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I am not sure if you would enjoy the drive part. May be till Sathyamangalam yes. But for that you are snaking your route quite a bit. Any way you would be driving to Munnar.



4AM on the road! But note after 6/6:30 the 4-lane is quite till Hosur/Krishnagiri, should you chose to go that way.


I have not seen any major places past Palladam on the Dharapuram/Dindigul route. You may get some road side hotels.

There are plenty. But you should check, which one has a parking. Getting a hotel with parking is difficult.

In that case may be you can think of taking Sathyamangalam (NH209) on way back from Munnar. I would agree with you that it is a scenic route, however as Ampere mentioned in previous post taking that route for onward journey will delay your arrival at Madurai.

Bangalore- Salem is manageable in around 3.30 hrs even if you start around 6 AM. From Salem it is around 200 Kms to Madurai, even if it takes 4 hours you will be reaching Madurai in 8 hours including a breaks.

Though it is many years since I stayed there I have seen good review about Newcollegehouse also. Guess it will be easier to park car at hotel and take auto to temple due to parking constraints.

We started around 8.50 AM or so from our hotel in Munnar and was able to reach our home near Marathahalli by 7.30 PM after stopping at Lakkam falls, Muniyara and for lunch.

Lakkam falls is next to road so will not take much time, you need to get a ticket to get near the falls. There is a shop and toilets near the falls ticket counter.
Muniyara as I mentioned in earlier post is around 2 Kms from Munnar - Udumelpetai road. This is soon after Marayoor town when coming from Munnar. You need to take right once you reach IOC bunk. Once you drive down on that road for around 2 KMs you will see a sign board in English on your left.

For hotels on NH 47 Annapoorna near Perandurai is also a good option https://plus.google.com/111313874409...59/about?hl=en

Thanks @ampere and @mpksuhas.

So, to re-plan the route:

Onward journey would be: BLR -> Salem -> Madurai -- (halt) --> Munnar
and the return journey would be: Munnar -> Udumalaipettai -> Sathyamangalam -> BLR?

That makes a lot of sense.

Munnar-Udumalpet-Palladam-Karumathampatti-Annur-Sathyamangalam-Kollegal-Mallavali-Kanakpura-Bangalore.

How good was the road between Thekkady and Munnar? The coming week I am taking Theni-Cumbum-Pooppara route to
Club Mahindra Munnar.

Cheers

Just got back from a 3 day trip to Munnar.

Thanks to kala, who gave me a good idea about NH 209, I decided to take that route. I drove my Innova Diesel.

The route I took was (for both the journeys):
Uttarahalli->Kanakapura->Kollegala->Chamrajnaraga->Sathyamangalam->Puliyampatti->Avinashi->Palladam-> Udumapalaipetai->Chinnar->Maraiyoor->Munnar

The total distance from my house to Munnar town was 440kms.

I started from my house at 5:45am, reached Udumalaipetai around 1:15, reached Munnar around 5pm (Break at Kollegala for breakfast, at Bannari to visit the Banari Mariyamman temple and at Udumalaipetai for lunch)

Way back, started at Munnar at 8:15am, reached Udumalipet at 11:00 o clock, stopped at Bannari to have lunch and then briefly at Kollegala for coffee. Reached Nice Road Kanakapura junction at 6:15pm

Road surface is good throughout except in one place, around 6 kms after Avinashi. Here there is a flyover work going on and there are no signs to tell you how to get to the main road. You need to ask locals as you will have to go through some mud roads. So try not to go late in the evening here. This is between Avinashi and Palladam. Otherwise the roads are good.

On way back there was heavy traffic from Kanakapura onwards and with slow lorries and traffic flowing from other side, overtaking options were limited and I had a tough time keeping an average of 40km / hr

Saw some deer during the onward journey through Chinnar. On way back sighted a gaur. Saw elephants in close quarters on way to the Echo point and Top point.

I had taken this route two weeks back. My overnight stay was in Thekkady and I was travelling to Munnar via Idukki since the dam is open for public till 20th Oct (If possible do visit the place).
Road condition around Thekkady is bad. However SH to Kattapana is in good condition and so is Kattapana - Idukki road.
Road from Idukki - Munnar is in bad shape. It took me around 2.5 hrs to cover some 50 km's.

However I heard this route between Thekkady and Munnar is in good condition.

Hi All,

I'm visiting Palani and Munnar on 15th Nov 2013. For my onward journey, I'll be driving to Munnar from Palani side. So I'll have to take the Udumalpet - Marayoor - Munnar route.
But my return journey would be directly to Bangalore. Can anyone kindly suggest which would be a better option out of the below routes:
1. Munnar - Marayoor - Udumalpet - Dharapuram - Karur - Salem - Bangalore
2. Munnar - Chinnakanal - Theni - Periyakulam - Batlagundu - Dindigul - Salem - Bangalore.
I would not mind taking slightly longer route for better roads.

I think take the same Udumalpet route on the way back. Because Theni-Munnar may be going through repairs. So many folks were asked to take a different route. Do confirm on that aspect, if you choose to drive via Theni.

I drove via Theni till Sabarimala few days back and can comment on road conditions from Theni to Bangalore. Not sure about Munnar-Theni stretch.

Theni-Dindigul :
The road passing through the towns like Theni, Periyakulam, Batlagundu are bad. So, watch out and drive slow inside towns even if it's in night.

Otherwise, The road condition is in good in most of the stretches but lookout for nasty potholes here and there esp last 10 kms towards Dindigul. You can easily maintain 60-70 km/hr.

Dindigul-Krishnagiri: Very good stretch. No problems.

Krishnagiri-Bangalore: Road work in progress in few stretches adding to the Chennai traffic that joins at Krishnagiri. This will slow you down but can maintain decent speed here.

Thank you ampere and nfsfreak. Your inputs helped me a lot for sure. I'll better stick to Munnar - Udumalpet - Dharapuram - Salem route.

I just took the Salem-Dindigul-Theni-Cumbum-Munnar route; the cumbum-munnar route is bad. Unfortunately I can not compare that with anything. Dindigul-Theni route is not bad; yes you can not do speed; Then-Cumbum road is fine.

Cheers

Did you really take the Cumbum-Cumbummettu ghat section and go through Nedumkandam to Munnar without touching Kumily ? Very adventurous I must say, because I don't recall seeing any reports about this road in any forum in the recent past, and some of roads in the high ranges are strictly 4WD category, and narrow as well - so reversing if you come to a bottleneck can be difficult. (And relying on opinions of locals can sometimes be dangerous too - they would be used to going on those roads on jeeps, and so may say that you can pass through easily !)

Did you have to go via Cumbum because the Theni-Bodinaykkannur-Munnar road was closed ?

Yes Theni-Bodi-Bodimettu-chinnakanal road is open only before 8am and after 6pm. we had NO choice. Then as I reported in the forum it still rains in Munnar (at least 2 of the 3 days we stayed) and it did on 24th Oct. So, I called for a driver from Chinnakanal (very good one; when anyone needs one PM me) to Cumbum; he was new to Duster (had driven jeeps and Logan though); even with him Cumbummmettu, Nedumkandam, Pooppara, Chinnakanal with rains and failing light was a bad idea :( Starting at about 1.30pm from Cumbum could reach Club Mahindra only around 5.30pm. Only after we reached, next day we got to know that 4 elephants had split from the herd and were all over the place spoiling any plans of trekking for next 2 days as well! Also the cumbummettu-nedumkandam road is v poor - huge pot holes, narrow and too steep for my comfort at least.

On Theni-Bodinaikanaur-Bodimettu- chinnakanal-Devikulam-Munnar road, it may not ready for 6 months or so except as in restricted time according to Theni locals. So, BHPians should continue to explore other options unless someone is in search of serious adventure.

Cheers

Hey waxeloquent,
Thank you for the pointer about hiring driver at munnar. Im driving to munnar next month and can surely use this information. Can you please share the contact info? I tried sending PM but for some reason it says you have blocked pms.
I might hire from munnar to udumalpet.
Thanks