Western Ghats Biodiversity & Coffee Tour

Route: Cochin International Airport (COK) to Fort Kochi, about 40 km

Your driver meets you at Cochin International Airport and takes you across the harbour islands to Fort Kochi.

Brunton Boatyard stands where the Brunton family built boats more than a century ago, and every room faces the water. Ships and fishing boats pass the window.

Late in the afternoon, walk along the shore to the Chinese fishing nets. Each is about 10 metres high. Stones hanging from ropes at the back balance the net so finely that one man walking the main beam tips it into the water. At sunset the nets stand dark against the sky.

Experience of the Day

• Airport welcome and check-in

• Harbour views from your room

• Sunset at the Chinese fishing nets

Food

Recommended: Dinner at the hotel's restaurant, with dishes from Kochi's Portuguese, Dutch, British and Jewish kitchens.

Must-Try: Kochi-style fish moilee, fish cooked gently in coconut milk.

Activities to Do

• Rest after the flight

• Evening walk along Fort Kochi's shore

Route: Fort Kochi – Mattancherry – Kottayam – Kumily – Thekkady, about 170 km

After breakfast, a local guide takes you to Mattancherry for the Paradesi Synagogue and the spice warehouses of Jew Town. By late morning you leave the coast.

The road east crosses the backwater plain, then climbs through rubber estates to the cardamom hills. The air cools and the smell of spice drifts in at the windows. Kumily is the last town before the reserve.

Spice Village is a cluster of thatched cottages in a garden of about 14 acres. It stands close to the edge of Periyar Tiger Reserve, so birdsong starts early. You arrive for a late lunch. In the evening, a naturalist from the hotel can walk you through the grounds.

Note on opening days: The Paradesi Synagogue is closed on Fridays, Saturdays and Jewish holidays, and Mattancherry Palace is closed on Fridays. If Day 2 falls on one of these days, we shift the walk to the afternoon of Day 1 or skip it.

Experience of the Day

• Mattancherry and Jew Town walk

• Drive from the coast to the cardamom hills

• Evening garden walk with a naturalist

Food

Recommended: Dinner at the hotel, with Kerala dishes cooked with spices from the nearby estates.

Must-Try: Kerala-style spiced fish curry with red rice.

Shopping

Spices, tea and cardamom from Jew Town's warehouses; fresh pepper and cardamom in Kumily.

Activities to Do

• Evening walk in the hotel gardens

• Visit a Kumily spice shop

Route: Spice Village – spice garden – Periyar Lake – forest edge – Spice Village

Start with a walk through a working spice garden, where pepper vines climb tree trunks and cardamom grows in the shade. Your guide shows you how each spice is picked, cured and dried.

Periyar Lake was made in 1895 when a dam was built across the river, and the reserve grew up around it. The Forest Department runs boat trips on the lake. Wild elephants often come down to the shore to drink, especially in the dry months. Gaur, sambar deer, wild boar and many birds are also seen from the water.

In the afternoon, join a guided nature walk on the forest edge, if the Forest Department has places that day. The walk is the best way to hear and see the smaller life: hornbills, lion-tailed macaques in some areas, butterflies and tree frogs.

Periyar Tiger Reserve has tigers, but they are shy and rarely seen. We plan for elephants, deer and birds, and we tell you now so that you are not waiting for a tiger.

Note on forest activities: Boat trips, nature walks, bamboo rafting and other forest activities run under the Kerala Forest Department. Places are limited, timings change, and some activities pause in heavy rain or at certain times of year. Foreign visitors pay a higher ticket. We book what is open on your dates, and your guide confirms the final plan the evening before.

Experience of the Day

• Spice garden walk

• Periyar Lake cruise

• Guided forest-edge walk (subject to Forest Department places)

Food

Recommended: Lunch at the hotel, using spices from its own garden.

Must-Try: Appam with vegetable stew.

Shopping

Spices, tea and cardamom from the estates around Kumily; hand-made soaps and oils.

Activities to Do

• Optional evening cooking demonstration at the hotel

• Optional Kalaripayattu show in Kumily (about 1 hour; paid separately)

• Rest by the hotel pool or in the garden

Route: Thekkady – Kumily – Kuttikanam – Peermade – Munnar, about 105 km

After breakfast, drive north through the cardamom and pepper hills. The road climbs past waterfalls and vegetable terraces, then the first tea bushes appear and the green slopes open out on every side.

Blanket Hotel & Spa lies about 8 km before Munnar town, on a cliff facing the Attukad waterfall. You arrive for a late lunch and a walk through the tea rows near the hotel. Munnar's estates date from the 1880s, and the leaf on these slopes is still picked by hand.

Munnar sits at roughly 1,500 metres, so evenings are cool and the valley fills with mist after dark.

Experience of the Day

• Cardamom and tea-country drive

• Walk through the tea rows

• Valley views from the pool

Food

Recommended: Dinner at the hotel, with Kerala and tea-estate dishes.

Must-Try: Kerala-style vegetable roast with parotta.

Shopping

Tea, cardamom and home-made chocolate from Munnar's small shops.

Activities to Do

• Short walk through the tea rows

• Sit by the pool at sunset

Route: Munnar – Eravikulam National Park – Tea Museum – Munnar

Start early at Eravikulam National Park, Kerala's first national park, set up in 1978. Anamudi, the highest peak in South India at 2,695 metres, stands inside it. The park is the home of the Nilgiri tahr, a mountain goat found only in the Western Ghats. Forest-department buses take you from Rajamala to the viewing area, because private cars cannot go up.

The grassland on the slopes is where the neelakurinji flower grows. It blooms once every 12 years and turns the hills blue. The last mass bloom was in 2018 and the next is due around 2030.

After lunch, visit the Tea Museum at Nallathanni Estate, which opened in 2004 and shows how tea has been made in these hills. The rest of the afternoon is yours.

Note on Eravikulam: The park closes for about 45 to 60 days from 1 February, while the tahr calve. On those dates we swap it for Top Station and Mattupetty Dam. Foreign visitors pay a higher entry ticket, and camera fees are extra.

Experience of the Day

• Eravikulam National Park and Nilgiri tahr

• Tea Museum and tasting

• Free afternoon

Food

Recommended: Lunch at a plantation restaurant in Munnar town.

Must-Try: Sadya-style Kerala vegetarian meal on a banana leaf.

Shopping

Fresh tea, spices and cardamom from the Munnar market.

Activities to Do

• Optional sunrise jeep trip to Kolukkumalai (about 32 km from Munnar, starts 4 to 4:30 am; paid separately)

• Walk around Munnar town's tea shops

Route: Munnar – Adimali – Kothamangalam – the Kerala plain – Kozhikode area – ghat road – Mananthavady, about 310 to 360 km

This is the longest day of the tour, and we say so plainly. Munnar and Coorg are more than 450 km apart by road, with no direct hill road between them. Wayanad sits between the two, so the journey is split into two days that each have something worth seeing.

You leave the tea hills early and drop to the plain, then turn north. After lunch, the road climbs again into Wayanad by one of the ghat roads. The exact route depends on road works, rain and traffic that day, and your driver chooses the safest one.

We place you in northern Wayanad, near Mananthavady, on a plantation. The district is part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and the forest here connects to those of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Late afternoon is free. Walk the estate, look for birds and settle in.

Note on Wayanad: Wayanad was struck by catastrophic landslides on 30 July 2024, in the Mundakkai and Chooralmala area in the south of the district. We do not use hotels in that area or the nearby Meppadi and Vythiri belt. In heavy rain the district authorities can suspend trekking, quarrying and adventure tourism, as they did in July 2026. We check local advisories before each departure. If an advisory applies on your dates, we offer an alternative stay or an extra night elsewhere on the route.

Experience of the Day

• The descent from the tea hills

• The climb into Wayanad's forests

• Late-afternoon estate walk

Food

Recommended: Lunch on the plain near Kozhikode, with Malabar cooking.

Must-Try: Malabar-style chicken or fish biryani, and Malabar parotta with beef or vegetable curry.

Activities to Do

• Estate walk at the resort

• Early dinner and early night after the long drive

Route: Mananthavady – Tholpetty – Thirunelli – Mananthavady

After breakfast, drive to Tholpetty, in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, for a jeep safari run by the Forest Department. The forest here is moist deciduous. Elephants, spotted deer, gaur, langurs and many birds are seen, and the sanctuary also holds tigers and leopards that few visitors ever meet.

Later, visit the Thirunelli temple, a quiet stone temple at the foot of the Brahmagiri hills. The setting is as much a reason to go as the building.

In the afternoon, return for a guided walk through the resort's plantation. Coffee, pepper, cardamom and areca grow side by side under shade trees. It is a first look at the estate system you meet again in Coorg.

Note on safaris and adventure activities: Safari timings, jeep places and which areas are open change with the season and the weather. Kuruva Island, trekking and other adventure activities are sometimes closed. We confirm what is open the day before and offer a plantation, village or temple day in its place. We do not include Chembra Peak or other treks.

Experience of the Day

• Forest Department jeep safari at Tholpetty (when open)

• Thirunelli temple

• Plantation walk

Food

Recommended: Lunch at a local Wayanad restaurant or at the resort.

Must-Try: Wayanad's wild-forest honey and tender-jackfruit dishes in season.

Shopping

Spices, coffee and honey from local co-operatives.

Activities to Do

• Optional visit to the Edakkal caves, about 1 to 1.5 hours away (a climb of several hundred steps to rock carvings thousands of years old)

• Evening bird walk at the resort

Route: Mananthavady – Kutta – Gonikoppal – Madikeri, about 110 to 130 km

After breakfast, leave Wayanad by the forest road to the Karnataka border. The road runs through the edge of Nagarhole and Brahmagiri forests, where elephants sometimes cross. Keep your speed down and your eyes open.

Coorg, also called Kodagu, is a hill district of coffee estates, orange groves and pepper vines. The Kodava people have their own language, dress and cooking. You arrive in Madikeri in the afternoon.

Vivanta Madikeri sits above the town, with views over the Coorg hills. After a rest, walk in the grounds or visit Madikeri Fort, which has a small museum inside.

Note on elephants: We do not include elephant-camp visits. Karnataka restricted close contact at its camps in 2026, including feeding, bathing and selfies. Wild elephants are better seen at a distance from the vehicle, and your driver and guide follow the forest rules.

Experience of the Day

• Forest-edge drive into Karnataka

• First evening in Coorg

• Madikeri Fort

Food

Recommended: Dinner at the hotel, with Kodava dishes.

Must-Try: Kodava pandi curry (a spiced pork dish) with kadambuttu rice dumplings, or a vegetable curry with the same dumplings.

Shopping

Coorg honey, pepper, vanilla, cardamom and freshly roasted coffee from the Madikeri market.

Activities to Do

• Evening walk in the hotel grounds

• Visit Madikeri Fort and its museum

Route: Madikeri – coffee estate – Abbey Falls – Raja's Seat – Madikeri

Spend the morning at a working coffee estate near Madikeri. Coffee here grows in the shade of tall silver oak, rosewood and jackfruit trees, with pepper vines twining up their trunks. That canopy shelters birds, squirrels and small mammals, so a coffee estate is part of the forest and not a cleared field.

Your guide walks you through the stages. The white blossom opens after the first showers of March and April, and the smell is like jasmine. The berries ripen from about November, Arabica first and Robusta after. They are picked by hand, dried in the yard, hulled, graded and roasted. The visit ends with a tasting.

After lunch, visit Abbey Falls, a short drive from town. In the evening, climb to Raja's Seat, a garden on a ridge where the Kodagu kings sat to watch the sunset over the valley.

Experience of the Day

• Coffee estate walk and tasting

• Abbey Falls

• Sunset at Raja's Seat

Food

Recommended: Lunch at a Kodava restaurant or at the estate.

Must-Try: Noolputtu (steamed rice noodles) with a Coorg curry, and a cup of fresh filter coffee.

Shopping

Estate-roasted coffee, honey, spices and Coorg cardamom.

Activities to Do

• Optional visit to the Omkareshwara temple in Madikeri

• Optional day-time drive to Talacauvery, where the Cauvery river begins (about 45 km each way; paid separately)

Route: Madikeri – Kushalnagar – Hassan plateau – Chikmagalur, about 150 to 170 km

After breakfast, leave Coorg and drive north. The road drops from the hills to the open Hassan plateau, then climbs again into the Baba Budan hills. The country gets drier and more open.

Chikmagalur, meaning the younger daughter's town, sits among grassy hills and coffee slopes. Local legend says the saint Baba Budan carried seven coffee beans from Yemen in the 1600s and planted them on the hill that now bears his name. The dates vary between accounts, but the story is told all over the district.

The Serai is set among coffee and pepper estates away from the town. You arrive in the afternoon, with time to walk the estate before dinner.

Experience of the Day

• Drive across the Hassan plateau

• Estate walk at The Serai

• Dinner under the stars

Food

Recommended: Dinner at the hotel, with Karnataka dishes.

Must-Try: Akki roti (rice-flour flatbread) with a Malnad curry.

Shopping

Chikmagalur coffee, in whole bean or ground.

Activities to Do

• Estate walk

• Bird watching around the resort

• Rest at the pool

Route: Chikmagalur – Mullayanagiri – Baba Budan Giri – Belur – Halebidu – Chikmagalur

Start early at Mullayanagiri, the highest peak in Karnataka at about 1,930 metres. A stone stairway of several hundred steps leads to the temple at the top, and on a clear morning the whole range lies below you. Drive on to Baba Budan Giri, the hill behind the coffee legend.

After lunch, go to Belur and Halebidu, about 40 km away. The Chennakeshava temple at Belur was founded in 1117 and the Hoysaleswara temple at Halebidu followed in the 12th century. Both are carved in soapstone, which is soft when quarried and hardens in open air. That is why the sculpture is so fine. Both are part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing for the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas, added in 2023.

Return to The Serai for the evening.

Note on the climb: Mullayanagiri has steps and a steep path, and the morning is often misty or windy. Footwear should be sturdy. If the weather is poor, your guide shifts the order and puts the temples first.

Experience of the Day

• Mullayanagiri summit

• Baba Budan Giri

• Chennakeshava temple, Belur

• Hoysaleswara temple, Halebidu

Food

Recommended: Lunch at a Belur restaurant, with a south Karnataka thali.

Must-Try: Bisi bele bath, a spiced rice and lentil dish.

Shopping

Coffee, spices and silk from Chikmagalur's market.

Activities to Do

• Optional coffee-roasting demonstration at the resort

• Evening walk through the coffee rows

Route: The Serai to Kempegowda International Airport (BLR), about 240 km

Your driver takes you from Chikmagalur to Bengaluru airport by the highway through Hassan and Tumakuru. Plan to reach the airport about four hours before an international flight. Choose a flight that leaves after about 6 pm. For an earlier flight, we add a night in Bengaluru, drop the Belur and Halebidu afternoon on Day 11 and drive after lunch. The extra night is priced separately.

Experience of the Day

• Drive to Bengaluru airport

• Late flight advised