Wayanad in the Monsoon: What It Is Actually Like

Ask around about visiting Wayanad in the monsoon and you will get two answers, both delivered with total confidence. One says it is the most beautiful the hills ever get. The other says do not bother, everything is shut and you will spend three days looking at cloud.

They are both right. It depends on what you came for, and it is worth knowing which camp you fall into before you book.

What the monsoon actually looks like here

The southwest monsoon reaches Wayanad around the start of June and stays until September, and it does not rain constantly through all of it. What you get is heavy rain in bursts, long grey stretches between them, and mornings where the cloud sits below you in the valley and burns off by ten.

The green is genuinely different. Everything that was dusty in April is loud green by July, the tea looks lit from inside, and every roadside culvert you drove past in winter without noticing is a waterfall. That part lives up to the photographs.

The rest of it is wetter than people expect. Your clothes will not dry. There is a smell of damp that gets into the room. If that sounds unbearable, come in December.

What closes, and what to check before you drive anywhere

This is the practical heart of a monsoon trip to Wayanad, and it is where most people come unstuck.

• Kuruva Island shuts. The rafts cannot cross when the Kabini is running high, so it closes through the monsoon and reopens once the water drops. The dates move every year with the rain. People still drive all the way out to a locked gate.
• Waterfalls close at peak flow. This sounds backwards, given the falls are the reason to come in the rain, but when the water is at its most spectacular is exactly when they stop letting people down to it. Safety, and fair enough.
• Treks close. Chembra and the permit treks go on and off through the season depending on conditions.
• The viewpoints may show you nothing. Drive up to a viewpoint in thick cloud and you have paid to look at the inside of a cloud. It clears, then it comes back, often within the same ten minutes.

Ring ahead. Every time. A phone call the night before saves an entire morning, and anyone local will tell you straight whether it is worth the drive.

The leeches

Nobody puts this in a brochure, so here it is. If you walk anywhere green in Wayanad between June and September, you will pick up leeches. Not a few unlucky people. You.

They do not hurt and they carry nothing. The bite bleeds for a while afterwards because of the anticoagulant, which is what makes people panic when they find one. Tuck your trousers into your socks, carry a twist of salt or a bit of tobacco, check your ankles when you stop, and get on with your walk. Locals treat them the way you would treat mosquitoes. Within a day, so will you.

Roads and rain

The ghat roads get slower in the monsoon and occasionally get blocked. Heavy rain in these hills does bring down slips, and the district issues advisories when it is serious. Take them seriously — if word is going round that a stretch is shut or that heavy rain is forecast, change the plan rather than push on. Everyone here does.

Day to day, it mostly just means longer drives and more caution on the hairpins. Add time. Do not plan a tight schedule in July.

So who should come in the monsoon?

Come if you want the hills at their greenest, want the place close to empty, want to sit somewhere warm and watch rain move across a valley, and are relaxed about a plan changing on the morning.

Do not come if this is your one trip and there is a specific list you need to tick off. Come in December or January instead, when everything is open and the skies are clear.

What to bring

An umbrella beats a raincoat for anything except walking. Shoes that can get wet and a second pair that stay dry. More socks than you think. A dry bag or a couple of zip bags for the phone and camera. Something warm for the evening, because it does get properly cool once the rain sets in.

We are on the quieter northern side of the district, and the monsoon is the season we like best here — it is the time of year the place feels most like itself. If you want to see it that way, this is what a monsoon stay with us looks like.