[SILVERWOOD]

Guys,

I am planning to drive down to Hyderabad on Wednesday evening (30th )in my Trooper.

Let me know if anyone wants to tag along.

Waseem.

[arun_josie]

I will be driving down to Hyderabad tomorrow, plan is to start around 1:00PM from Bannerghatta Road.

- Any new place for a pit stop on this route? especially around Kurnool?
- I am aware about some speed breakers around devanahalli, anything after this till hyderabad?
- Hyderabad ORR is open 24hrs for traffic? Couple of years back I was told that it is closed between 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM. During my return journey I will be starting early morning and hence would like to have this information

[racer_ash]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

I will be driving down to Hyderabad tomorrow, plan is to start around 1:00PM from Bannerghatta Road.

- Any new place for a pit stop on this route? especially around Kurnool?
- I am aware about some speed breakers around devanahalli, anything after this till hyderabad?
- Hyderabad ORR is open 24hrs for traffic? Couple of years back I was told that it is closed between 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM. During my return journey I will be starting early morning and hence would like to have this information

I drove this route in the month of Feb this year and AFAIK, except for some Dhabas, there are no decent options for food near Kurnool. I remember seeing a CCD (will come to your right) near Jadcherla though.

There were some barricades and speed breakers all the way till Ananthapur. So better watch out for these till Ananthapur atleast.

Hyderabad ORR is open 24X7 except on days like New year etc. No issues.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

- Any new place for a pit stop on this route? especially around Kurnool?

Not on the highway, but you have hotel DVR Mansion in Kurnool town. One of BHP meets also happened in there.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/team-b...ml#post3076492

You can keep that as a back-up.

[SILVERWOOD]

Originally Posted by ampere

Not on the highway, but you have hotel DVR Mansion in Kurnool town. One of BHP meets also happened in there.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/team-b...ml#post3076492

You can keep that as a back-up.

IIRC, Arun was a part of that meet.

Waseem.

[IUNKWN]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

I will be driving down to Hyderabad tomorrow, plan is to start around 1:00PM from Bannerghatta Road.

- Any new place for a pit stop on this route? especially around Kurnool?
- I am aware about some speed breakers around devanahalli, anything after this till hyderabad?
- Hyderabad ORR is open 24hrs for traffic? Couple of years back I was told that it is closed between 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM. During my return journey I will be starting early morning and hence would like to have this information

You don't need to enter Kurnool town, just before the kurnool toll plaza, you have two decent restaurant, serving good food and have ok kind of washrooms. Just don't cross the toll, take a u turn to reach the other side. There is a huge gap in median.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by ampere

Not on the highway, but you have hotel DVR Mansion in Kurnool town. One of BHP meets also happened in there.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/team-b...ml#post3076492

You can keep that as a back-up.

Yes, I was part of that tbhp meet. I was basically looking on the highway

Originally Posted by SILVERWOOD

IIRC, Arun was a part of that meet.

Waseem.

Thanks for remembering me , Waseem. I think that was the only time we met and its long time now. Would love to have a repeat of this meet

Originally Posted by racer_ash

Hyderabad ORR is open 24X7 except on days like New year etc. No issues.

Thanks, racer_ash

Originally Posted by IUNKWN

You don't need to enter Kurnool town, just before the kurnool toll plaza, you have two decent restaurant, serving good food and have ok kind of washrooms. Just don't cross the toll, take a u turn to reach the other side. There is a huge gap in median.

Sure, will keep this in mind.

[ak916]

Just did a BLR- HYD - BLR over the last 3-4 days. Road condition is the same. The BLR police jurisdiction seems to have changed or something. They now have a interceptor placed on the turn off towards Nandi-hills. If you are coming from Chikballapur, you will probably find them tracking your speeds and stop you at the speed breaker that is there at that turn.

The KIAL road toll is 75 Rs and is absolutely not worth it. It is the most frustrating 75Rs you will ever pay.

I drove through the night as usual and there seem to be literally, 100s of petrol bunks open during the night, particularly around Gooty and Kurnool.

There is no violence or trouble enroute. Food options are extremely limited. We eat at Kamat, Chikballapur while going towards HYD. While coming back, we parcel something from one of the Paradise takeaways and stop at a tollgate to eat.

[racer_ash]

Was caught in a huge traffic pile-up on my way back to Hyderabad on Tuesday. There is a stretch in Kurnool where only one side of the road is open for traffic. There was a trailer lorry that somehow stopped covering the whole of the road which resulted in a huge pile-up. It took close to 90 minutes to break free from the traffic jam with tempers running high all around. This was around 8pm.

[roxor87]

Hey Guys,

I am going to Banglore tomorrow to meet my school buddy. This is the first time I will be driving on a Highway. I have no idea as to what route to take so I am planning to use google maps. Can you please suggest me the preferable route and best possible time to start from Hyderabad? My destination point is KR Puram (near by White Field). My school friend doesn't know I am coming. It will be a huge surprise for him. I am in no hurry but want to reach Banglore at least by 15th evening. One more thing that is worth mentioning is the car i am going to drive has a malfunctioning AC. So I guess I have to avoid the afternoons.

As this is my first Highway journey with self driving, I would really appreciate any valuable suggestions for a novice (or rather first time) highway driver like me
Thank You

[ranjitp1]

Originally Posted by roxor87

Hey Guys,

I am going to Banglore tomorrow to meet my school buddy. This is the first time I will be driving on a Highway. I have no idea as to what route to take so I am planning to use google maps. Can you please suggest me the preferable route and best possible time to start from Hyderabad? My destination point is KR Puram (near by White Field). My school friend doesn't know I am coming. It will be a huge surprise for him. I am in no hurry but want to reach Banglore at least by 15th evening. One more thing that is worth mentioning is the car i am going to drive has a malfunctioning AC. So I guess I have to avoid the afternoons.

As this is my first Highway journey with self driving, I would really appreciate any valuable suggestions for a novice (or rather first time) highway driver like me

Thank You

How did your drive go.Its a straight forward drive and this thread has dissected every possible info on this stretch,almost like a Dummies Reference for BLR-HYD road travellers!

[vina]

Originally Posted by roxor87

Hey Guys,

I am going to Banglore tomorrow to meet my school buddy. This is the first time I will be driving on a Highway. I have no idea as to what route to take so I am planning to use google maps. Can you please suggest me the preferable route and best possible time to start from Hyderabad? My destination point is KR Puram (near by White Field). My school friend doesn't know I am coming. It will be a huge surprise for him. I am in no hurry but want to reach Banglore at least by 15th evening. One more thing that is worth mentioning is the car i am going to drive has a malfunctioning AC. So I guess I have to avoid the afternoons.

As this is my first Highway journey with self driving, I would really appreciate any valuable suggestions for a novice (or rather first time) highway driver like me

Thank You

get to hyderabad airport, if you are going from city then DON'T take the left turn, if you are coming from Gachibowli (ORR) then take a right turn.

Now just drive on the road 500km - no turns or anything, you will reach Bangalore airport.

Continue driving another 20km and start looking for signs - you reach Hebbal. Take a left turn there and you are on ORR in Bangalore, the road goes straight to KR Puram.

One caution - near KR Puram ask for directions if you are not familiar; the road divides into 3 (you want to go on the left most branch) and making a mistake is very easy as the proper road looks like a side-route.



A piece of advice - carry water and food with you; there is almost no place till Hebbal where you can get a decent meal (you can get Haldiram bhujia in places).The few half-decent looking places are all near Toll Gates in Kurnool and Anantapur.
There is a "Holiday Inn" in Kurnool, I haven't tried but looked nice from outside - you can try that.

Bathroom breaks are best taken near the toll gates (and in a few place right next to Toll gates), but post Anantapur even the toll gates are not well equipped (and other places simply don't exist till Nandi Hills). Large petrol stations do have decent and clean facilities but almost none of them have running water - again carry a good amount of water with you.


Road repair work is going on in Kurnool for about 2km.

Otherwise it is great except during day time you'll find (very few) autowallas etc on the road and near dusk you may find tractors coming from the opposite side. The road will urge you to push your car to the limit, and you can do that on most of the road - but wherever you can't see clearly very far (depending on your speed) - use caution.

last thing - there are road blocks in many place but no speed breakers Till Anatapur. After Anatapur be extra watchful, some of the speedbreakers are well disguised. They are few (3 or 4 of them) but they are enough to break the car if you hit them at high speed.

[roxor87]

Thanks guys for the prompt replies. I am at fault for not getting back and posting my experience here. Really sorry about that. Was occupied with many things after I came back from Banglore.

So here it goes,
I started early in the morning at 4 am as I was a bit skeptical to travel in the night (well it is my first time on the highway). Trusted the google maps and it never let me down. On my way I saw around 3 cars with Team-BHP stickers and instantly the inner me wanted to shout "Hey!! I am also a member of Team-BHP" but did not so as to not embarrass myself.

I always imagined Highways to be full of trucks and private buses trying to overtake me from every possible direction but boy I was so wrong. The highway felt literally empty. Or maybe I was in a denial state after getting used to Hyderabad traffic since childhood. There were no check points or anything of that sort. Finally, it took me around 7.5 hours to reach Banglore with short breaks for food and rest.

On my return back to Hyderabad I chose to drive in the night as my friend accompanied me. Except for the one sudden huge speed breaker which we encountered just after crossing Banglore the journey was just amazing. I couldn't help but notice one annoying habit that my friend had while driving. Whenever a vehicle tried to overtake us from the right, he turned on the right indicator. The first time I thought he accidentally put on the wrong indicator signal, but he kept doing it again and again. When I asked him why he did that, he told me "it is the highway code to tell the other vehicle to overtake us" I just couldn't accept that. If I was driving the other vehicle behind the car my friend was driving, I would have thought that he is changing to the right lane. I tried to reason with him, but he never listened and simply said "that is what everyone does" and cut me off. It was then I decided to take the wheel and drove by myself till Hyderabad.

Well, in short my journey was really pleasant. Never expected the highway journey to be such a good experience. In a way the journey was very soothing and relieved me of all the tension I had. It reminded me of the quote "It's not the Destination, but the Journey that Matters Most". Looking forward to many more miles on the highway.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by roxor87

Well, in short my journey was really pleasant. Never expected the highway journey to be such a good experience. In a way the journey was very soothing and relieved me of all the tension I had. It reminded me of the quote "It's not the Destination, but the Journey that Matters Most". Looking forward to many more miles on the highway.

The Bangalore-Hyderabad highway in my opinion has one of the lowest utilization. You will mostly find empty roads. It also can seen from the fact, that this highway inspite of being a 4-lane has one of the least eating joints along the complete 500km stretch. But anyway what do I have to complain, if I get good roads!

[gajadonga]

Last week I traveled this stretch Banglore -Hyderabad
No complaints whatsoever with the highway.

The traffic has picked up and lot of new toll booths are coming up along the stretch.These are being replaced by the old traditional toll collections.

If you do not have change at these toll you get biscuit packets which can be redeemed in the next toll.
This is between Penukonda upto Kurnool toll.

Kurnool bypass road work is progressing daytime traffic slows you down in this stretch
for about a kilometre