Kovalam

Kovalam was a string of fishing coves south of Thiruvananthapuram, known mostly to the royal family of Travancore, who kept a seaside retreat here, until the overland travellers of the late 1960s and 1970s found it at the end of the road. By the 1980s it was Kerala's first international beach resort, and its three crescents — Lighthouse Beach, Hawa Beach and Samudra — had been rearranged around guesthouses, cafés and massage rooms.

The fishing never left. Look past the sunbeds in the early morning and the boats still come in to Hawa Beach, nets are still hauled by hand, and the catch is auctioned on the sand to women who carry it off in baskets to the markets inland. On the headland the red-and-white lighthouse, lit in 1972, marks the start of Vizhinjam, an ancient port that is now becoming one of India's largest container harbours.

Behind the beaches, life is Malayali and unhurried. Vizhinjam's small rock-cut cave temple, carved around the eighth century, holds an unfinished relief of Shiva; Thiruvananthapuram's Padmanabhaswamy temple, half an hour north, is one of the most important Vishnu shrines in the south. Each February or March, at Attukal Pongala, the city's streets fill with women cooking offerings of rice and jaggery over hundreds of thousands of small fires.

The food is the coast's: appam with stew, puttu and kadala curry at breakfast, karimeen and prawns in coconut and kudampuli at dinner, and tapioca with fiery fish curry from the toddy shops inland. Ayurveda is everywhere — some of it serious, much of it a massage with a menu.

The sea here is stronger than it looks. Swim only between the lifeguards' flags, stay out entirely in the monsoon, and believe the whistle when it blows. For Ayurveda, choose a centre with a resident doctor who will see you before any treatment — a real course takes days and comes with dietary rules. Climb the lighthouse when it opens to visitors for the view along the coast. And eat fish where the fishermen do, at the small places on the Vizhinjam road.

Kovalam's beaches belong first to the fishing families. Keep out of the way when boats are landing, ask before photographing anyone at work, and buy fish from the auctions rather than the middlemen. Beachwear belongs on the beach — cover up in the village and at temples. And refuse single-use plastic; the currents bring every bottle back.

Travellers who like Kovalam but want more cliff and less resort usually go north to Varkala, a couple of hours up the coast, where cafés sit on red laterite above the beach. For quiet water, Poovar's estuary is half an hour south.