Kochi or Penang?

Kochi's own shore at Fort Kochi is for watching the fishing nets at sunset, not for swimming. A beach day means the hour's drive to Cherai on Vypeen island, a long palm-lined strand with a lagoon behind it, and from June to September the surf makes the whole coast unsafe.

Penang has the edge without being a beach destination either. Batu Ferringhi is forty minutes from George Town, and its resort pools are there for days when the sea is cloudy or the jellyfish arrive. The forest-backed coves of Monkey Beach and Kerachut in the national park are quieter and cleaner, and the island has no monsoon closure like Kerala's.

Kochi serves Kerala cooking at its source. Breakfast is appam with coconut stew, lunch is a rice meal on a banana leaf, and there is pearl spot cooked in a leaf parcel, plus the beef fry and duck roast of the Syrian Christian kitchens and fish cooked to order beside the nets. It is very good eating, but drinking is restricted to hotels and toddy shops.

Penang goes further, because food is the reason many visitors come at all. Hokkien, Malay, Tamil Muslim and Nyonya traditions meet at hawker stalls along Gurney Drive, in George Town's kopitiams and in Little India, from charcoal-fried char kway teow to sour assam laksa. The breakfast stalls alone are worth planning a morning around.

Both are old trading ports you can see in two or three unhurried days, and neither has a major museum. Kochi's history is packed into Fort Kochi and Mattancherry: St Francis Church, where Vasco da Gama was first buried, the Paradesi Synagogue with its Chinese tiled floor, and the murals of Mattancherry Palace. In the years it is held, the Biennale fills the warehouses with contemporary art.

George Town offers more, because its whole UNESCO-listed townscape is the sight. Street after street of shophouses leads to the carved Khoo Kongsi, the clan jetties on stilts, and a mosque, a Hindu temple and an Anglican church a few streets apart. On the hillside at Air Itam, Kek Lok Si is a temple complex on a scale Kochi cannot match.

Kochi barely has a night out. Kerala's alcohol rules leave a few hotel bars and licensed lounges in Ernakulam, and Fort Kochi goes quiet soon after dinner.

Penang is no party island, but it does have a proper evening: late hawker suppers, backpacker bars spilling onto Chulia Street and Love Lane, louder bars and a couple of clubs on Upper Penang Road, and beach bars at Batu Ferringhi.

The two are evenly matched outdoors, but their landscapes are opposites. Kochi is flat and made of water. You can paddle through the Kumbalangi canals and the villages around Vembanad Lake, or watch herons in the Mangalavanam mangroves. The Thattekad bird sanctuary and Athirappilly falls are inland, and Munnar's tea hills need an overnight stay.

Penang goes up rather than across. The funicular, or a hike from the Botanic Gardens past macaques and leaf monkeys, reaches the cooler rainforest on Penang Hill. The national park adds jungle trails along the coast to a lighthouse and a turtle beach, all within easy reach of town.

Kochi has more to do within a day. You can take a houseboat or ferry on the backwaters from Alappuzha, visit the Muziris sites that once traded with Rome, or go to the temple town of Thrissur. Congested roads make every journey longer than the map suggests.

From Penang most visitors never leave the island. Ipoh, with its cave temples and colonial old town, is the one strong day out. Taiping and the royal town of Kuala Kangsar are quieter extras, and Langkawi needs several days of its own.

Children in Kochi enjoy the ferry crossings, the backwater boats and the fishing nets being hauled in, and there is one large amusement and water park. Beyond that, the constant humidity, missing pavements and care needed over food and water mean a pool hotel and short morning outings.

Penang makes things easier. A resort at Batu Ferringhi gives you pools and sand, Teluk Bahang has an adventure park and a butterfly park, and hunting the murals turns George Town into a game. Hawker centres also make it simpler to feed a fussy eater.

Neither is effortless, but the difficulties differ. Kochi is divided by its harbour, so ferries and the water metro become part of the sightseeing, and a single metro line runs through Ernakulam. Everything else means rickshaws or taxis on noisy roads, and a hired car and driver for day trips.

Penang has no metro and no ferries within the island. George Town's core is walkable, with a free shuttle loop, trishaws and bicycles, though the five-foot ways are broken by steps. Beyond the old town, ride-hailing apps do most of the work, slowed by traffic on the north-coast road.

Neither is worth the trip for shopping, and both are best in their old quarters. Kochi's distinctive buys are antiques and reproductions from the Jew Town warehouses in Mattancherry, pepper and cardamom from the wholesale spice merchants, and cream-and-gold kasavu handloom.

Penang leans towards working crafts and food: nutmeg and snacks at Chowrasta Market, joss-stick makers and rattan weavers around Campbell Street, and batik and Peranakan beadwork in shophouse boutiques. Each city also has large malls for international brands.

Both are cheap, and Kochi is cheaper still. Fort Kochi homestays, banana-leaf meals, ferries and mostly free sights cost very little, and the big expenses are optional: heritage hotels, private houseboats and residential Ayurveda.

Penang runs a little higher. Hawker food stays cheap and George Town's mid-range hotels are good value, but a Batu Ferringhi resort or a boutique shophouse quickly raises the bill, and heavily taxed drinks make an evening out cost far more than dinner.

Kochi gives you a performance any evening. Small Fort Kochi theatres stage shortened Kathakali every night, you can arrive early to watch the make-up being applied, and the same venues often show Mohiniyattam dance or Kalaripayattu martial art. In the festival season, chenda drumming fills the temples.

Penang's performing arts follow the calendar: the George Town Festival in old warehouses, Chinese opera and getai stages in the Hungry Ghost month, Thaipusam processions and lion dances at Chinese New Year. Between festivals there are only bar bands and the odd show at Straits Quay, so a visitor arriving on a random date will see more in Kochi.

Kochi is much the stronger choice here, because Ayurveda is a living medical tradition rather than a spa menu. Clinics in Fort Kochi and doctor-led programmes in heritage hotels run courses of warm-oil massage and shirodhara lasting one to three weeks.

Penang offers inexpensive reflexology and Chinese or Malay massage around George Town and full spas at the Batu Ferringhi resorts, which is good for a pampered afternoon but not a course of treatment. In both cities the town is hot and loud, so real rest means moving on, to the backwaters from Kochi or to the beach from Penang.