom. No road reaches it. Every guest arrives by boat, a ten-minute crossing from the Kavanatinkara landing. Canals run through the grounds between the houses.

The guest houses are old tharavads, the wooden family homes of Kerala. They were taken apart in surrounding villages, brought here in sections and rebuilt by craftsmen in the traditional way, without nails. Some are over 150 years old. There are 27 Heritage Bungalows, 14 two-storey Heritage Mansions and 8 Lake Front Villas with private pools. Bathrooms in the bungalows and mansions are partly open to the sky.

Ettukettu is the buffet restaurant, built around fish from the lake, above all karimeen. Aymanam serves a curry lunch on a banana leaf at the waterfront. Vembanad Grill cooks the catch of the day in the garden. Naturalists take guests birdwatching on the lake, and the bird sanctuary is 150 metres from the resort's landing. The sunset cruise lasts an hour with a flute played on board.