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-   -   Bangalore - Thiruvannamalai : Route Queries (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-travel-queries/31032-bangalore-thiruvannamalai-route-queries-9.html)

Morappur turn off is clearly marked at the Karimangalam bypass. It is not difficult to latch onto it from NH7. You can see signages clearly, if you miss spotting the easy option is to take the left at an intersection which is about a km from the starting point of the bypass, the right here comes from Karimangalam and the left goes to Morappur.

Ampere, thanks to polopm, I am taking this route to Tiruvannamalai this weekend.

Bangalore-Karimangalam-Morappur-Harur-Thanipadi-Tiruvannamalai.

Will update the timings when I get back

Will wait for your updates Gopi. Hopefully this turns to be a good option
for all of us. At the same giving us a good scenic route as well!

Ampere, here is the update on the alternate routes to Tiruvannamalai

Saturday morning:

Started from home : 6.00AM
Route: Bangalore-Karimangalam-Morappur-Harur-Thanipadi-Thiruvannamalai.
Driving time : 4 hrs 40 minutes
Total distance : 250kms (from my home in RRNagar)
Road conditions: Bangalore to Karimangalam (~120kms) - 4 lane smooth drive
Karimangalam to Morappur : Good road and drivable at 70 easily. ocassional pot holes, but not deep ones.
Morappur to harur : Excellent two lane smooth road
Harur to Thanippadi : Mostly excellent 2 lane smooth road until we hit tiruvannamalai district border. After that the road becomes rough with patches of occasional potholes. But easily drivable at 60~70km/hour and the potholes are not deep. So you wont hurt your tires badly even if you drive into one.

Sunday afternoon:

Started from Thiruvannamalai : 3.00PM
Route: Thiruvannamalai-Chengam-Singarapettai-Tirupathur-Bargur-Bangalore. I personally did not have preference to this route. But compulsion from in-laws telling that one of their relative traveled in this route recently and he said the road was good made me take this route.
Driving time : 5 hrs 45 minutes (Stuck at Attibele toll plaza for almost an hour due to diwali rush coming to buy crackers at Hosur)
Road conditions: Thiruvannamalai to Chengam - Mostly ok with ocassional potholes.
Chengam to Singarapettai : Good patches+Bad patches. The worst part is huge crater size potholes in good patches as well. These pot holes are killers because we tend to accelerate seeing a good patch and there you will have a huge pothole coming up all of a sudden in a good patch. Last August, I had the unfortunate event of bursting one of my GT3 Punto tyres in such a pothole. So I was very careful this time. But the drive became very slow and irritating.

Thanks to team bhp application in andriod phones, i remembered people mentioning alternate routes even when driving in this route. So stopped by the wayside and browsed through the section where Tirupattur Bargur route was suggested.
Singarapettai to Tirupattur : The first 15 kms were good. The last 20 kms is again pot hole ridden roads which will slow you down considerably. I found the potholes here are not that deep and can be handled if driven at about 50~60km/hr.
Tirupathur to Bargur : Excellent 2 lane smooth road. Once we cross Bargur, we will touch the Bangalore - Chennai 4-lane road and no issues after that.

Having driven both sides now, my preference for Tiruvannamalai drive is definitely Bangalore-Karimangalam-Morappur-Harur-Thanipadi-Thiruvannamalai until NH66 is resolved. Sparse traffic, good scenery and added attraction of Theerthamalai in this route. Theerthamalai is an old Shiva temple on a mountain enroute. There is a one km walk and 1000 feet climb to reach the temple from where you park the car. There are five perennial water sources in this temple which is believed to have medicinal value and curing powers. I was told the water here flows even during peak Tamilnadu summer. The local people beleive in this so much that we saw most of the crowd taking bath in the holy water and the shrine was empty. We had a peaceful darshan of the God.

I guess people driving to Pondicherry should still use the Kanchipuram-Chengalput road as they can maximize 4-lane driving. But for people visiting Tiruvannamalai, this is one good alternate route suggested by Polopm.

Perfect ! This is a investigative problem coming full circle!

- Problem found
- Solution solicited
- Solution Found
- Solution Validated!

Thanks Gopi. This definitely helps.

I am planning to visit Vellore Temple today evening. Starting from office (EC) at 2pm and reach temple by 7pm.

I need some advice on the accommodation at Vellore for overnight stay.

Planning to visit Tiruvannamalai, and then back to Bangalore by tomorrow evening. Please let me know if there is any place I can visit on the way to Bangalore from Tiruvannamalai.

I stayed at hotel riverview an year ago. 1000 rs a night and decent. Its just next to the highway.

Sorry to see this Post :Frustrati

1st Nov I started journey from Bangalore, I say a Big NOOOOO to the usual NH66, 90KM stretch from Krishnagiri it was a horrific experience.

While returning I took the below route. Only 10Km with bad stretch small pothole only. Though it was 80Km extra compare to NH66 still its worth as the Fuel and the time is same.

Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India to NH 46 - Google Maps

Sorry for the late update. please:

I did Tiruvannamalai to Krishnagiri a couple of weeks back. Man Oh! Man, what a road (no road) it was :Shockked:

Mom, Dad and wify all were horrified, thought I would have to shell out in lakhs to get my car running again. Took 4 hours for 90km (No fifth gear at all). Never seen a road like this. To make the experience worse I drove in the dark.

But I am very happy with my Indigo, even after all that beeting it took, I was able to cover Krishnagiri to Bangalore in 1 hour 15 min.

I know road was bad, hence enquired with locals and some cab drivers but everyone were suggesting this route, no one was aware of any alternate route there. A detailed (I mean detailed.....) report on the alternate route by anyone on the forum would help many people.

I did BLR-Tiruvannamalai-BLR on 10th November. Really bad roads, :Frustrati

Started @ Hosur : 4 pm
Reached Tiruvannamalai : 9 pm (without break)

.. did this route yesterday from blore to theerthamalai :
Karimangalam to marappur : badly potholed (rains) for first 15 km, after that mostly smooth but occasional potholes
Morappur to harur : very good, not excellent (rains, again)
After harur, the route to take to theerthamalai-thanipadi-tiruvannamalai is a left fork after a small bridge (the right fork goes to sitheri). Now, this left fork is having some bridge construction/repair. So you have to take the sitheri fork, pass through some horrible village roads (narrow already + width halved due to pipeline work + potholes + opposite direction lorries).
Until the repair/construction is complete, the only way (for less damage to car and for less time), take the SH18 towards tiruppathur (counter-intuitive, since this goes in reverse direction in which you arrived from morappur to harur), then take right at 'hanumantheertham' and move to theerthamalai (or further down to thiruvannamalai through poyappatti. this is much smoother.

A couple of points here:
1) For 4L to 6L upgradation, they removed the previously existent board on LHS and has placed it on the RHS where the 2L road starts. In fact, if you observe RHS carefully, after about 15 kms from Krishnagiri, you will see this board. The junction is actually a Y fork where 4L goes left and the 2L exit road to Bargur goes right.
2) If you are not comfortable looking at RHS on those exit roads while driving, after about 15 kms from Krishnagiri, look for this junction with a big green OVERHEAD board that says Ambur=51 kms and SriPerumPadur=194 kms. I am not 100% sure about the number "194" for the distance for the latter though.

Bonus point :-) There is a slight upward gradient just before the junction and a "Thillai Thirumanam Hall" on your LHS.

If Tiruvannamalai is the target, I would now prefer the
Karimangalam-Harur option. The roads as mentioned by @polopm
seems to be very good.

As regards to spotting the exit, I always drive with the GPS. And if
I plan for an exit at a point, I would have marked a nearby point as a "waypoint" on the GPS and then
become cautious around that region.

Am taking this route tomorrow and I DONT have a GPS. Hope the routes are okay! :D

I looked at the Google maps. Karimangalam has a bypass whose startpoint is about 22km from Chennai diversion at Krishnagiri.
That should be serve as a good metric.

Last update was by Polopm. You may want to check with him as well.
At Karimangalam you should also for Morappur or Harur road for people to give you the directions.