This week’s dream: Kerala, India—‘God’s Own Country’

In most any other corner of the world, local inhabitants couldn’t invoke a slogan like the one above without sounding “unbearably self-satisfied,” said Davin O’Dwyer in The Washington Post. But Kerala, the state that hugs the southwest coast of the Indian peninsula, is beautiful enough to wear the label comfortably, especially given the variety of religious communities that share and embrace the land. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and even some Jains peacefully coexist here, as is apparent in “the busy juxtaposition of towers, minarets, and spires that sit cheek by jowl in every city, town, and village.” Though each vista offers a new variation on lush green, the landscape of Kerala is otherwise “as diverse as its people”—encompassing stunning beaches, a lacework of backwater canals, and the “glorious” hillside tea plantations of the Western Ghats.

After a short stay in Fort Kochi, a quaint heritage city, my girlfriend and I journeyed to Eravikulam National Park to soak in an unrivaled view of the state’s rolling western countryside. Anaimudi mountain, a forbidding peak whose name means “Elephant Head,” loomed to one side as we looked out on the tea plantations arrayed below us. Near the hill-station town of Munnar, the tea bushes “cling to the hills like a soft emerald carpet,” while paths created for the pickers cut patterned grooves—“as if some god-like cartographer had inked contour lines on the mountain slopes.”

We took an overnight cruise along the Malabar Coast before enjoying “one of the quintessential Kerala experiences”—a slow voyage in a kettuvallam, or thatched houseboat, through the canals and rivers that crosshatch a vast expanse of emerald-green rice paddies. Pretty cottages and churches often lined the way, and children at play stopped their games to wave to us. Once, when we paused for lunch, we watched a duck herder in a canoe using a long stick to expertly chaperone hundreds of waterfowl toward the riverbank. The entire excursion was so serene that it wove “a kind of meditative spell, like a deep-tissue massage for the soul.”

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The tour company Lakes and Lagoons (lakeslagoons.com) offers houseboat rentals starting at $190 a night.