Thekkady

Thekkady is the town beside the Periyar Tiger Reserve, and the Periyar Lake — a reservoir created in 1895 by the British damming the Periyar river — is the centrepiece of the reserve and the setting for boat safaris that make wildlife watching here a fundamentally different experience from anywhere else in India.

Watching wildlife from a boat on the Periyar Lake means watching it from its own level, without a vehicle between you and the landscape — a mode of encounter that changes the quality of the observation fundamentally. The elephants and gaur that come to drink at the lake edge are seen from three metres away across still water, and the perspective of a boat-level encounter with a herd of thirty elephants is not replicated anywhere else in Indian wildlife tourism.

The spice gardens around Thekkady — cardamom, pepper, turmeric, vanilla, nutmeg — are the agricultural context for the reserve's existence. Cardamom grown in the shade of forest trees at this altitude produces an intensity of fragrance that plantation-grown cardamom in the plains cannot replicate, and the spice plantation tours available from Thekkady are the most direct way to understand the relationship between the Kerala kitchen and the landscape that produces its flavours.

Places to Visit in Thekkady

• Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary
• Cardamom Hill spice gardens
• Murikkady viewpoint

Things to Do in Thekkady

• Spice plantation tours
• Wildlife boat safari
• Ayurvedic massage at a hill resort