[sen2693]

Hi all,

Me and my wife have decided to take a short trip in this 3 day weekend. However, am a fairly new driver with no experience driving on hilly roads, sharp hairpin bends, narrow roads with cliff on one side, ghat sections etc. As confident as I can be on my skills and my car, driving there without an experienced driver alongside would be ill advised.

Hence, am looking for suggestions around Bangalore where hill driving would not be a requirement - which seem hard to come by if I look around in the internet. Mysore is one suggestion but it is more of a city atmosphere which I am not interested in.

One place I am considering is Sakleshpur. But from Youtube road trip videos and all I am not able to confirm if that is a hill station or not. If it is a small climb then I think I should be fine.

Also, any opinions with regards to safety? Is it safe to travel on such roads as a couple?

Suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance.

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by sen2693

One place I am considering is Sakleshpur. But from Youtube road trip videos and all I am not able to confirm if that is a hill station or not. If it is a small climb then I think I should be fine.

Sakleshpur is not a proper hill station though the weather is very pleasant out there.
Roads are in good condition for most part except for the one under construction between Hassan and Sakleshpur. You won't find much road sections with steep climbs and drops on the sides.

Which car will you be driving? A high seating position will help you around corners much better than a low slung sedan.

[sen2693]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

Which car will you be driving? A high seating position will help you around corners much better than a low slung sedan.

A Rapid. I was hoping a sedan would provide better driving dynamics around corners although can't deny the low seating position disadvantage.

[Rajeevraj]

Chikmagalur is a option. Although it is called out as a hill station, you don't need to climb up to it as the main town and surrounding areas are not at a significant elevation compared to Bangalore and is a fairly easy drive. Sakleshpur is similar but from memory, Chikmagalur maybe an easier drive. If you intend to go sight seeing, then of course it involves hill driving.

You can also go to the Bandipur, Mudumalai, Masinagudi, Kabini areas. Will be fairly easy drives and do not involve any hill driving.

Half of Bangalore will be headed out to these areas most weekends. So you do not need to worry about safety on the road. But do understand the covid protocols at your destination and adhere to the same.

[androdev]

To be honest, most holiday places off Bangalore have regular roads unless you go seeking out proper hill stations. Coorg, Bandipur, Chikmagalur, Sakleshpur etc have pretty good highway-like roads. Even if you go deeper into ghats, you just have narrow roads that require you to be alert about oncoming traffic. The scary hairpin bends roads are relatively rare.

In a modern car like Rapid, you don't have to fear hairpin bends etc. You are not driving a Tata Sumo. As long as you don't get aggressive about overtaking, you will do just fine. Review Google maps route for hairpin bends etc. Yellow colour roads in the map are perfectly safe. White colour roads with hairpin bends can be avoided if you want to be extra cautious. Govt has done a great job of making such roads safe. They are slow and require extra caution but do not require any fancy skills. Avoid night time driving and peak holiday periods. It's the overconfidence that causes most accidents.

Or you can try going towards pondicherry, hampi, etc.

[Akshay6988]

Originally Posted by sen2693

Hi all,
However, am a fairly new driver with no experience driving on hilly roads, sharp hairpin bends, narrow roads with cliff on one side, ghat sections etc. As confident as I can be on my skills and my car, driving there without an experienced driver alongside would be ill advised.

Suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance.

Hi, I can't comment on gateways around Bangalore, but I can definitely comment on this bit. I am a fairly new driver as well, just 5k kms under my belt. I was, just like you, apprehensive driving in the ghat sections and all other things you have mentioned. My first ghat section was Bopdev ghat near Pune city, it has 2 - 3 hairpin turns. While going downhill I kept the car in 3rd gear most of the time, used engine braking, and kept speeds at 40-50 kmph, as the downhill is steep in that ghat. While going uphill, I was using second gear mostly, shifted to third on relatively straight section of the ghat. Since then I've been to numerous ghats around Pune - Tamhini, Lonavala(if you can call it a ghat ), no issues whatsoever.
You can take hairpin turns in second gear confidently, just don't accelerate too much, the car will pull itself up the slope. Just watch out for the incoming traffic on these turns, honk to announce your presence. Most importantly, be relaxed and confident in yourself and your car.
Sorry for going off topic, hope this helps

[Kosfactor]

Mysore is a good place to start with, its not too far and hotels are plenty with good approach roads. Mysore is a very pleasant city to visit places around it, not crowded these days, weather is good too.

You could wake up early morning from your Hotel in Mysore and go for a drive through Bandipur forest \ Nagarahole \ Gopalswamy betta etc

Its not just the hill roads that gets you, often the approach road to homestays and resorts are in very bad shape. You may reach the hill station on time, but to reach the place of stay can take an hour or two in some cases.

Start early, drive slowly and ofcourse, call places ahead to check if they are open due to weekend lockdowns in certain cities and towns bordering KL.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by sen2693

Me and my wife have decided to take a short trip in this 3 day weekend. However, am a fairly new driver with no experience driving on hilly roads, sharp hairpin bends, narrow roads with cliff on one side, ghat sections etc. As confident as I can be on my skills and my car, driving there without an experienced driver alongside would be ill advised.

Be very careful and cautious, but as long as you know the basics of good driving and have some driving experience, hill driving is nothing extraordinary. In fact, the best way to learn that is just by driving. I learnt my hill driving by just taking out my car on a solo drive and slowly but carefully exploring the hills and mountains. You do not have to be fast or aggressive. Just be slow and careful, take your time, and drive well.

Besides, flat four lane highways are not automatically safer for a new driver. Plenty of driving mistakes happen by new drivers (I see it all the time in my highway drives) on flat highways too and due to the fast speeds there, those mistakes can be very dangerous. Slow hilly drives are maybe safer than fast highway drives for new drivers.

Of course, this is just my point of view and you are the best judge of your driving skills. So please take the safe and right decision as per your own thoughts.

Hence, am looking for suggestions around Bangalore where hill driving would not be a requirement - which seem hard to come by if I look around in the internet. Mysore is one suggestion but it is more of a city atmosphere which I am not interested in.

Pleases like Chikmagalur have only some mild hills. There are no sharp cliffs or anything like that there. They should be pretty easy and safe to drive even for new drivers.

However, if you strictly want to avoid the hills, then Hampi is one destination. It is flat and wide roads all the way from Bangalore to Hampi, with no hills whatsoever anywhere.

Again, be very careful and drive well whether you go on hills or flat roads. Roads to Hampi are flat and wide, but speeds are usually high so do not let your guard down just because it is not hills.

[Raghu M]

I would suggest Mysore. Has decent and good sight seeing spots with good footfalls. Keep caution on the Covid protocols. Wish you happy miles of driving. Please be a safe driver, do not overspeed and always ensure to respect people on smaller rides (bicycles, autos, smaller cars and pedestrians).

[sen2693]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Besides, flat four lane highways are not automatically safer for a new driver. Plenty of driving mistakes happen by new drivers (I see it all the time in my highway drives) on flat highways too and due to the fast speeds there, those mistakes can be very dangerous. Slow hilly drives are maybe safer than fast highway drives for new drivers.


Again, be very careful and drive well whether you go on hills or flat roads. Roads to Hampi are flat and wide, but speeds are usually high so do not let your guard down just because it is not hills.

Thanks for the suggestion. On driving in highways, I have driven from Bangalore to hometown consisting of 2-lane (state highways), 4 and 6 lane roads so have a bit of experience driving there. I try to be as cautious as possible, especially when overtaking on highways.

[drivingmelody]

Originally Posted by sen2693

Hi all,


Also, any opinions with regards to safety? Is it safe to travel on such roads as a couple?

Suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance.

I would suggest two options

Option 1. Get to a resort near KRS dam(Mysore area). Advantage, visit the gardens both during the day and in the evening. One day you can visit Mysore Palace and Mysore Zoo

Option 2. There are lot of homestays/resorts on the road between sakleshpur and Belur. Most of these are before the hills.

My recommendation would be option 1.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by sen2693

Thanks for the suggestion. On driving in highways, I have driven from Bangalore to hometown consisting of 2-lane (state highways), 4 and 6 lane roads so have a bit of experience driving there. I try to be as cautious as possible, especially when overtaking on highways.

OK, in that case Hampi is a good option. Chitadurga-Hampi NH50 ("Hampi Expressway") is a good highway to enjoy driving without worrying about the hills. Bangalore-Chitradurga-Hampi is the flatest route that I can think of around Bangalore and assuming not crossing into other states.

Another option (with more or less flat roads with some minor turns here and there) is to Bhadra Forest. Check out our recent travelogue (we were there just last month) about JLR River Tern Lodge at Bhadra: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...hotologue.html (Monsoon Drive to Bhadra Tiger Reserve - A Photologue)

[anandavinash]

Originally Posted by Akshay6988

While going downhill I kept the car in 3rd gear most of the time, used engine braking, and kept speeds at 40-50 kmph, as the downhill is steep in that ghat. While going uphill, I was using second gear mostly, shifted to third on relatively straight section of the ghat. Since then I've been to numerous ghats around Pune - Tamhini, Lonavala(if you can call it a ghat ), no issues whatsoever.

A friend of mine from Germany (and my father when I had just learnt driving) both gave me a tip that while driving on hilly roads with twists and turns, one must always descend on the same gear as you go up the road. So if you've climbed the road on 2nd gear, stay with the same on the way down too for best control. Not sure if the logic is sound but I sure seem to have better control of the car when I do this.

[drivingmelody]

Originally Posted by anandavinash

A friend of mine from Germany (and my father when I had just learnt driving) both gave me a tip that while driving on hilly roads with twists and turns, one must always descend on the same gear as you go up the road. So if you've climbed the road on 2nd gear, stay with the same on the way down too for best control. Not sure if the logic is sound but I sure seem to have better control of the car when I do this.

More or less your friends suggestion is correct. Better option is that you should be in a gear ( mostly lower) such that you need not apply brakes, but use engine breaking for slowing the car down a gradient.

One golden rule is don't be in a hurry either while going up or down a hill. Too much application of brakes is an indication that you are driving faster than what the road can currently support. Drive safe and hills won't be an issue.

[RijuC]

I was almost in the same dilemma 6 months back. Thanks to the COVID lockdown, my DL is no more just a government Id card. Started driving from June last year, and went to Ranikhet, Uttarakhand in end December. My experience was perhaps just 4000 km.

How did I do it? Well, I have gone through all major threads of Team-BHP and posts of seniors here on the subject "hill driving", dos and don'ts for hill drives etc. Also, used Google maps extensively, read travelogues, tour reports, asked seniors in Indiamike forum (I am a member there also), gone through route updates in Team-BHP etc. for understanding the route, road conditions, expected troubles etc. Watched YouTube videos made on this route. And then I went for my first hill drive.

First stop was Jim Corbett jungle. Got some tips on road conditions and what I need to follow from my Safari driver. Then I started from Jim Corbett to Ranikhet. The road condition was pathetic. It is a single lane road, about 55 km stretch is in broken condition. Got struck in the very first flight of the ramp. Couple of vehicles were crawling upward and a heavy truck and few loaded vehicles were rushing down. I couldn't understand anything and stalled my swift at the corner of the bend of the road going upwards. The truck came near to me and the driver asked me
-where would you go?
Me-Ranikhet.
Truck driver-Hmm, you seem to be a newbie in hills. Me- Yes! First timer.
Truck driver- This road stretch is not good, entirely broken. Also, the road is very narrow. You will face lots of trouble ahead. You should have hired a driver from Ramnagar.
Me- Yeah, let's see. I'll try to manage somehow. If I get struck somewhere, I'll return back.
Truck driver-well, that is also not easy. Anyway, good luck!

This was the small conversation we had. Fortunately, this driver or any other guy didn't discourage me or didn't pass any derogatory comment.

Pulled up the handbrake halfway and started the car again to climb. Few more stretches were tricky, couple of times I stalled the car, asked wife to put some bricks behind the rear tires. But I was very confident and driven the car exactly following whatever I learnt from this forum and others. Used horns extensively in blind areas. Used 2nd and 3rd gears maximum. Didn't bother about fuel consumption. Faced some non-cooperation from a bus driver and a loaded local biker in a congested town area. Except those incidents things were smooth. Next day while roaming around within Ranikhet I did a mistake using clutch and narrowly escaped the fall into deep gorge.

Never rush, no high speed, no overtake, follow all good practices and learn/ read extensively about hill driving techniques and do's and don'ts. You can do it comfortably. Select an easy hill drive with good road conditions, preferably wider road.

For me it was like reading C++, Java books at home and next day writting programming codes in live projects!

This June went to Himachal for a long trip and went to Jispa. It was absolutely trouble free, thanks to the forum resources and advices from seniors again.

Hill driving is very addictive. Once you do it, yeh dil mange more!

Though off-topic, thought it may help you for the first drive in the hills.