The weekend getaways

Living under an impossible summer sun might as well serve as a charming excuse for you to explore different parts of the country this season. Here are four cool places in southern India you can visit without running the risk of getting charred.

These places are strikingly beautiful even in summer and will give you the perfect break from heat and pollution in the city. So you can forget all the summer essentials and just let calmer, kinder winds to tell you nice things. Allow a deeper silence to swell in the soul of you as you travel to places where the temperatures aren’t soaring high.

Lambasingi, Andhra Pradesh
Often referred to as the ‘Kashmir of Andhra’, Lambasingi awaits with its mist-clad forests and the rustic, classic Indian village scenery. Bask in afterglow of intoxication in Lambasingi, when the clouds descend to the earth, redrawing mountain lines every single day in the act of embracing and leaving, continuously. Walk under the blessed paths that seem to melt into oblivions, making each step you take an acute existential experience. Lambasingi shall remain as a breezy memory in your mind.

Vythiri, Kerala
It isn’t just for the fascinating, curiosity-provoking myths and legends that you must visit a few places, like the Chain Tree Legend in Vythiri. It’s about how these places exist like they are forever pure and gentle, like solace in summer. Vythiri is known for its astonishingly cool weather as compared to other parts of Wayanad, a district in Kerala that’s popular for its sprawling hills. Visit Vythiri for its salubrious, pleasant weather, when the months of summer have already crept into your drawing rooms, urging you to step out and explore the world: this is inspiration in disguise!

Kotagiri, Tamil Nadu
Certain faces of civilisation are in harmony with nature, the earth, like a benchmark for a symbiotic system. And this hilly region of Tamil Nadu, called Kotagiri, a town that’s class apart, sets itself as the perfect example, even in Indian summer. Like an electrocardiogram of earth, these vales and hills fall and rise in Kotagiri. See how the spikes can pierce something so inward in you that you will find a world within, an almost spiritual quest for you to set on this summer.

Devikulam, Kerala
Villages tucked away into hills and hills tucked away into taller hills. Here, mists don’t roil the calm waters of rivers and lakes. Waterfalls rush down, hurriedly, washing away everything and still being graceful with all their fury; it’s letting loose, to undo something in you, too. With its gorgeous slopes and poised ascents, its ethnographic attractions, its water bodies and so much more, Devikulam is no less than a calling for those who want to know why Kerala is called ‘God’s Own Country’.

And this is just a glimpse of just how much fun you can have this summer.

By: Jayanth Sharma
The writer is co-founder and CEO of Toehold.