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.