Coconut Lagoon

In the villages around Kumarakom, the tharavads, family homes of the old Kerala nobility, risked being stripped down and sold off as souvenirs, so Coconut Lagoon took some apart first. They came here in sections, a few more than 150 years old, and craftspeople rebuilt them on an old coconut plantation in a cove on the eastern shore of Vembanad Lake. No road reaches it. The shortest way in is ten minutes by boat from the Kavanattinkara jetty. Inside, tiled roofs come down low over still water, and a gateway in a curving white wall, a lamp on a chain at either side, opens onto a lawn. The Heritage Bungalows and Mansions look onto the canals; for the open lake and a pool of your own, book one of the eight Lake Front Villas.

Recommended for couples after the backwaters without a week on a houseboat, and for families whose children would sooner meet a dwarf cow than a kids' club, which is as well, since there is no kids' club. The cows are Vechoor cattle, a short breed from nearby that was dying out, and the hotel calls itself their home and museum. The pool has a shallow end for children, but the day belongs to the water: a canoe along canals too narrow for the houseboats, an oar boat with one of the local fishermen, and at sunset an hour on the lake with a flute player, at no charge. Dinner is Kerala food on a banana leaf, fish curry with the bones left in and tapioca with crushed bird's-eye chilli. Even the tea shop floats, kept by the hotel's tea lady from the village.