Too long and would take a lot of time as majority of the roads are ghat sections on this sector.Fastest from guruvayur is via coimbatore and would have further helped if the thrissur-palakkad nh47 was good

I did that check first before I thought I would ask.

The one via Nilambur is about 230. Very much same as the one via CBE.

Ooty, Tamil Nadu to Guruvayoor, Kerala - Google Maps

But yes, its more ghats this way, which may push the time of drive. What I thought was, if traffic is less, one may get that advantage.

Absolutely no advantage whatsoever,and where is traffic less? All the way till Ooty on this sector is dense traffic.The only section which sees less traffic is on the Nadugani-Vazhikadavu sector and on the Melattoor-Nilambur sector,other than that it is all narrow roads and takes a heavy toll on the speed and clutch!Just for comparison sakes,I did Blore-Thrissur via nilambur and returned via salem,the return via salem was done in 7.5 hours while the going via nilambur took me close to 11 hours because of crazy private bus traffic in kerala and narrow roads,

@ampere @ranjitp1 Thanks. I think i will stick to the route through CBE.
I hope the CBE - mettupalyam - coonoor - ooty route is 2 laned/drivable

Some pointers:
1) Do not take Trichur->Palakkad but take deviation from Kecheri to proceed on the route wadakancheri-shoranur-ottapalam-palakkad
2) Just before CBE bye-pass, take left and go towards city till you reach Ukkadam. Then onwards, heavy city traffic till you get to the other end on the Mettupalayam road and hence plan your city crossing time accordingly
3) CBE->Mettupalayam and Coonoor->Ooty are typical high-traffic stretches. I guess you can avoid the latter by going via Kotagiri. Check with someone who did this recently.
4) Mettupalayam onwards is a ghat section and there are many points where you would like to take a break just to enjoy the views and take snaps. So, budget about an extra hour for this !
5) Beyond CBE, I am not sure whether you get good hotels till you reach Coonoor. Similarly, you may not get attractive hotels on GVR->PGT stretch as well. So, plan your food breaks on the PGT->CBE stretch if you are very particular about your place of food-breaks.
6) Crossing PGT if you are coming straight from Ottappalam to the town will be a big task, esp. cruising through the Market Road area. Figure out a good alternative, the one being Parli->Mundur to bye-pass PGT town area.

@cyberwhizs the road is nice but please be careful about buses. They tend to come very
fast in the opposite direction. CBE-Mettupalayam has very dense traffic, esp state and private buses.

Thanks everyone. The detailed google maps are very helpful.

Folks, travelled to guruvayur from bangalore yesterday. Took mysore, nanjangud and gundalpet route, managed to reach gundalpet in around 4 odd hours. Made the big mistake of proceeding via sultan bathery . Roads in bandipur are bad/patchy but navigable.

Its a highway from hell In god's own country.

AVOID the sultan bathery route like plague, it is terrible, in all probablity worse than the notorious NH 13. From calicut/kozikode to guruvayur roads NH17/SH69 are conjested with traffic but the tarmac is fine. SH69 from Kuttipuram towards Guruvayur is excellent. Total time taken 12 hours

The signages displaying km distance are abosultely crazy, many a time you will see the same distance despite having driven for an hour and covered 20 odd km. Making one constantly wonder are we there yet?

While comming back took the route recomeneded by guruvayur - kecheri - wadakancheri - shornur - palakkad - coimbatore - salem - bangalore route. This route is much better from road tarmac perspective. However, the obtainable average speeds are pretty low. Took around 10 odd hours.

Thanks to the inputs from ampere, ranjithp1 and ajithbr the return was much more comfortable.
ps: had to drop ooty and head back to bangalore directly.

The best route to kozhikode now and I presume for the next couple of months till Sabarimala season begins would be via Gudalur-Nadugani-Vazhikadavu-Nilambur-Kozhikode.The road is in pretty good condition.

- Assuming Nadugani is in good condition
- Also how is the route beyond Edavanna?
- Too many small roads
- Lots of villages to cross?

Nilambur to Calicut via Edavanna-Areekode had quite decent roads till a few months back, No clue about the post-monsoon conditions. Yes the roads aren't very wide and there are a few small towns along the way, but based on my experience one should be able to average about 45-50 kmph in that stretch which is pretty good for any road in Kerala. Check out my trip log in this post for the small towns that you pass on the way and distances / timings. (This was in the reverse direction - Calicut to Gundlupet)

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ml#post2186086

On Oct 1/2 weekend, I drove back from Calicut and as usual, took the following route (status alongwith) Calicut->MedicalCollege->Kavanakallu Bridge->Edavannappara->Areekode->Edavanna->Nilambur->Vazhikkadavu->Gudalur->Gundlupet->Mysore->Bangalore : Good roads throughout. Some places where repair due to landslides happening on the Nadugani ghat section. Nanjangud->Mysore->Srirangapatnam had heavy traffic. Calicut->Gudalur->Gundlupet is done in about 4 hours as we started at 10 AM from Calicut after break-fast and stopped for lunch at 2.15 PM at the mallu restaurant Koffee-Stoppe which is about 5 kms after Gundlupet towards Nanjangud/Mysore. As usual, we stopped for a 10-min tea-break (11.40 to 11.50 AM) at Vazhikkadavu just where the ghat section begins.

Please read post#162 and let me know what exact information are you looking for?

I have driven on the Nilambur section towards Pattambi but not via Edvanna.
Similarly used NH212. Hence wanted to how is the route typically beyond Nilambur towards Calicut via Edavanna.

Great roads, both surface and sceneries and low-traffic as well, somewhat better than your familiar Nilambur->Kalikavu->Perinthalmanna route. In fact, you can attain timings as GoogleMaps say as I ALWAYS cover Nilambur->Calicut in about 90 minutes and reach Vazhikkadavu (just where Nadugani section starts in about 1 hour 45 minutes most of the times).

Here is the summary which will be handy when you refer googlemaps for P2P distances and other related routes(e.g. Areekode->Mukkam->Thamarassery that connects Nilambur to NH-212):

1) Nilambur (no bye-pass and so expect traffic on office/school timings)

2) Vadapuram -> it is a Y-junction where left takes you to Wandoor->Perinthalmanna and right to Edavanna

3) Edavanna -> it is a T-junction where left takes you to Manjeri->Malappuram or Manjeri->Valluvambram(join NH-213)->Kondotti->Airport->Ramanattukara->Calicut (for night driving on highway adding about 10-15 kms overall but about 20 minutes) and straight to Areekode

4) Areekode -> Expect a Ramanagaram kind-of rush in the town and just after town, you need to take a left to Calicut whereas straight takes you to Mukkam->Thamarassery (cuts across NH-212 towards Ulliyeri->Balusseri->Koyilandi where it joins NH-17). Edavanna->Areekode stretch, even though good, has some extent of twisties

5) Edavannappara -> Another town where you can expect a Bidadi kind-of-rush at times. Areekode->Edavannappara stretch runs parallel to Chaliyar river and is a quite scenic drive too.

6) Kanavakkallu bridge -> Across Chaliyar, about 5 kms after Edavannappara

7) Cheroopa Mini Stadium, SH 24, Kerala, India -> just after the bridge, take right turn and join Mavoor->Calicut road here. The left turn road is actually the shorter one to Calicut but currently not in good condition. From here till Medical College that is about 10 kms away, expect some local traffic including the private buses and jeeps/cars going to Medical College

8) Medical College, SH 24, Calicut, Kerala, India -> A big junction and from here, you have a Bangalore->Mysore kind of divided 4L road and thankfully with no speed-breakers at all.You get a traffic signal where you cut Calicut bye-pass and a fly-over where you cut Calicut Citi/Mini bye-pass.
9) Calicut -> For those who are not aware, Calicut has 2 bye-pass roads, one is NH-17 bye-pass that starts from Ramanattukara in the south (near to where NH-213 starts) and currently open till NH-212 junction at Malapparamba. So, if you take this bye-pass currently, you will avoid heavy-traffic stretch of about 15 kms in the southern part of Calicut and when fully open, you will avoid another heavy-traffic stretch of about 15 kms in the northern part of Calicut.The other bye-pass road is the Citi/Mini bye-pass much like the ORR in Bangalore where it avoids Central part of the city but touches many sub-urb localities.