South India moves at a different pace to the north, and a loop through Kerala's backwaters and Tamil Nadu's temple towns is best taken slowly.
Start in Kochi, where Fort Kochi's mix of Portuguese churches, Chinese fishing nets and colonial warehouses gives a gentle introduction to a region that rewards wandering more than sightseeing by list. Give it two days, and eat at least one meal of Kerala-style fish curry from a no-frills local place rather than a hotel restaurant.
From Kochi, head into the backwaters around Alleppey for an overnight on a converted rice barge — a houseboat with a crew of two or three who cook, steer and moor for the night in a quiet stretch of canal, the only sounds the water against the hull and birds in the palms. Afterwards, climb into the hills at Munnar, where tea estates carpet the slopes in improbably even green rows; a short trek out from your homestay in the early morning, before the mist burns off, is worth setting an alarm for.
Cross into Tamil Nadu and finish at Madurai, whose Meenakshi Amman Temple is one of the subcontinent's great religious sights — a walled complex of towering, densely carved gopurams that draws pilgrims by the thousand every single day. Go for the evening puja if you can; the ritual procession of the temple deities through lamplit corridors, accompanied by drums and horns, is unlike anything else on this route.
