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I too took this route on my way back from Perumbavur last Sunday (24/4). Between Idappady and Tharamangalam, there are two routes:



I took the blue-coloured route (though I think we are supposed to take the grey-coloured one). This is a much-narrower (but in good condition) road with near-zero traffic.

Another deviation I took was Thrissur-Vazhakode-Pazhayannur-Alathur, to avoid the Kuthiran mess. It was early in the morning so not stressful at all, but the route seemed quite longer.

Stopped at a Saravana Bhavan in Kanjikkode for breakfast; didn't have great food or great restrooms. The logo looked like that of the Chennai chain, but probably was a copy. Lunch was at A2B near Dharmapuri where they now do at-table service (my impression is that the place used to be self-service in the past).

Took the right turn at Hosur towards Bagalur. It is a very well maintained road. After the left turn at Bagalur and crossing into KA some issues started. Sarjapur town had a bit of traffic, and the stretch between Decathlon and Kaikondrahalli has several speed breakers that were tough for me to negotiate (in one case I had to reverse and try some stunts while a truck waited patiently behind me). Finally reached Bellandur and home after about 11 hours of driving (545 km, about 2 hours of breaks).

Yes, I took the Grey colored one. At the place where you need to turn left onto SH86, it is a 4 road junction with a small roundabout.

Yes, we stopped here too and the at-table service was a first time at this place for us. The snacks were decent, we stopped around 4pm and the place wasn't crowded. But this place is avoidable when crowds are more as it gets very dirty. This time, even the restrooms were decent :)

Hotel Saravana Bhavan (HSB) of Chennai does not have any chains outside of Chennai besides Kanchipuram and Vellore. The ones that you see near Sankari toll and near Salem belong to different groups. Not sure about this Kanjikkode one - could be a case of plagiarism cashing in on the popularity of the name.

The Thoppur A2B always had waiting service IIRC, could be one of the odd days when their workforce didn't show up!

There seems to be way too many Saravana Bhavans in the route these days. We generally try to check the logo of any Saravana Bhavan to see if it matches the one at Vaigundam (Salem Dt.). From what I understand all the Saravana Bhavans in KL are operated by another group. They also seems to have some food joints near Angamali, Alwaye etc. (EKM Dt.). And even the Vaigundam Saravana Bhavan do not look as a part of the "Hotel Saravan Bhavan" @ Chennai.
I now avoid this place 99.99% after a series of mis-adventures here. The whole ambience kinds of sucks!! The waiters seems to be in their own fantasy world, and the general ambience is that of a refugee camp. To be frank, the staff attitude and the general ambience reminds me of the Kerala SRTC.

Came back to say: The Saravana Bhavan @ Vaikuntam - is Sree Saravana Bhavan and seems to be managed by a different group.

Indeed. I was taken in by the HSB logo this guy had. The thing is, and I noticed this after our breakfast stop, this logo actually has HSSB in a similar arrangement (Hotel Sree Saravana Bhavan).

This is the original's logo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...o_saravana.jpg

Between Perumbavur and Chalakkudi, I think we noticed 3-4 Saravana Bhavans. :-)

+1 - For the past 5 years or so, A2B both in Krishnagiri and Thoppur have been consistent in badly maintained rest rooms. Water seems to be in scarcity almost always. I personally don't like A2B after umpteen attempts to make peace with it's ambiance and lack of cleanliness. In Bangalore - Salem - Coimbatore route, for highway side rest rooms and refreshments, Shoolagiri Fleurs (in the McDonald's complex), Salem-Vaigundam Sree Saravana Bhavan, Hotel Annalakshmi near Chengappalli byepass, a new Saravana Bhavan (not sure of the exact group) before Salem and any restaurant hosted in the Reliance Fuel Pump complexes seem to be better. I must be forgetting a few other options as well. I have seen Kamath and Gowrishankar in this route inside Reliance Fuel Pump facilities.

Did a trip through Bangalore-Mysore-Gundalpet-Gudallur-Nilampur. Good route except the stretch after Mysore, as everyone said it is a Work In Progress section. And Gudalur is a really crowded small town. Better take this route before summer start, greenery will be much better and more beautiful. May be wise to avoid during rainy season. Even in this summer we saw a few trees fell down on the road, so in rainy season this issue might be severe with land slide. Nadughani ghat road is really beautiful to drive, it is a long long descent without hairpin bends. Also witnessed some careless overtaking in the Nadughani ghat road, one XUV500 was about to go down the road side canal. Also got a chance to see the wild fire while climbing down the ghat road. Fire was raging in the upper hills.

Came in paper today. Could not find an English link. Basically talks about bandit groups getting active again in the Mysore-Virajpet stretch which is the standard route to Kannur side and also used a lot by travellers headed to wayanad/Calicut side as this is the only route open at night ( via gonikoppal-kutta). Mentions 2 incidents that happened on the gonikkopal-virajpet stretch. One was an attempt to stop by throwing stones. Another was an attempt to throw chilli powder in the pretext of asking for directions. Both happened late at night. There was a gang said to be operating earlier and had been nabbed.

Again?? Gosh, that is scary. And the second incident happened at 8 PM which by no means is late night! That's even more scary, knowing these goons are active even at that early hour of the night.
Hopefully the police can keep a vigil now on and nab the culprits ASAP.

EDIT: Sorry, it was 1 AM not 8 PM. So these attempts happen typically at midnight or after that.

There is much more to it. In the previous case, it was that two small time business men were way laid in this area and money stolen. When the police was forced to investigate, it was also revealed that some of the police men of Mysore Dt. Police were actively involved in this. They got regular share of the looted money. Secondly, the criminal gang had ear-marked the two businessmen from Bangalore itself. The other side of the story is that this route is quite a popular route for hawala money carriers. This being all unaccounted money, the carriers would not be able to complain to the police. Criminal gangs know this and they target these people. In the case of the businessmen who complained, they had genuine accounted money, could prove their sources and this also made their complaint very sound. Police was forced to take action on the complaint.

With these kind of incidents I lost faith in Mysore Police, and my suggestion for the usual travellers would be to go as a group (or as a convoy) and try to avoid real late night travels. These criminal gangs seems to have enough and more local support and connivance.

Damn! Just as I was making plans for a trip on that route, this news comes as a shocker. And I had seen this same Innova in Bangalore a couple of days ago. Maybe it's time to invest in pepper-sprays and the like, as I don't have high hopes on the law enforcers, going by the way these things happen. There were reports of KSRTC buses plying between Mysore/Bangalore and northern Malabar regions being regularly targeted by miscreants on this route.

Hope someone higher up takes control of the situation and books these thugs.

I don't do late-night travels, but if I have to I will consider Bangalore-Salem-Palakkad-Calicut, which I think can be done in 9 hours non-stop.

Posting this on behalf of my friend,

Has any one taken the below route recently? If so, how is the road condition and how much time does it take? (approx)

Dindigul - Batlagundu - Theni - Bodinayakanur - Konnathady(Kerala). He is driving from bangalore.

There is a report in today's Mathrubhumi that 3 people were arrested for this.

The road till Pooppara is the NH49 which is in good shape. I had travelled on the Pooppara-Rajakkad section about a year or so back, and the road was quite decent then. Have never taken the Rajakkad-Adimaly road via Kallarkutty (which he'd probably need take to go to Konnathady), so not sure of how the section after Rajakkad is. (Actually I did travel from Adimaly to Pooppara on that trip, but took the Adimaly-Anaviratty-Anachal-Kunchithanny-Rajakkad-Pooppara route instead of the route via Kallarkutty since local information received on enquiry at Adimaly was that the latter route wasn't in the best of conditions).

You could perhaps get a more recent update by sending a PM to someone who attended the Team-BHP meet at Rajakkad held last month (http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/team-b...ch-2016-a.html)