Kodaikanal

Most Indian hill stations were founded by colonial officials; Kodaikanal was founded by American missionaries. In 1845 the American Madura Mission came up into the Palani Hills to escape the plains' fever season, and the town they built is still shaped by them — the church spires, the stone cottages, the international school that has been on the hillside since 1901. The lake came in 1863, when the Madurai collector Sir Vere Henry Levinge dammed a stream and turned a marsh into the star-shaped water everyone photographs.

Kodaikanal sits at about 2,100 metres, high above the hot plains of Dindigul and Madurai. On a clear afternoon from Coaker's Walk you can see down to them; on most others, cloud rolls up the cliff and erases everything beyond the railing.

Kodai's food culture is half hill-station, half Tamil. Homemade chocolate has been sold here for decades, along with eucalyptus oil, plums, pears and fresh cheese. The villages below, Poombarai and Mannavanur, farm on terraces; Poombarai's hill garlic carries a GI tag. Breakfast in town is idli and pongal, dinner leans towards Madurai — kothu parotta, chopped and fried on the griddle, and pepper-heavy kozhi varuval.

The Palani Hills have older residents too. The Paliyar people lived in these forests long before the missionaries; the shola forest and grassland above the town are what remains of their world, now crossed by pine and eucalyptus plantations. About once every twelve years the kurinji shrub flowers blue across the slopes, and the hill temple of Kurinji Andavar is named for it.

Rent a bicycle at the lake at seven, before the horses and the traffic, and ride the five-kilometre loop while the mist is still on the water. Walk to Dolphin's Nose from Vattakanal rather than driving to the next viewpoint. Guna Caves are fenced off and seen from a viewing platform — worth twenty minutes, not a morning. Berijam Lake needs a forest-department pass and only a limited number of vehicles go each day, so ask your Saint to arrange it early. Forest spots close without notice when elephants or gaur are moving; check before you set off.

Kodaikanal has restricted plastic for years and the forest department fines littering at viewpoints. Gaur wander through town at dusk — give them room, and never get between one and its calf. Buy chocolate, oils and garlic from local makers rather than the roadside chain stalls, and drive up midweek if you can; the e-pass exists because the hill was buckling under weekend traffic.

Kodaikanal and Munnar sit on neighbouring ranges of the same Western Ghats, close on the map but a long drive apart by road. Munnar trades Kodai's lake and lanes for an entire landscape of tea.