[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by madhukar_n

if i search for yelahanka to tirupati in mapmyindia it shows through sidlaghatta(NH-207). the total kms there is 320 Kms.
is it a good road to use ???? i think it is a longer route.

if we go through ORR then i guess it will be about 270 Kms.

which route to take ????

I would suggest you not to take the route thru shidlaghatta, though the road is good all the way till shidlaghatta, but almost single lane + too much of road humps.
I had recently been to Sidlaghatta to watch K-1000 Rally


Instead take the route suggested by nnandi

[Fordy]

Updated Status Bangalore to Tirupati Route:-

Done this trip on 4th Spetember 2009:-

Route taken - BLR-KOLAR-PALAMANER-CHITTOOR-PUTHALAPATTU-TIRUPATHI

From KR puram Bridge the road has way too many diversions till Kolar after that its a breeze. From KR Puram till you cross 60 Kms, there are around 40-50 diversions. Newly laid roads after Kolar (looks like tarred just 2 days ago). No complaints on the road once you cross Kolar.

[prabhuferrari]

Hi,

Can anyone guide me on the alternate routes between Bangalore and Tirupati. I have a Maruti Esteem.

I saw that many people have suggested the route via Bangalore - KR Puram - Hoskote - Kolar - Palamaner - Chitoor - Tirupati. But last week I went to Chennai by KSRTC and the road was very bad from Old Madras Road all the way till Kolar as some work is happening. I intend to park my car at Alipiri and climb the footsteps to Tirumala. So I am looking at a good road


Hence I wondered if there is an alternate route.

I remember seeing a sign board for Tirupati somewhere near Krishnagiri. Upon further research I found that there is a Bangalore - Krishnagiri - Kuppam - Palamner - Chitoor - Tirupati route. I know that the road is fantastic from Bangalore to Krishnagiri. How is the remaining stretch? Does anyone have any idea?

Also, though it is long is it worth taking the Bangalore - Vellore (Via the golden quadrilateral) - Chitoor - Tirupati route?

Your suggestions, please!

[sree70]

hey prabhu,
I travelled to tirupathi on 13 Nov in my I20 with max load ( 4adults, 2kids & lots of luggage).
I took the regular B'lore - Kolar - Mulabagal- chittor -tirupathi route.
We left B'lore Rajajinagar @ 3-45pm
reached KR puram @ 4-25pm, Hoskote @ 5-00pm, Kolar @ 5-45pm and Mulabagal @ 6-45pm.
It almost took 3hrs to travel 115 Kms from Blore to mulabagal, because of B'lore city traffic & laning works from KR puram to mulabagal.
From Mulabagal to Tirupathi (135kms), the road conditions are favourable & reached Tirupathi @9-25pm.
I felt driving on the strecth from KRpuram to Mulabagal is very tedious,
since lot of road diversions & badly laid speed breakers just before the diversions.
Alternate routes:
Bangalore - Krishnagiri - Kuppam - Palamner - Chitoor - Tirupati
Bangalore- Malur - Kolar - Mulabagal - Chitoor - Tirupati
By taking the 1st alternate route u can avoid all the diversion hassels and as you know the route upto Krishnagiri is Smooth & silk.
Most importantly if you are lone driver like me don't get tired & exhausted during driving. since you want to climb the footsteps to Tirumala, reserve ur energy to climb the hills.
My experience says take 1st alternate route.
We climbed the foot steps to Tirumala on 14 morning & it's a great feeling.
I didnot find any parking facilites of TTD @ Allipiri gate and parked my car in the Hotel, which i stayed @ overnight.
The nearest parking facility is @ Balaji Link Bus Stand which is about 100mts from Allipri gate and it may not be safe, so enquire & park.
The TTD has provided certain facilities to hill climbers like free Darshan, Prasadam(2Laddus), lockers, Tonsuring & others.
Further enquiries are welcome.

[prabhuferrari]

Originally Posted by sree70

hey prabhu,
I travelled to tirupathi on 13 Nov in my I20 with max load ( 4adults, 2kids & lots of luggage).
I took the regular B'lore - Kolar - Mulabagal- chittor -tirupathi route.
We left B'lore Rajajinagar @ 3-45pm
reached KR puram @ 4-25pm, Hoskote @ 5-00pm, Kolar @ 5-45pm and Mulabagal @ 6-45pm.
It almost took 3hrs to travel 115 Kms from Blore to mulabagal, because of B'lore city traffic & laning works from KR puram to mulabagal.
From Mulabagal to Tirupathi (135kms), the road conditions are favourable & reached Tirupathi @9-25pm.
I felt driving on the strecth from KRpuram to Mulabagal is very tedious,
since lot of road diversions & badly laid speed breakers just before the diversions.
Alternate routes:
Bangalore - Krishnagiri - Kuppam - Palamner - Chitoor - Tirupati
Bangalore- Malur - Kolar - Mulabagal - Chitoor - Tirupati
By taking the 1st alternate route u can avoid all the diversion hassels and as you know the route upto Krishnagiri is Smooth & silk.
Most importantly if you are lone driver like me don't get tired & exhausted during driving. since you want to climb the footsteps to Tirumala, reserve ur energy to climb the hills.
My experience says take 1st alternate route.
We climbed the foot steps to Tirumala on 14 morning & it's a great feeling.
I didnot find any parking facilites of TTD @ Allipiri gate and parked my car in the Hotel, which i stayed @ overnight.
The nearest parking facility is @ Balaji Link Bus Stand which is about 100mts from Allipri gate and it may not be safe, so enquire & park.
The TTD has provided certain facilities to hill climbers like free Darshan, Prasadam(2Laddus), lockers, Tonsuring & others.
Further enquiries are welcome.

Hi Sree,

Thanks a lot for your inputs. I will take the Kuppam route then And what is the process for obtaining free darshan for those who climb the mountain? Do we need to register somewhere in Alipri or something? Please let me know.

[sree70]

The free tickets for free darshnam is given @ Gali gopuram gate which is about 2100 steps from the base. You have to give the thumb impression & collect the tickets. There are quiet a number of sign boards mentioning these things.
TTD also transports your luggages & footwear to the top hill from the base and all your luggages should be compulsorily locked.

[prabhuferrari]

Thanks a lot Sree Very useful information. I will get back with photos and my experiences. We are leaving tomorrow morning mostly via the Krishnagiri-Kuppam route.

[LongDrive lover]

Hi prabhu,

waiting for your experiences about the route taken, road conditions, parking facilities availed and darshan procedure, etc. I intend to go there from Bangalore in coming summer.
Plz report back
Thanks in advance

[sureshurs]

I normaly take the following route to avoid Bangalore-Kolar Stretch

Blr (HSR Layout)- Whitefield-Hope Farm Jn- Mallur- Kolar: Ihave driven on this road twice and the distance is ~ 80-kms ( or more less same as NH4 route) and normally takes 1.5 hrs.

The details are as below :

From Whitefield Hope farm jn: Go straight when approaching from ITPL. Go on till you touch NH207 and follow the NH207 road signals to Hosur. Continue on NH207 till you see a Jn with a signboard showing Right to Chikka Tirupathi/Hosur. Continue straight without taking a right and go upto Mallur and then towards Kolar.

[sdp1975]

sureshurs , how much time does it take for you ( with breaks and all ) on the mallur route ? Any bad stretches/potholed roads in between ?

Originally Posted by sree70

Alternate routes:
Bangalore - Krishnagiri - Kuppam - Palamner - Chitoor - Tirupati
...
My experience says take 1st alternate route.

sree70, how much extra distance is this route ? Looks a lot on google map .

EDIT : 70 km extra as per computations on gmap. So this road is worth the extra distance ? Even better than the route suggested by sureshurs ?

[sree70]

sdp1975,
B'lore - krishnagiri - palamaner = 91kms + (NH219)110kms = 201kms
B'lore - Kolar - palamaner = 140kms from B'lore city
but the roads are very good upto Krishnagiri and from krishnagiri - palamaner, have to wait for prabhuferraris expreince post.
It also depends from which area of B'lore u start ur destiation, if near to hosur rd or b'lore south side it will beneficial (10kms less).
on the 1st route less braking & changing gears and constant speed, so more mileage & less strain to ur body.
Commenting on sureshurs route Kolar - mulabagal strecth (41kms) has max diversions and speed breakers before diversions and Malur to kolar seems to be single lane road.
My logic is strainless driving for extra KMS.

[prabhuferrari]

Sorry for the late response guys.

The route I took was

Malleswaram - MG Road - Hosur Road - Krishnagiri(Break at Adyar Ananda Bhavan) - Kuppam - Palamner - Chitoor By pass - Tirupati. (Around 310 kms in total).

We left by 6 in the morning and reached Tirupati at around 12.30 PM. (This is after a 45 min break at A2B and a 10 min break near Chitoor).

Krishnagiri - Kuppam road is fantastic with lovely views and nice roads. Few potholes here and there but I could manage 80+ most of the times. Kuppam to Palamner is good too, except for the trade fair for sheeps/goats somewhere in the middle :(

It was not at all tiring and we enjoyed the ride completely.

In the evening we went to Srinivasa Mangapuram and a very old siva temple near Srinivasa Mangapuram (It seems Lord Balaji and Padmavathy spent 6 months here after their wedding). And this is one of the rare Siva temples where the nose of the lingam is pointing in a different direction. It seems Siva lingams must point either north or east. And since this temple is west facing the Lingam's nose is pointing towards its left, that is the north. Similar lingam is found in Kapaleeshwarar temple in chennai.). 13 35'54.38"N is the latitude and 79 20'22.05"E is the longitude for this place. Since it was pitch dark, I could not take any photos :(

We stayed at Sindhuri park near Tirupati bus stand. We parked our car there and next day early morning we started climbing the steps. We took an auto to Alipri(50 rs) and started climbing by 6 AM. We reached Gali gopuram by 7.30 AM and took the free pass for darshan. After some breaks we reached Tirumala by 9.30 AM. We directly went to the Vaikuntam complex 2 with our passes, after depositing luggage and mobile phones at a friends place. After some 4 hours, we got the darshan.

We left Tirumala by 4 PM and reached Tirupati by taxi(Sumo. Costs 400 Rs), after buying Himalaya stress relief and pain massage oil at a Himalaya outlet

Next day, we left Tirupati by 8 in the morning and took the route of Tirupati-Chitoor-Vellore-Virinjipuram(Siva temple)-Pallikonda(Had heavy brunch at motel deepam. Nice food)-Ambur-Krishnagiri-Hosur road-Silkboard-wilson garden-Majestic-malleswaram (Around 320 kms). Reached home by 3 PM.

I would say Vellore route is the best, in terms of roads and timings. And krishnagiri-kuppam for scenic stretches.

Will post photos soon.

Hope this information suffices.

[csentil]

To go to Tirupathi if one wants to avoid the Kolar route, the Krishnagiri - Kuppam - Palmaner route makes sense.

I just did a trip to Guntur via Tirupathi.

Route1: Tirupathi - Kolar - Chittoor - Tirupathi is approx 250 kms

Route2: Tirupathi - Krishnagiri - Kuppam - Palamaner - Chittoor - Tirupathi is around 315 kms.

Route3: Tirupathi - Krishnagiri - Vellore - Chittoor - Tirupathi is around the same 315 kms.

I did Route 3 on the way to Guntur and Route 2 on the way back

What you make up through driving on GQ till Vellore can be lost going through Vellore, Katpadi and the bad road half way upto Chittoor. So i would prefer the Kuppam route.

Everyone knows about Bangalore - Vellore i.e the GQ to Chennai.

Vellore - Katpadi was a nightmare. Lot of traffic at approx 9 AM in the morning. Bad roads from katpadi till it reaches NH4 towards Chittoor.

Have to go through Chittoor town. Roads from Chittoor to Tirupathi is great except for small sections. Tirupathi byepass has bad craters. Some of them are wheel benders.

Tirupathi - Kalahasti road is ok. Not great. Too much of traffic and quite a few potholes.

Krishnagiri - Kuppam is 35kms. Excellent roads with a small ghat section. Watch out for the curves. Road is a two laned NH219. Goes through small villages. I don't remember any speedbreakers. As you enter Kuppam there will be a bridge on the right, which is the byepass for Kuppam.

Kuppam - Palmaner is 70 kms. The road goes through a couple of small towns, but nothing major to worry about. Very minimal traffic and the road condition is excellent throughout.

We did Palmaner - Krishnagiri in about 90 minutes or lesser.

Btw, I think you can avoid going into Chittoor town by taking the left which says way to Kanipakam temple. This left is just before Chittoor town on the Palmaner - Chittoor road. Anyone has done this? I saw a few KA registration vehicles do this and caught up with them the other side of Chittoor.

Edit: There is another route via Ambur - Gudiyatham - Chittoor. I am not sure of the road conditions and the distances are also the same. But one can utilize the GQ till Ambur to save time. Next time should try this route.

[rajiv0]

Hello Gurus,
I am thinking of doing a quick (possibly solo) trip to Tirupathi for a quick darshan sometime this week - 24th or 25th Dec.

I wanted to know the situation is on the ground in and around / enroute to Tirupathi... considering all the political storm and protests over T-issue.

Is it safe to go in my car for the trip?

Thanks in advance.

[navan49]

Hi Friend,

I don't want to come on the suggestion of the route. But the timing you have selected is not favorable. There will be rush. No harm in going with car. These politicians might make any time an issue and make you held up there. This week end has 4 days holidays. So there are chances of much more devotees. Being you are in Bangalore why don't you book sudharshan ticket in advance and visit after 14th of January. Just suggestion only. Decision is in your hands.