If you can choose your dates, choose Onam. It is Kerala's principal festival — a ten-day harvest celebration falling in the Malayalam month of Chingam (late August or early September), and the one week of the year when the entire state, regardless of religion, language or politics, dresses in white and gold and sits down together to eat the same lunch.
This is a quick guide to what the week involves and how to plan a trip around it.
What happens during Onam
Onam celebrates the annual return of the legendary king Mahabali, who is said to visit his old kingdom for ten days each year to make sure his people are happy. The festival begins with Atham (the first day) and reaches its peak on Thiruvonam (the tenth, and most important). In the days leading up to Thiruvonam, every household creates a pookalam — an elaborate floral carpet at the entrance, made from fresh flower petals arranged in concentric circles — which is added to each morning. Children wear new clothes. Women wear the traditional kasavu sari, white cotton with a gold border. Houses are cleaned, oiled, and lit.
On Thiruvonam itself, the great event is the sadya — the twenty-six-dish feast served on a banana leaf. Every restaurant serves one. Every household cooks one. If you have been welcomed into a Keralite home for Thiruvonam lunch, you have been welcomed into something deep.
The snake-boat races
The other defining event of the season is the vallam kali — the snake-boat races held on the backwaters in the weeks around Onam. The most famous is the Nehru Trophy at Punnamada Lake near Alleppey, held on the second Saturday of August, in which crews of more than 100 rowers in 100-foot wooden chundan vallams race down a 1.4-kilometre course in front of crowds of tens of thousands. Smaller village races run throughout August.
If your dates align, the Nehru Trophy is one of the great spectacles in south Indian travel. Buy seated tickets in advance through the organisers. Arrive early. Wear a hat.
How to plan a trip around it
Onam dates shift each year with the lunar calendar — typically falling somewhere between late August and mid-September. Check the dates as soon as you decide to come, and book accommodation early; the days around Thiruvonam are the busiest of the year. Stay in a homestay rather than a hotel — most welcome guests to share their family sadya, and this is the experience you came for.
Combine Onam with a few days afterwards on the coast or in an Ayurveda centre. The week of the festival is high-energy and joyful; the days that follow are when Kerala exhales, and the state is at its softest.