[vsbabu]

Originally Posted by narayans80

As of alternate routes, there is a route from Villupuram. Another is from Madurantakam, that hits ECR at Marakkanam (one of the less known bus routes from Madras).

I had taken both these routes few months back; Getting to Villupuram from Bangalore means I've to go through Thiruvannamalai (bombed out roads!). Thindivanam - Marakkanam road was very scenic and of decent quality.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by vsbabu

I had taken both these routes few months back; Getting to Villupuram from Bangalore means I've to go through Thiruvannamalai (bombed out roads!). Thindivanam - Marakkanam road was very scenic and of decent quality.

Not Tindivanam-Marakkanam, I was mentioning about Madurantakam-Marakkanam, IIRC there is a sharp 90 degree turn on NH45 that runs inside the town and this route is the left from there. Its a relatively barren route compared to Tindivanam-Pondy, road conditions were average.

Agree on Tiruvannamalai road part, your best shot would be enquire with cab/bus drivers near Melmaruvathur or Tindivanam to decide which way to head. They might have more up-to-date information than us.

You could PM fellow member Samurai, he probably is trying to make his way out of Pondy.

[ravib]

Originally Posted by vsbabu

I've decided to go get my family who were vacationing there. Before I start driving from Bangalore, wanted to know if Thindivanam->Pondicherry road is blocked or not. Or any alternate routes?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Last night (30th Dec) my parents took Pondy-Thindivanam-Madras route and they reached in about 4 hours. So guess its not blocked.

-Ravi

[vsbabu]

I came through Vandavasi, Thindivanam route. Thindivanam town road is a bit bad; Auroville main road is also cleared for one lane.

[anandkumargb]

I came back from Pondi day before yday.......
To route ---> Road from Krishnagiri ..uttarangarai..chengam...tindivanam is real bad
Fro ---> Pudu-Tindivanam-Vellore-krishnagiri-blore...excellent roads, but it will add 80-100 kms extra

[creative420]

Originally Posted by anandkumargb

I came back from Pondi day before yday.......
To route ---> Road from Krishnagiri ..uttarangarai..chengam...tindivanam is real bad
Fro ---> Pudu-Tindivanam-Vellore-krishnagiri-blore...excellent roads, but it will add 80-100 kms extra

Hey Anand. Took the same route. No one should take the chengam>tindivanam route unless you are planning to go by a monster truck.

[dwaraka]

I did go through vellore-thiruvannamalai-Thindivanam-pondicherry on 30th Dec post cyclone hit. Road seem to be too long with nearly 90+ kms. certain stretch on Vellore- Thindivanam is really rutted. took eight long hours to reach pondi. All along heavy rain with strong wind hindered our speed. Immediately after descent from Thindivanam flyover into pondi road, we encountered huge patch of water on the road. Almost 2.0 ft of water. I could see some of the diesel vehicles stranded in water.

I kept the accelerator at optimum rev and kept wading through water slowly. Once or twice, engine seemed to give away. Luckly enough to clear that patch. Entered Pondicherry only to witness devastated condition caused by cyclonic wind. rows and rows of fallen trees on road, electrical poles uprooped, power lines lying on the ground, shops closed, restaurants no food.

We took the return route pondi-thindivanam-thruvannamalai- uttangarai-krishnagiri - bangalore. Thiruvannamalai to krishnagiri road is totally bad. By the time you shift to 3/4th gear you are forced to come to 1st/2nd gear. big patches of ruts inviting you to dunk in. My poor UVA took the beeting. Neverthless, your attention on road is utmost. I could reach bangalore in 7 hours with one breakfast stop at Thiruvannamalai for 45 minutes.

My suggestion, if you are experienced driver only, you can venture in Krishnagiri-uttangarai-thiruvannamalai route. Else, check the vellore route which adds up 100 kms on odo.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by dwaraka

I did go through vellore-thiruvannamalai-Thindivanam-pondicherry on 30th Dec post cyclone hit.

Instead of Vellore-Tiruvannamalai, you should try Arcot-Cheyyar-Vandavasi-Sothupakkam-Tindivanam-Pondy.

This helps by-passing Tindivanam as well, since you latch on to NH45 at Sothupakkam.
This way you hit the NH45-NH66 turn at Tindivanam exit.

[sridhar_setty]

Thanks to Ampere and others, I had a good drive to Pondy and back during Christmas. It was a "Team" with Supratim driving along and also met couple of guys in Pondy who are "readers" of this thread and followed the route suggested here. They are very happy to see such a helpful thread.

My onward journey was on 24th Dec. Route: Bang -> Krishnagiri -> Vellore -> Arcot -> Cheyyar -> Vandavasi -> Thellar -> Tindivanam -> Pondy. I left early (5:30 am) to avoid all the rush traffic and was a good decision. Plan was to reach Pondy before lunch. Bangalore to Krishnagiri was smooth roads, but saw 3 accidents. One was a major one with 3 cars and a truck. Stop was @ MacD, but had South Indian breakfast and not burgers! Krishnagiri to Arcot was again smooth 4 lane roads. I missed the correct right turn for Arcot and went ahead till some huge bridge. I also missed the stop at Aryas in Vellore. The road from that bridge till SH5 was not good. After that there are quite few patches of bad roads, but still manageable. The trick part is going though the towns and you would see signboards only in Tamil. I knew bit of broken Tamil and was able to drive through. Tindivanam to Pondy is good roads. Reached Pondy by 12:30 pm and was exactly 400 kms from Indiranagar. I was staying at Big Beach, which is 13 kms from Pondy on Cuddalore road.

Had a great time @ Big Beach and return journey started on 27th Dec. I started at 10:30 am with target to reach Bangalore by evening. All was good till Vandavasi. Then I missed the route and took a turn towards Arani. Route till Arani was decent, but some really bad stretch of roads for 5 kms. Rest was good till Vellore. But the worst part was going through the Vellore traffic . The roads are good, but the traffic at Vellore town delayed too much. Had lunch at Arya Bhavan which is along with CCD/HP station and some 15+ kms after Vellore towards Krishnagiri. The food was average, but a nice place to stop. The drive till Bangalore was smooth with a coffee break at Shoolagiri MacD and reached home by 6:00 pm. So, return route was Pondy -> Tindivanam -> Vandavasi -> Arani -> Kannamangalam -> Vellore -> Krishnagiri -> Bangalore.

Some key learnings:

• If you are going through Arcot/Cheyyar route, please carry some GPS or alteast keep asking people if you have doubt. You might miss some turns.
• When leaving from Pondy towards Bangalore, you will not find fuel station on left lane. The last Indian Oil station is on the right side. You should know the reason for tank full in Pondy

[Nampat]

Hi All,

As mentioned in my prev post I also did the Pondy trip onwards on 24th Dec ( I do see a lot of Team-BHPians did the same day ! ) and returned on 28th Dec.

I did the Blr-Krishnagiri-Arcot-Vandavasi-Sothupakkam-Tindivanam-Puducherry route.

My feedback :

My late start ( 8.30 am ) took me through a lot of traffic upto Krishnagiri ( long queues upto 10-12 cars at tolls and almost 20 minutes in queue just to bill at A2B ! )

1. Based on J Ravi's post ( Post 307 ) I got off Arcot and it was spot on. This was the easiest. After the U-turn and then getting of the SH bridge I turned left immediately and joined the SH pretty fast.

2. The Arcot-Vandavasi road was good except in some patches ( I could do 60-70 kmph in the good patches ) The Cheyyar byepass directions were also perfect ( Post 310 )

3. Vandavasi town was very crowded - there was some festival crowd with buses moving bumper to bumper. ( This was on 24th Dec )

4. The Vandavasi-Sothupakkam route was being laid freshly and hence this did slow us down.( This should be good now - unless the cyclone has spoilt it )

5. The Sothupakkam to Tindivanam road on NH45 ( Trichy - Chennai ) was very crowded as was the town Sothupakkam below the bridge. Again some festival happening ? The NH had some really crazy driving with upto 4 vehicles moving parallely at breakneck speeds !( Why is this Sothupakkam and not Melumaruvathur ? )

6. The Tindivanam-Pondy stretch was fantastic and a vast green scenic view. And equally opposite, the Pondy traffic was horrible ! You would have big buses moving completely to the right at high speeds, overtaking !

Return :
I did the same route except I avoided Sothupakkam and did the Tindivanam to Vandavasi via Katteri/Thellar and then to Arcot.

While going through Tindivanam city was not much of a problem, I missed the exact turn off the SH ( which I had taken onwards ) to Arcot and further down encountered a one-way and had to go through the entire town !

Overall, quite a journey for me who is not exactly a highway driving enthusiast ( my 10 years and 1 lakh km have been 95% city driving ), but got a lot of confidence from the posts mentioned here.

Thanks a lot !

A smartphone/navigation system will be of immense help ( My wife's phone helped a lot ! ). On the return could not use it as it got spoilt on the beach. And had to rely on sign boards and enquiring with the locals. Was equally effective !

I did this 800kms in my new 1600 km run i10 Asta Automatic ( the prime reason for me to venture into this drive ). I did get 17 kmpl onwards and 16 on the return ( used the ac more )

The car ? new experience in Automatic, was easily able to reach and stay at 80-90-100 kmph speeds. But found it a bit difficult on overtaking. And hitting the 0-60 was longer than a manual car. And felt the car was sensitive to the road at speeds above 80 - (maybe was overinflated? 32ps ? ). The EPS steering definitely was not to my liking at high speeds as I was not comfortable with the level of feedback.

Thanks for going through this long writeup,

Namit

[vsbabu]

It has been 2 weeks since I came back from Pondicherry - thought I will write down driving directions via Arcot - Vandavasi, if it helps some one later...

Bangalore to Pondicherry:

• Head towards Hosur -> Krishnagiri. There are couple of decent joints after Hosur on the left; McDonalds first and then A2B at Chinnar. I couldn't find any good place after A2B till you are close to Vellore.
• After Krishnagiri toll gate (50/-) go over the flyover. At the next flyover, do not get on the flyover; bear left and take a left turn to Chennai highway.
• After about 1km, you will see a right turn with a board saying "Thiruvannamalai", "Pondicherry" etc. Take this only if you want to test your suspension. Go straight on Chennai highway instead.
• Go past Vaniyambadi, Ambur, Vellore. Two toll gates, 60/- each. After about 100km from Krishnagiri, you can see an Aryabhavan+Cafe Coffee Day+Fuel on the right side. I don't remember the place name, but it is quite good food. From here on, till Pondicherry, I couldn't find any good eateries.
• Go past Vellore and ignore the boards saying right turn to Arcot. If you take any of these roads, you will have to go through Arcot town.
• Soon you will start boards for Ranipet. Slow down. You will hit a sharp left turn followed by a bridge on a river (Palar). Easiest way here is to cross the bridge, get out of the highway, take the immediate right turn under the highway and again a right to get back on the bridge in the reverse direction. On the reverse direction, take the left immediately after the bridge. This is a byepass running next to the river. Bad roads, but manageable.
• At the end of the byepass road, take the left turn at the junction. Decent roads now.
• Once you get to Cheyyar, you will see a right fork from the main road marked as byepass. Take that, go past a cross road (this is Cheyyar - Arni road). At the end of the road, take a right and at the junction immediately after the bridge, take a left to go to Vandavasi.
• Again, decent roads. 3km before Vandavasi, road joins a T-junction. Take a left. (note for this when you come back - if you miss taking a right turn, you will land in Arni).
• At Vandavasi center, take a right turn to go through the market (very crowded and narrow. I mean, really narrow).
• Out of Vandavasi, there is a small bridge and a t-junction. Take a left.
• Continue straight and go past Chellar. Good roads. After some 10km, if you want, you can take a left to join Trichy-Chennai highway if you want to avoid Tindivanam. Continue straight and get into Tindivanam.
• Just follow the normal traffic flow in Tindivanam. At the first t-junction, take the right (there are boards there; left goes to Chennai). You will see the railway station on your left at a sharp right turn. After that, take a left at the junction and it will drop you at the beginning of the flyover. Get on the flyover, go straight and continue straight to Pondicherry. Superb roads.
• If you are going to ECR, you can take a left just before the Pondicherry toll gate. This takes you through narrow, wooded Auroville main road right on to ECR.

Thanks to multiple pointers in this thread. This route is only 50km more than the usual route via Thiruvannamalai. But takes lesser time because of good road conditions.

[callmetarantula]

The best route would be through Chennai-Tindivanam-Pondy, if you do not mind the extra distance.

On the direct route (B'lore- Thiruvanamalai - Tindivanam - Pondy), the road from Bangalore till Krishnagiri is excellent. Then on till you cross Thiruvanamalai, it is a nightmare, like a bombed-out war zone. After this temple town, the pot-holed roads are drive-able (though not good by any yard-stick) till Tindivanam. From here smooth wide road till Pondy.

Else you can also try B'lore- Vellore - Thiruvanamalai - Tindivanam - Pondy

[sixthsense]

Can somebody confirm that the route given in the link below is the best route that can be taken for Bangalore -Pondicherry ? I plan on leaving on 26th morning

Bangalore to Puducherry - Google Maps

It's about 400 kms according to Google. What's the approx time i should be looking at for covering this ? It'll be four adults with 1 kid in my SX4 to give you an idea.

Can i also consider the kolar --> Malbagal --> Chittor --> Ranipet route to join back to the above route ?

I'm only particular about the comfort level for my family, so adding 60-70 kms to make the route comfortable is not a problem for me.

Please suggest.

[ampere]

Here is a slight modification:

Instead of Thellar, try to latch on to 4L at Sothupakkam,

Route link

[sixthsense]

This adds 25 kms more amd approx time is now 6hr 44min, but if you say this is the best route than i'll try this. With so many diversions i don't know if my GPS device would be able to guide me and keep me on this route.

So is the chittor route totally out of question ?