Fort Kochi and the Periyar

The Portuguese came first, then the Dutch, then the British, and all three built here and left. What remains is a few square kilometres of godowns, churches and merchants' houses on a headland, with the container port working away on the other side of the water. It is a walking place, which in India is rarer than it sounds.

The Chinese fishing nets on the seafront, Portuguese houses with the paint coming off them, and a coffee at four while the cargo ships queue outside. In the evening there is Kathakali, and if you have never seen it, see it.

Walk south into Mattancherry for Jew Town. The Paradesi synagogue at the end of Jew Street was built in 1568 and is still in use — a clock tower, Belgian chandeliers, and a floor of hand-painted Chinese tiles, no two of them the same. The street leading to it is spice godowns and antique shops, ginger and pepper still stacked in sacks at the doors, and the Dutch Palace at the other end has Ramayana murals worth the queue. An hour walked slowly here is the best hour in Kochi.

Inland the district follows the Periyar river up towards the forest, past Muziris — the port that traded with Rome and then silted up and vanished — and on to the bird country at Thattekad. Most journeys begin or end at Kochi because the airport is close and the flights are good, which makes it easy to treat as an arrival hall. It is worth two nights of its own.