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Hi,

I need to do a trip to salem tommorrow and want to make a choice of route between

1. Bangalore -> hosur -> krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Salem
2. Bangalore - > Hosur -> Palakodu -> Dharmapuri -> Salem

I find that if I take the first route the krishnagiri to Dharmapuri section is usually a lottery, good now and bad now.

I also find that if I take the second route, there are chances of finding the hosur to Dharmapuri section packed with trucks and also some broken road.

Need your suggestions on which route to take. I'll start my travel tomm by 4:00 PM. I'll be driving my good old WagonR with full load.

Regards,

LS Jeyaraman

Simply Take Route1, it is the best and fastest...

Hosur - Rayakottai - Palakodu is not the best of the shapes and the drive will be slow...You should do in 3 hours without breaks...

Abhi

The first Route is the best for you, except for a few stretches near Dharmapuri, the road is great. (They are repairing the road in that area)

Thanks guys. Will update on the route once I return back

lsjey

Road from Dharmapuri - Salem are bad. Its 60 odd kms from Dharmapuri to Salem.

4 lane conversion is going on from Krishnagiri to Salem. Expect lack of shoulders, construction work, bottleneckes and excellent potholes !!!

The section from Dharmapuri - Thoppur ghat section is really bad. Also the section from just after Thoppur ghat section till another 20 kms is also bad. After that you get 20 kms of great 4 lane road.

Avoid driving at night time. The buses will force you into the potholes. Also avoid overtaking if possible. You will hit potholes on the other side of the road.

Hi,
I have heard 1st route has 10kms bad stretch after Kaveripattinam

The 2nd route I took on Diwali weekend. The road is good over all but you need to watch out for bad stretches last for 100 or 200mts in between especially near the villages/towns. Also watch out for few potholes during the turns. There are lot of potholes in both sides.

Dharmapuri by-pass route (where all Lorry traffic diverted) around 10kms. Centre portion is good.

Overall I liked this route because I need not to deal with the heavy traffic Kgiri route and I am not a fan of fast driving beyond 100kmph so this route is fine. If you want to drive faster you will enjoy Kgiri route. I could cover Hosur to Thoppur in 2 hours.

Road before and after Thoppur for around 10kms is at is worst

Thanks for the updates guys. Looks like it is a hobson's choice. Anyways the road between dharmapuri and salem is going to be pretty bad.....

Will keep you all posted.

lsjey

All,

Thanks to your updates, I postponed the trip to the next day and started off early 4:00 AM. I feel that this is the ideal time to get out of Blr. Less traffic and open roads.

By the time I reached Krishnagiri and some bad roads It was daylight. I suggest strongly that donot do the Krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Salem section in the nights. It can be pretty dangerous. The morons who drive the govt buses and the Private buses drive as if the road belongs to them. It is totally unsafe.

While I took the first route on the way to salem, I took the second one to return.

This route between Dharmapuri -> Palakodu -> Royakottai -> hosur is very good. There are lots of tamarind and banyan trees lining up the road sides. Stopped quite a few times to pluck some tamarind (about 2 kgs). Also kids palyed around inthe banyan trees. Do watch out for some pot holes. I would not recommend for night drives again. Also one cannot do more than 80 KMPH in these roads. But traffic is very less and drive will be more enjoyable.

Logged about 470 KMs for the whole trip with my Wagon R giving me a mileage of approx 19 KMPL with out AC.

On the return leg started about 11:00 AM from salem and reached home around 5:30 PM. It took so long because of the frequent breaks.

Ciao
lsjey

Bumping this thread! How are the roads between Bangalore and Salem now? Which is the most optimum route - considering I need to dash down there, do a few hours of work and get back to Bangalore by night fall?!

Lane work almost completed. No issues but for some small patches.
The road is in an amazing shape. This was some 3-4 months back per my experience.

Bangalore -> hosur -> krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Salem - I guess you're talking about this route?

I can confirm, this road is in very good shape. Almost all the work is done and one should be able to zoom to Salem within 3-4 hrs.

Sorry yes I meant the NH7 route only. Thanks for correction.

Also at the far end of Bangalore -> Salem route (don't know exactly where), I there is a Adyar Anand Bhavan as well. I guess this after Dharmapuri.

If you dont feel like stopping at the first one, you can plan for this stop as well.

This is great news. So if I leave by about a sane 7 am in the morning - do a quick 3-4 hour meeting, then I should be able to get back into Bangalore by nightfall.