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Palai is well connected by both by KSRTC and private operators from Kochi and Kottayam.
Cherpunkal is between Ettumanoor and Palai. You will get several multi axle buses to Ettumanoor. Suggest you to stay at Palai (Hotel Maharani is one in your budget) or Ettumanoor or even at Kottayam.

To Pala from Aluva

1 What is the best mode -are there direct buses ??? Would like to avoid the train + bus option. If there are direct buses, how long should it take roughly???

No Direct bus to suit your time. Your travel distance is ~90 KM.

I stay in Aluva and my wife house is in Pala. Self driven car takes ~ 1.5 hrs to cover 82 KM.

Option1
A taxi makes sense for you than a stay in hotel. It takes 2 Hrs from Aluva to Pala, via Muvattupuzha, Kuthatukulam or even Muvatupuzha Thodupuzha route. (if you take private bus route no need to touch Perumbavoor)

Option 2
Since its morning, you may go via Kalamashery, Tripunitara, Poothotta (Vikom or Kanjiramattom), Thalayolaparmbu, Kaduthuruthi, Kuravilangad, Marangattupally, Cherpungal. ( no need to go to Pala town)

Start at 6 AM and you will get time for breakfast before the examination.

Thank you all for your posts.Getting a better hang of the place now which makes me wonder whether I was a little hasty in ruling out the train option .

After all my favorite Indian Railways passenger train " Venad Express":) does get me to Ettumanoor around 6.15 if I leave Alwaye at 4 PM. Looks like there is a hotel in Kidangoor called Elegance which seems okay and within budget?? That way I can avoid the charms of both Kottayam and Pala towns (The locations of Maharani seems a little more suited for bus fanners than exam takers because of its proximity to the town centre!)

Your views??? Ay one stayed in "Elegance"???

Kesineni Travels is introducing Volvo Multi-Axle services between Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad. An ad announcing this has appeared on Page 3 (local news) of the Thiruvananthapuram edition of Malayala Manorama today (Nov 11, 2011).

Thats another long route! Is it through NH47 or TN route?

Also Paulo's Kochi Goa service is up and running, Yesterday saw their Volvo at Always.
It is via Marthandam, Nagerkoil and Tirunelveli. I think it is the extension of their Madurai Hyderabad service.

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team: Please use the "edit" button if posting within 30 minutes of the first post, instead of creating another back-to-back post.

That means, they have two services to Kerala from Hyderabad. Hyd-Kochi via NH47 and HYD - TVM via NH7. Is there that much takers for this route especially on weekdays?

EDIT: TVM-HYD by train is 30Hrs. I hope the bus will do it in 20-22 hrs

Yes. Its an old crappy bus that does the route. Its a 45 seater Volvo B7R - they sell the seats as "Executive Class", "Economy Class" and "Normal Class" - all the seats are the same though!

They have very decent patronage as well - had seen the bus last week. They had some 50% occupancy at the starting point.

This bus claims to do the distance in 21 hours - 22 would be realistic. Kesineni also has an Ernakulam-Hyderabad service. They have Coimbatore-Hyderabad and Coimbatore-Vijayawada as well.

Then there is the Kallada Ernakulam-Hyderabad service. KPN also has a Coimbatore-Hyderabad service.

Edit: Images of the Paulo B7R running Kochi-Goa attached.

Looks like Paulo sell seats in a different order:

Front few seats: Business Class
Middle to almost back: Executive class
Back seats: Normal class :deadhorse

I checked their website and this service is only available in alternate days.

Yes.. you are right. I remembered that they had three different classes (remember that it is the same bus, with the same kind of seats!). Thanks for correcting. They have a single bus running - so the service runs only on alternative days.

Paulo is quite innovative:uncontrol. I remember traveling in their Bangalore-Goa bus during 2002. The door was in the middle. Front cabin had a/c seater and a/c sleeper. Back cabin had non a/c sleeper and seater.

Do they allow passengers to get down at Mangalore? There used to be a Kochi-Mumbai KingFisher Flight with a stop at Mangalore. When i travelled in that once, allmost all passengers from Kochi got down at Mangalore.
binaiks, out of curiosity, is there any private operator runs in Kochi, Mangalore route. I know KerRTC and KarRTC got buses in that route.

This is actually old news. As far as TN is concerned, it is law that there should be no private bus operator in a route where it is served by the state transport corporation which means that there can be no private buses from chennai to bangalore/madurai/trichy/coimbatore/ooty etc etc. They can only ply as contract carriages as in carrying a bunch of tourists on a trip, no regular commuters. How many of us have travelled in a private bus from chennai to all these places ? One thing you would have noticed is that these buses will not have TN registrations, even if they do, they are well connected and pay well and get away with it.

Cant name any right now; but have travelled on Ashirwad, CPC and Kallada some years back. Dunno who operates there right now. There definitely are Udupi / Manipal and Kollur operators. This is in addition to regular route buses (stage carriages) on Guruvayoor - Kollur and at least one Chottanikkara - Kollur private bus.

I will rephrase that for you. "No private buses on Nationalised routes".

But there are two another rules all these guys bread - "no operation without a specific permit", and "no use of permit for a different purpose".

All the private long distance buses we are discussing here are run on tourist / contract carriage permits. Technically, they ought to be using "stage carriage" permits.

But I guess even govt. is happy with that - taxes for stage carriages is a fraction of what it is for tourist / contract carriages. Additionally, the law / policy makers and implementers can draw blood by keeping things this way.

They were not showing any seats when searched for Cochin-Mangalore - so I guess they might not be allowing such bookings. May be one can get such tickets from their agents.

There is Sri Durgamba operating Ernakulam-Kollur - its a 2x2 Non-AC Seater bus.



The last I heard was that these operators have stopped operations. Durgamba was running Guruvayur-Kollur, who converted the bus into a "Tourist Permit" and are now running Ernakulam-Kollur. Not sure of the Chottanikara-Kollur operator.