[deehunk]

Hi, TTechie, you do have only decent options in Mantralayam, even the reviews are not consistent about the hotels here, so cannot suggest any of them. I would suggest you stay in Kurnool or find accommodation offered by the temple. Wish you a good darshan of Raghavendra Swamy.

[rajivtelang]

When in Mantralaya, making a stay in temple accommodation is better than any of the lodges around. The newly constructed SVN is a good temple accommodation with 200 rooms. I always prefer that. Else there are couple others (DVG, SVG) with AC rooms as well.

[TorqueyTechie]

Went and came back to mantralayam. I started on saturday around 4:30 AM in the morning and reached mantralayam at 10:30 with a breakfast break of 1 hour. Took the Veldhurti route while going instead of Adoni. Good roads all the way barring around 10 km stretch which goes inside some village.

Sunday I had to go to Manvi. Had heard from locals that the route was not so great so was little apprehensive. But when I asked a petrol bunk attendant, he suggested an alternate route which he said was recently tarred. I took his suggestion even though it added close to 30 mins more to my journey. While retuning google suggested the regular route and I took a chance. Even this route was recently tarred. People who like to ride/drive both these routes offer best riding/driving pleasure. Mostly arrow straight roads with few curves thrown in and absolutely no traffic.

Returning took the route via Adoni. Though the route is good it takes toll with lot of marked/unmarked speed breakers. Started at around 1:30 from Manvi and returned home by 9 pm ( 45 mins coffee break + traffic jam from palace ground until race course road).

Suggested route : BLR->Veldurthi->Kodumur->Yammiganur->Mantralayam route ( Less speed breakers compared to Adoni)
Break at Blue moon highway food court : Nice and clean restaurant. Not much options to eat but clean restrooms.
Stay : I unfortunately didnt get to stay at any of the temple accomodation as being the Akshay trithiya weekend all were booked. So I had to make do with staying at some hotel which was not so great.

Thanks CarguyNish and Deehunk for the suggestions.

[RapidRavi]

Visited Mantralayam over the last weekend covering Gandikota.

Onward:Route covering Bangalore-Gorantla-Kadri-Gandikota. Overall the roads are good with most of them being single lane. Be careful as there are too many unmarked speed breakers before small villages. Left Bangalore at 4.30am to reach Gandikota around 10 am. Left Gandikota after early lunch at Harita restaurant around 12.30 pm.Took Gandikota-Gooty-Adoni-Yeminganaur-Mantralayam route and reached Mantralayam by 4.30 pm.

Return: After temple visit on next day. Left Mantralayam at 2.30 pm and took the Adoni-Gooty route. Reached home around 10.30 pm with extended 1hr dinner break on Airport road.

The roads from Gooty to Adoni has many undulations with patches relaid. This reduces your speed below 80 KMPH. After Adoni, you have all new NH with smooth surface till Mantralayam.

[rajivtelang]

Planning for Mantralayam visit in early September. As usual will take the Veldurthi road since it is the fastest. Any updates on the same are appreciated.

Are there any bad patches or road conditions due to rainy season?

[yatin]

Completed a Bangalore-Mantralayam-Bangalore trip over the "auto GST cess mess" week-end, Sep 9th. Roads are quite fine throughout; I was doing 60-70 kmph at night even between the frequent broken patches on the Gooty-Adoni stretch, while the NH toll roads till Gooty are anyway easily 90-110 kmph type roads. From Bangalore outskirts (Hebbal), it was an easy 6.5 hours driving time.

[pranxter]

@yatin what route did you take and hope there are enough petrol bunks on the route, asking because are planning to go to Hampi after visiting Mantralayam.

Any tips welcome! We have planning our drive on last week of September

[rajivtelang]

This is bit off road since I am going to Mantralayam from Tirupathi with an overnight halt at Nandyal.

Does anybody have an idea of below two routes to reach Mantralayam from Nandyal.
1. Bangalore - Tirupathi - Nandyal - Kurnool - Kodumur - Mantralayam
2. Bangalore - Tirupathi - Nandyal - Veldurthi - Kodumur - Mantralayam

I am a frequent traveler via Bangalore-Veldurthi road for Mantralayam but this time there is a slight change in the route. The distance difference is hardly 10kms between the above two. Considering the bigger roads, going towards Kurnool and then to Kodumur seems to be a logical approach but road conditions matter a lot since will be with 5 adults and 2 kids.

Mods: Please move this posting to appropriate thread since there is none between Tirupathi and Mantralayam.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by rajivtelang

This is bit off road since I am going to Mantralayam from Tirupathi with an overnight halt at Nandyal.

Is Nandyal a must stop? Because if not, then you can do:

Pileru-Madanapalle-Kadiri-Anantpur-Gooty-Adoni-Yamminganur-Mantralayam.

[rajivtelang]

Originally Posted by ampere

Is Nandyal a must stop? Because if not, then you can do:

Pileru-Madanapalle-Kadiri-Anantpur-Gooty-Adoni-Yamminganur-Mantralayam.

How about the road condition between Tirupathi and Anantapur? I am very well aware of roads from Anantapur to Mantralayam. This initial Tirupathi to Ananatapur road is only an unknown for me.
I can make an overnight stay at Anantapur.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by rajivtelang

How about the road condition between Tirupathi and Anantapur? I am very well aware of roads from Anantapur to Mantralayam. This initial Tirupathi to Ananatapur road is only an unknown for me.
I can make an overnight stay at Anantapur.

Tirupati-Pileru-Madanapalle is good 2-lane. I know some folks who traveled last month from Tirupati to Bangalore via this stretch.

Madanapalle-Kadiri-Anantpur : I am not fully aware of the current condition. But last I read it was good. But lets also confirm with others.

Overall I think it should be OK. But I would not advise night travels on these roads.

[rajivtelang]

Originally Posted by ampere

Tirupati-Pileru-Madanapalle is good 2-lane. I know some folks who traveled last month from Tirupati to Bangalore via this stretch.

Madanapalle-Kadiri-Anantpur : I am not fully aware of the current condition. But last I read it was good. But lets also confirm with others.

Overall I think it should be OK. But I would not advise night travels on these roads.

Just checked some roads via google maps and found that there is a toll for roads between Tirupathi to Nandyal via Kadapa. Now that means roads are indeed good since they feel to collect money for the usage.
Again from Nandyal I can go upto Kurnool and then take the Kodumur road and then reach Mantralaya. Overall this seems to be a better deal compared to Kadiri- Anantpur road which could be slower and of course it is around 40-45KM longer.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by rajivtelang

Again from Nandyal I can go upto Kurnool and then take the Kodumur road and then reach Mantralaya. Overall this seems to be a better deal compared to Kadiri- Anantpur road which could be slower and of course it is around 40-45KM longer.

Oh yes! If you see updates from @mobike about Tirupati-Kurnool-Hyd; he was all praise for this stretch. Most of the 4-lane work is progressing very well.

[pranxter]

Went to Mantralaya on 28th September and took the following route:

Veldurthi-Laddagiri-Kodumur-Yemmiganur route as suggested by many BHPians and honestly I wouldn't have taken this trip if not for tips provided here . The NH till veldurthi is in excellent condition and thereafter its a single narrow lane road for most of the journey till you come across a toll gate (still under construction) very close to mantralaya, which has median.

We left from home in Rajajinagar about 7.30 am and reached mantralaya at 1.40 pm with a breakfast stop at Kamath Nandi and Bluemoon. Both hotels are good and have clean rest rooms.

Since it was holiday weekend and my first time there, decided to book a room at hotel pankaja paradise in advance. Room was below average with water leaks! The food at hotels surrounding was not that good. Enjoyed the Vangibath and curd rice at temple though.

If you are planning to visit mantralaya, my suggestion is not to stay overnight. We went to hampi from there and relied on Google Maps. Some part of the route almost scared me. Also, download the maps for offline navigation as mobile coverage is poor at some parts

[rajivtelang]

Visited to Mantralaya via Bangalore-Tirupati and have posted details on the Hyderabad Tirupathi thread. Posting summary here.

Bangalore-Tirumala-Mantralaya: (~770KM)

Bangalore-Tirumala: (20th October)
Good roads till K'nataka border, but becomes a 2 lanes after that.

Tirumala-Kadapa: (21st October)
Excellent 2 lane road with pretty wide lanes, very low traffic until few kilometers before Kadapa, random and sudden speedbreakers, a plenty of them.

Kadapa-Nandyal: (21st October)
Excellent 4 lane road (NH40, tolled but very nominal yet, since the road is not fully completed), very bad roads in Nandyal. Overnight stay at Nandyal.

Nandyal-Mantralaya: (22nd October)
Kurnool bypass is complete. Reached Kunrnool and took the Kodumur road from there. At Kodumur took the usual Yemmiganur-Mantralayam road. Reached at 12PM.

Mantralaya-Bangalore: (23rd October ~425KM)
Usual Mantralaya-Veldurthi-Bangalore road (NH-7), with excellent condition. Started at 11.30AM and reached Bangalore by 8.00PM.