Kodaikanal

Where it sits. Kodaikanal stands at 2,225 m in the Palani Hills, an eastern spur of the Western Ghats in Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu. The town wraps around a lake on a plateau that ends abruptly on its southern side in a wall of cliffs falling towards the Vaigai basin — which is why so many of its named attractions are simply places to stand and look over an edge. Tamil Sangam literature knew this landscape as kurinji, the mountain division, named for a flower and associated with the god Murugan. The name itself is usually read as "gift of the forest".

The story behind it. Kodaikanal was founded in 1845, later than Ooty and for a narrower purpose: American Madurai Mission families needed somewhere to escape the heat and the fevers of the plains. Major J. M. Partridge of the Bombay Army built a house here in 1852; by 1853 there were six or seven. The missionary David Coit Scudder arrived in 1862. In 1863, on a suggestion from Vere Levinge, then Collector of Madurai, a stream was dammed to create the roughly star-shaped 45-hectare lake that still organises the town. Partridge imported Australian eucalyptus and wattle in 1867; in 1872 Lieutenant Coaker cut a footpath along the south-east ridge and mapped the area; H. D. Bryant started the pine plantations in 1906. The Kodaikanal Observatory took its first solar observations in 1901 and remains an Indian Institute of Astrophysics facility with a public museum. By 1909 the settlement had 151 houses and a post office, and the ghat road was finished in 1914. That missionary origin left the town a distinctive institution in Kodaikanal International School, whose alumni network is unusually international for a Tamil hill town.

On screen. Kodaikanal's most famous location was renamed by a film. Devil's Kitchen, a set of deep chambers in a cleft between huge boulders on the town's outskirts, appeared in the 1991 Tamil film Gunaa starring Kamal Haasan, and has been called Guna Caves ever since — on signboards, on bus destination boards, in conversation. Later productions followed, including the climax of the Malayalam film Shikkar (2010). In 2024 the Malayalam hit Manjummel Boys returned to the same rocks with a story drawn from a real accident in the cave system, and sent a new wave of visitors up the hill. The caves have a genuinely dangerous history — police had recorded sixteen disappearances there as of 2016 — and the interior is now fenced off, so what you see is the fissure and the viewing platforms rather than the chambers themselves.

What you actually see today. The lake is the town's spine, with rowboats and pedalos from the Boat Club and a five-kilometre circuit that can be walked, cycled or ridden on a hired horse. Coaker's Walk is a one-kilometre paved path along the cliff edge, laid out in 1872 and still the best half hour in Kodaikanal on a clear morning, though the valley below fills with cloud most afternoons. Bryant Park, on the lake's eastern side, runs a flower show every May. Pillar Rocks — three granite faces about 122 m high, seven kilometres out — and Dolphin's Nose, reached by a three-kilometre walk on an unguarded path, are the other classic viewpoints. Bear Shola Falls is three kilometres away inside the forest and depends entirely on recent rain; Silver Cascade, a 30 m fall of lake overflow, sits beside the ghat road eight kilometres below town. Berijam Lake, 22 km out through Palani Hills forest, needs a day permit issued in limited numbers each morning. The Shenbaganur museum keeps an orchidarium alongside its archaeological collection. The plant the region is named for, Strobilanthes kunthiana or Neelakurinji, flowers en masse only about once every twelve years and turns whole slopes violet-blue when it does; the Kurinjiandavar temple above town is dedicated to Murugan in his aspect as lord of these hills.

A complication worth knowing. In 1983 a second-hand mercury thermometer factory was moved here from New York. Owned by Unilever, it was shut in 2001 after allegations of mercury contamination and serious environmental violations, and the resulting fight over remediation and worker compensation ran for years. It is part of the town's story and locals will talk about it.

Getting there and timing. The nearest railheads are Kodai Road (about 80 km) and Palani; Madurai airport is roughly 120 km away, and the last stretch is a long series of hairpins. April to June is the warm-season peak, with the flower show and full hotels. September and October are clear and quiet. The south-west monsoon from June to August brings persistent cloud that can sit on the plateau for days, and December to February nights drop close to freezing.