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Bangalore - Calicut - Bangalore route update

Its been a while since I took road route to Calicut, infact the last I traveled till Calicut was in Nov 2016, full ten months earlier. This is the longest I didn't take this road in past ~18 years I guess.

I went to Calicut some 5 times in last one year, all the trips were weekend trips and hence in train. Anyways, coming to last weekend drive.

Onward Journey - 02 Sep.
Plan was to start at 04:00 AM from home, however got delayed and started at 04:30 AM from Haralur road. It was raining heavily hence drive through jail road to Hosur road was a slow affair, NICE road had water logging at few places and it was ~ 05:30 when reaching Mysore road.

Rains gave company till Mysore, traffic was heavy till Ramanagara. Past that it was manageable. However, Mysore road has developed lots of patches hence some sections around Maddur is patchy.

Took ring road from Mysore (left turn at Columbia Asia junction) and got on to NH 212. Both toll booths, one near Mysore and other near Gundlupet - KL border are not working still. They have put signboards and notifications, however rates are not mentioned. Usually the next step should be a dry run where they just man the gates and doesn't collect cash and eventually start collecting the cash. Hence I guess it will be few months by the time we need to pay for the toll.

There are I suppose 3 toll lanes for each direction in the toll booth near Gundlupet and 4 I guess in the one near Mysore. Hope they have a Fastag lane too, though they do not have any markings for the same yet.


Road stays good through out and it was around 09:00 when we cross Bathery. Thankfully traffic was less near Bathery.

There was speed gun located towards end of the fast stretch after Meenangadi just before the small bridge. Location

I think this is one of their favorite location, I seen this earlier also here and also someone I know got fined for driving ~110 KMs here. Not sure what is the speed limit here, I remember there was a debate on that on this thread few months back. I was doing around ~60 KMPH thanks to a slow moving car ahead of me and wasn't stopped.

Ghat section is holding up relatively better, however hairpin sections have rough sections. They were filling it with granite powder, so that means actual fix is still many days away and by then situation may become worse.

Past ghats, traffic was heavy. It took around 20 mins to cross Thamaraserry and some 15 mins to cross Kunnamangalam. Malaparamba was surprisingly empty.

Reached home near Civil station at 11:50, this included a 5 min bio break at Chennapattana BP COCO and a 10 min break at Lakkidi CCD. Still, it was slow for an early morning start thanks to rains.


Also, I was taking Mysore road after a while. Decided to take it against my usual Kanakpura route due to rains and an early morning start.




Retrun Journey - 04 Sep

Started from Civil Station at 02:30 PM after lunch, being Onam roads were empty and reached Adivaram in 50 mins. Usually with an afternoon start it takes around 60 ~ 70 mins for this distance.

Interesting trivia, somewhere around 2002 - 2003, KSRTC superfast buses used to cover this distance in ~50 mins in night. Goes on to show, how slow travel inside KL has become due to vehicle density.

Ghats were empty till Wayanad entrance / view point, from there till Kalpetta bye-pass it was like a convoy drive. Past that till Bathery it was empty. At Bathery stopped at Mathai's bakery / Mintflower hotel for ~ 30 mins.

Drive inside forest was slow thanks to rain and also long line of vehicles in opposite direction. I guess those are tourist vehicles returning from Mysore / Bangalore after 4 day vacation.

It was raining till Begur, however traffic was manageable and we reached Mysore ring road junction by 08:00 PM. From there took left and took Bannur road to join Mallavalli.

Reached Mallavalli ~ 09:10 PM, road around Begur is still patchy. However, nothing to be bothered about since the section is limited to around 1 KM in village limit. Past that there was sparse traffic all the way till Bangalore.

Reached NICE road junction at ~10:00 PM and home at 10:40 PM.

Drove down to Calicut yesterday. With heavy rains lashing Kerala a week back, was concerned about road conditions. There were also reports of landslides in the Wayanad ghat and the poor condition of the hair pin bends. At one point almost decided to take the Palakkad route although it was significantly longer. But since it had not rained in the last few days the reports indicated the traffic movement was normal, stuck to the usual route.

Normally I start very early (4-4.30am), but due to various reasons could start only by 7.45am. With such a start time on a Saturday morning, did not even think of going via Mysore Road. Took the route via Kanakpura-Malavalli-Bannur-Mysore Ring Road and then the regular route via gundlepet Bathery. Some minor updates

• Morning traffic had already picked up and took 15-20 min to cross the NICE road toll itself.
  
• Traffic was slightly heavy till Kanakpura. Had not taken this route in some time now. Hence was good to see wider divided roads in Kaggalipura and Harohalli towns. Some patches of widening work seems to be happening and noticed a proper 4 lane section for 2-3 km just before Kanakpura Town.
  
• Rest of the route till Mysore Ring Road is in great shape apart from 1 km inside Bannur Town.
  
• Mysore Ring Road- Gundlepet-Bandipur continues to be excellent. Unfortunately portable barriers have come up in several places on the Nanjangud-Gundlepet stretch and these are not very scientifically placed.
  
• No changes at the toll booths.
  
• Was spooky to see Muthanga empty of lorries post GST. :). I think this is the first time ever that I am driving on the left side of the road in the Muthanga checkpost area.
  
• Road was patchy between Muthanga and Bathery. Several shallow potholes.
  
• Good roads all the way to the Ghat section.
  
• Expected the ghats to be in very bad shape. Hairpin pends 8,7 6, 3 are in very bad shape. Some temporary mud dumping and leveling was happening in couple of places. But rest of the ghat was reasonably ok. Of course, no where close to the pristine shape it was in a year back.
  
• Rest of the route to Calicut from Adivaram continues to be good. Overall roads remain in good shape which was quite surprising considering the amount of rain.
  
• From Vellimadukunnu, took the newly laid road mentioned in this post. Helped by-pass the malaparambu junction an quickly reach the by-pass close to Thondayad.
  
• Reached home by 5 with a 75 min break. Was slower than usual due to the late start, but still better than I expected.

Looks like the gang that did this has been caught:
http://www.manoramanews.com/news/bre...nglore-nh.html

Returned from CLT to Bangalore this morning; road conditions have not changed from what Rajeev reported above except that The Maddur - Channapatana section of Mysore toad is broken badly. Took 7hrs 30 mts in my Nano to reach Whitefield with a 5AM start.

Drove via Thamarassery churam yesterday to Bangalore. Most of the hair pin road condition has deteriorated. First time travelling on Nanjangud - Mysore stretch after it is made 4 lane. Right from KA side forest check post till Mysore ring road it is a breeze.

Is it end to end 4 lane?

It is dual carriageway/4 lanes between MRR junction and Kalale which is about 10 km beyond Nanjangud. From Kalale till Gundlupet it is a very wide single carriageway till Gundlupet and till the interstate border towards Calicut. Widening work was happening on the road to the interstate border towards Ooty too.

Update :
The Thamarassery Churam is in shambles. The hairpins (except the two with interlocks) are in really bad shape with deep potholes and dust. Plus there was a major major gridlock today with vehicles piled up along the entire stretch (12km?). Took 2+ hours to reach adivarom from Lakkidi. Did not see any vehicle breakdown. The police/volunteers are controlling the traffic at hairpins. Would've been worse without them. Avoid this route until the hairpins are fixed.
From bangalore (mysore road NICE road exit) to gundlupet the roads are mostly smooth and new. Some stretches have a lot of patchwork, but no major potholes. Toll booths still aren't operational.

I had family folks who traveled to Bangalore today. Entered the churam at 7.30am and by the time they reached the top it was 11am.:Shockked:. Had a terrible time.

Hey guys, any alternative options to reach Calicut, bypassing Thamarassery? I'm planning to travel Thursday morning and need to reach Calicut by 5:30 P.M. God Willing.

The alternatives are worse.

* Mysore > Mananthavadi > Perambra > Atholi > Calicut: Bad road between Mananthavady and Niravilpuzha, heavy traffic on narrow stretch between Perambra and Calicut.

* Gundlupet > Gudalur > Nilambur > Arekode > Calicut. Heavy traffic, narrow roads, many small towns.

To bypass Thamarassery you could try Adivaram > Omassery > REC > Kunnamangalam. I have driven parts of this route and it is generally in good shape. But if traffic is your concern then bypassing just Thamarassery wouldn't help much in my opinion.

Thanks for this, I think I will consider this option unless a better one gets proposed. I'd like to avoid back breaking roads. If Thamarassery takes 4 hours as suggested above, I think other options should take shorter times and be less tiring, hopefully.

Ah. I now see what the confusion is. Thamarassery is a small town and tehsil HQ in Calicut district. Thamarassery churam is a mountain road (churam = mountain road in Malayalam) that starts at Adivaram in Calicut district (about 15 km from Thamarassery town) and ends at Lakkidi in Wayanad district; it is 12 km long and climbs approx. 850 metres with 9 hairpin bends. The problem reported is in the churam and not in the town, and we hope it was a one-off affair. The alternatives to this churam are usually worse in terms of time and traffic; you are better off sticking to it.

Second to what Binand mentioned above.

I am at Calicut currently, drove down from Bangalore yeserday morning. Started from Kengeri near Global village tech park at 4.40 AM.

Decided against taking Kanakpura road since traffic around Mysore road seemed manageable. There was traffic till Ramanagar, past that it was manageable. The same continued till Gundlupet.

Reached Lakkidi / Ghat view point around 9.50 AM after a stop of 20 mins at Nanjangud coffee day. However, past that that it was bad. The remaining 60 odd kms till Calicut took me another 3.5 hours.

Most of the time was wasted at standstill on ghats. Once vehicles starts moving, you proceed for around half KM and then again standstill.

Past ghats it took substantial time to cross Thamaraserry town junction. I guess it took me around 20 mins.

The issue on Saturday was due to multiple issues -
1. Christmas season rush.
2. Bad condition of road at hair pins, especially near hairpin 6&7. This is causing heavy vehicles to navigate the road in a bigger curve. Which requires other heavy vehicles from opposite direction to stop and give way. On top of this one KSRTC bus and a truck got stuck in these section during early hours of Saturday. Road is very much drivable for cars, just make sure you are taking the outer circle at hairpins to avoid craters.
3. Idiot drivers who doesn't care about others.

Situation it seems is better today and as per news reports, repairs would be done in another 4 days.

Also, Calicut bound side of road was bit patchy around Sultan Bathery. No need to stop and navigate, but bouncy.

Not sure for how long we can keep depending on this single route through Thamaraserry ghats. With the exponential increase in traffic, especially since last 4/ 5 years. Don't think current road will be able take any more traffic.

Google maps yeserday -



News article today mentioning about the traffic block of yeserday and repair plan mentioned above.

Thanks a lot for the prompt and detailed replies. I guess I will have to check the traffic status on the morning of Thursday to see if there's any change. If they are doing repair work, I'm fearing the worst as I don't really see it completing by Thursday which equals further delay.