Lakshadweep · Island Realms
The territory's headquarters and its only place with the feel of a town — offices, the marine aquarium, a lagoon flat enough to wade a long way out, and the Ujra mosque, whose carved ceiling is the most-cited piece of woodwork in the islands and is said locally to have been cut from driftwood.
Best time: October–April.
The island with the airstrip, laid along a narrow spit with lagoon on one side and reef on the other. Every visitor arrives here whether or not they stay, and the onward transfer to Kavaratti or Bangaram is by boat or helicopter.
Getting there: Direct flights from Kochi; boat or helicopter onward.
A long crescent island around a very large lagoon, divided into its avah villages, each with a village house and a boat shed. The 1885 lighthouse at the southern end can be climbed. This is the only place in India where Dhivehi is a community language.
Best time: October–April.
The largest island in the territory and the only one lying east–west. It holds the Juma mosque and the tomb associated with Sheikh Ubaidullah, to whom island tradition attributes the coming of Islam; the account is local tradition rather than documented history, and is treated here as such. Andrott has no lagoon on the scale of the others and is the least tourist-facing inhabited island.
Three islands around one lagoon, with a storm bank of huge coral boulders along the eastern shore thrown up by a cyclone in 1847 — the most legible piece of disaster history in the islands, still lying where the sea left it. Kalpeni is also the centre of the lacquered-stick craft.
A long thin island with a lagoon on the west and a diving and water-sports base, and one of the islands with an administration coir factory. Popular as a first stop for permit-holding visitors.
An uninhabited teardrop atoll run as a resort island, and the one place in the territory exempted from prohibition. Foreign nationals have been permitted here since 1974, when the rest of the islands were closed to them.
A bare coral cay of a few hectares, protected as a bird sanctuary, with large breeding colonies of noddies and terns. It also sits inside the bait-fishing grounds, which is the standing tension between the sanctuary and the tuna fishery.
The smallest inhabited island in the territory, with a population in the low hundreds and a large lagoon out of all proportion to its land. It was settled permanently only in the twentieth century and is normally closed to visitors.
The northern Amindivi islands, small, conservative and largely off the tourist circuit. Kiltan is a scheduled port of call for the Kochi ships.
Places worth visiting in Lakshadweep — heritage sites, wildlife, pilgrimage and landscape, with the best time to go. (10)