Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala

A revered Devi temple near Vettichira with no idol — the goddess is worshipped in a natural rock fissure; devotees offer the poomoodal and muri-pooja. Founded by legend of Adi Shankara.

A hill garden and cultural park in Malappuram town, with an art gallery, open-air theatre and amusement attractions — a popular family picnic spot.

An ancient Vishnu temple on the Bharathapuzha at Thirunavaya, near the historic Mamankam fair-ground and a major venue for ancestral (bali/shraddha) rites.

Tirur's town hall, built as a full-size railway goods wagon in signal red and lettered MSM LV 1711 — the memorial to the hundred prisoners shut into wagon 1711 at the station down the road on 19 November 1921.

One of the hundred and eight Shiva temples of Kerala, a kilometre from Thunchan Parambu — an apsidal ninth-century shrine that opens at half past two in the morning because the god here was installed at dusk.

At Tirur, the ground of Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the “father of the Malayalam language” — a working literary institution with a museum, a manuscript library and the Vidyarambham first-letters tradition at Vijayadashami.

The Alathiyur Perumthrikkovil near Tirur, where the sanctum holds Sri Rama alone and the Hanuman carved outside it — leaning, caught in the act of listening to his orders — is the figure the crowds come for.

A west-facing Shiva temple south of Tirur, nine shrines inside six acres, built around the moment Shiva came out of the linga to stop Death taking the boy Markandeya.

The state university at Vakkad, four kilometres west of Thunchan Parambu, founded in 2012 to teach the humanities and social sciences through Malayalam rather than English.

The Thirumandhamkunnu Bhagavathy (Durga) temple at Angadipuram — a major Devi pilgrimage and the paradevata shrine of the old Valluvanad rajas, famous for its Pooram festival.

A calm coconut-fringed backwater and park near Ponnani, with boating and kayaking — a quieter, lesser-known alternative to the Alappuzha backwaters.

Estuary birding area shared around the Kozhikode/Malappuram coast.