Lakshadweep

Lakshadweep is India's only coral atolls, and access to them is rationed. Every visitor, Indian or foreign, needs an entry permit that names the islands they intend to visit, applied for weeks ahead. The open list is short — Agatti, Bangaram, Kadmat, Kavaratti and Minicoy for Indian travellers, and shorter still for foreign nationals. Everything runs through Agatti, the only airport in the territory, on a single turboprop route from Kochi. From there you transfer by boat to Bangaram, Thinnakara or Kadmat, anything from half an hour to several hours depending on the sea. Ships from Kochi are the slower alternative and take most of a day. The mistake is a tight connection: a rough afternoon holds the boats, and a missed flight out of Agatti is not a same-day fix. Minicoy is the outlier and the most interesting island in the group. It lies far to the south of the rest, speaks Mahl rather than a Malayalam dialect, and its culture reads closer to the Maldives than to Kerala. October to May. The monsoon from June closes the sea crossings and takes the diving with it.