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Team, Could some one please suggest me the best travels for a comfortable journey between Chennai and Hyderabad?

Volvo: you can try Orange, dhanunjaya, VRL, Kesineni.

Sleeper: dhanunjaya, Kesineni, Orange

It is a 41 seater bus. Sorry for mentioning it as 48+1 seater.

This Conti service is a long running route. Earlier i beleive they had a B7R, more than a year back when I took the same service it was a brand new Izuzu. Route was the same and I too reached around 6 AM. They seem to have a lot of regular travellers who have been travelling on them for years. They have been operating Inter City services for more than 25 odd years if I remember and ex Ernakulam , they used to operate from Jos Junction where Ensign used to handle them.

Isuzu and old B7R are operated to Chennai now. Many of the regular travellers from Conti switched to ABT, when ABT started their services. Now ABT buses are too old and their regular travelers started moving to Hindusthan.

I have to make a trip from Bangalore to Bombay sometime in January. My destination is Dombivili East. I have no clue about the city, other than what I've read and seen from the maps. Planning to take a bus for onward travel, and to fly down on the return. What are my options concerning bus travel and public transport? I want to reach Dombivili by 8 o'clock in the morning (and be back in Bangalore city limits the same night, which I hope, can be accomplished if I take any of the evening flights from Santacruz Airport).

Sadly, none of the buses from Bangalore to Mumbai will drop you in Dombivili directly. The only option is to get off a bus at Belapur/Vashi and take another bus going to Dombivili - but reaching there by 8am might be a tough task, given the fact that the first bus from Bangalore would reach Vashi only around 6AM. And, you would have to immediately get another bus from Vashi/Belapur to comfortably make it to Dombivli by 8AM. (For the record, Vashi-Dombivli is around 60~70 minutes, while Belapur-Dombivli would be around 70~85 minutes).

Dombivli to the Airport would be around 50~60kms - around 2~2.5hrs by road, depending largely on your travel time.

Parveen Travels has always been safe and confortable for me, Aside from that the service used to be good at Kesinini's but I'm not too sure if their bus maintainence is all that good.

Although I am not a fan of Indian Railways, looking at where you want to go in Mumbai, in this case I suggest you take the train. There is a early morning train at 0630 from Yeshwantpur -Chalukya Express which will reach Kalyan at 5 am the next day. Dombivili is near Kalyan. You have to put up with a mere 24 stops enroute:)


On the return to maximise your time. take the last flight out of Mumbai which is a 2150 dep of Go Air reaching at 2320.It is a perfectly acceptable flight (I flew a few months back) and no worries about cancellation also (except on Saturdays maybe) as it is a night halt aircraft at Bangalore. Indigo, Jet and Spice have flights around 9.15 PM and Air India around 8.30 PM.

Thanks a lot, binaiks and TKMCE.

My plan is to be there for a monday morning function. And Indian Railways site doesn't list Chalukya Express for a sunday departure from Bangalore. Else that would've been the safest option.

I hope I can take a cab/bus or arrange a pickup from Vashi. Here comes the next question. Which operator to choose from the many that are listed in redBus? I see only Neeta having an early morning arrival at Vashi. Are they reliable?

And I'm also considering taking a bus back to Bangalore, because of the high price of air tickets in Dec. I see a KSRTC service that has a pick-up point in Vashi at around 9pm. Will this be a good option on the return? Yea, I'll have to take another day off, but I think I can do that.

Neeta is best avoided. They tend to waste a lot of time waiting for people here and there.

Last week I took the 1530hrs VRL B9R from Anandarao Circle - he dropped me at Belapur (12kms before Vashi) at 0730hrs. So their 1230hrs bus should comfortably drop you at Vashi before 6AM. Note that VRL is not listed on Redbus, and you would have to book from their own website (www.vrllogistics.in).

Alright. So VRL it is, for the onward trip. On the return, is the KSRTC a good option? I see a 21:00hrs service that reaches Vashi at around 22:45hrs, and also a VRL 19:30hrs service that reaches the same boarding point at 22:00hrs. My preference would be the hotels where they stop for breaks - clean restrooms are a must.

The hotel stop would be a mixed lot - I've seen KSRTC buses stopping at some horrible places and some times at good places. VRL buses would stop are fairly decent places (there are lots of exceptions here as well). Both VRL and KSRTC would stop at their "depots" for fuel/time-keeping. The VRL facility in Chitradurga was too good - the toilets were clean and well lit - the 1900hrs should be reaching Chitradurga in time for breakfast mostly.

Folks, the Chalukya express no longer runs between MUM- BLR. Mid Oct 2012, the train was re-routed on a southern sector, hence you will not see the train in the list of trains between BLR-MUM.

I would suggest taking the 12:00 Noon VRL from BLR which would reach Vashi by 6:00 AM (if not earlier) and then taking the last VRL from Mumbai (10:30 PM Vashi if I recollect) which would reach BLR the next day by approx 3:00 PM.

As you dont know much about Mumbai, I would suggest you take a caab/auto from Vashi to Dombivili and for the travel back to Vashi, maybe book a Meru/Tab cab.

Maybe, but it still gets listed on fridays and saturdays for SBC/YPR-CST/LTT searches

El perfecto!

OT (or is it?):
Yeah that!