[knightrider_7]

An article in today's newspaper about the work to be carried out on Thamarassery ghat section.
District collector has ordered to complete the work in four days.

[Vysakh]

The order should've been made before the holiday rush. There'd be a lot of traffic tomorrow and day after as well as not everyone would wait till new year. Gonna be a disaster if the repairs are gonna be done in the same time.

[mpksuhas]

Calicut - Mysore Ring road - Bannur - Bangalore

Return drive was bit sane compared to onward one. Started from home near Civil Station at 02:30 PM.

Traffic was less all way till Gundlupet. Reached S Batherry by 05:00 PM. Stopped over at Jubilee restaurant since had a doubt that Mint Flower / Mathai's bakery further ahead, which is our usual stop may be closed on account of Christmas (later made out it was closed) .

Started at 05:30 PM and reached Gundlupet around 07:00 PM & near Mysore ring road junction at 07:50 PM. There was more than usual traffic on Gundlupet - Mysore route and the traffic signal at ring road was switched ON. This in-turn caused a huge jam here and it took around 15 mins to clear this signal.

Took Bannur - Mallavalli route to avoid rush on Mysore - Mandya route and it turned out to be a good one. The bad / incomplete section just before Bannur town is smooth now. Only lane markings to be done. However, the incomplete section inside Bannur town still exists. There was a slight delay here due to traffic, reached Mallavalli around 08:00 PM and NICE road Kanakapura entry at 10:00 PM.

- Hairpin bends at Thamaraserry Ghat was getting 'repaired' with granite dust. Not sure when they will fix it properly.
- Lots of drivers who doesn't care of other vehicles. Saw quiet few accidents enroute, some 6 or 7. A particularly bad one was near Muthanga, an overtaking gone bad. A Swift had a head-on collision with Tempo Traveller. Amount of blood on back door suggests some serious injury.
- Had a narrow escape when on KL 11 Ethios decided to dart on to highway after finishing vegetable shopping near Gundlupet. Almost pushed me on to oncoming traffic. Escaped by inches.
- On a positive note, around Batherry a police jeep with headlights over took me. NO usual drama (blaring horn/ siren, police man waving hand and asking you to slow down), behind it was a taxi Innova with national flag. Noticed KL finance minister Mr Thomas Issac seated inside.

[binand]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

reached Gundlupet around 07:00 PM & near Mysore ring road junction at 07:50 PM.

reached Mallavalli around 08:00 PM and NICE road Kanakapura entry at 10:00 PM.

Something is off with your timings. 7:50 at MRR junction and 8:00 at Malavalli? Took just 10 minutes?? That can't be right. Did you mean 8:30 or something?

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by binand

Something is off with your timings. 7:50 at MRR junction and 8:00 at Malavalli? Took just 10 minutes?? That can't be right. Did you mean 8:30 or something?

Yes. Thanks for pointing it out.

It was to be 09.00 PM at Malavalli.

- 07:50 Mysore ring road
- 09:00 PM Mallavalli.
- 10:00 PM NICE road Kanakpura entry.

[binand]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

- 09:00 PM Mallavalli.
- 10:00 PM NICE road Kanakpura entry.

Then this is quite good. I believe this distance is about 90 km.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by binand

Then this is quite good. I believe this distance is about 90 km.

The distance from Mysore ring road / Nanjangaud road turn to NICE road entry is around 130 KM's or so. I am able to do this distance repeatedly in around 02 hours 20 mins. I don't drive above ~ 100 KMPH in this section usually.

However, thanks after dark drive time, there rarely is any other vehicles and pedestrians on road. Hence able to cruise at constant speed most of times. Only while we cross villages we have to slow down. Also, unlike Mysore - Mandya route, there are no speed breakers on this route (I guess only 3 in entire route) this again helps in better average speed.


More than the time saving, this route is much peaceful compared to Mysore road madness on weekends. Only issue is lack of food / toilet options.


Also, I stay near Sarjapur road. Hence once getting on NICE road, I can hit Hosur road much sooner from Kanakpura road entry than from Mysore road entry.

[shefiu]

To double check before my trip on Thursday (God Willing) Anyone know how the roads are like from Adivaram to Omassery to Koduvally? Or shall I stick to the Thamarassery ghats?

Not thinking about the traffic, purely thinking about better road conditions.

[binand]

Originally Posted by shefiu

To double check before my trip on Thursday (God Willing) Anyone know how the roads are like from Adivaram to Omassery to Koduvally? Or shall I stick to the Thamarassery ghats?

Mate, please re-refer to this post: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route...ml#post4327711 (Bangalore - Calicut : Route Queries)

To recap: Thamarassery and Thamarassery ghats are two different beasts. Adivaram-Omassery-Koduvally bypasses Thamarassery, not Thamarassery ghats.

The former can be bypassed by the route mentioned, but not really required in my opinion - since the route through Thamarassery is NH 212 and is quite well maintained.

The latter has no viable alternatives unless you are travelling at odd hours. The alternatives are traffic & delays prone, and have known bad stretches of road. To take either of these alternatives, you have to commit a lot in advance - at Mysore itself for the Mananthavady route, and at Gundlupet for the Nilambur route.

[shefiu]

Originally Posted by binand

To recap: Thamarassery and Thamarassery ghats are two different beasts. Adivaram-Omassery-Koduvally bypasses Thamarassery, not Thamarassery ghats.

The former can be bypassed by the route mentioned, but not really required in my opinion - since the route through Thamarassery is NH 212 and is quite well maintained.

Bah.. Okay I just kept looking at the maps and just completely overlooked the twisties before adivaaram. GMaps has its boon and banes, gotten so used to it that tend to overlook facts from actual experiences.

[Rajeevraj]

Back from the year end trip.

Onward journey was to Tirur and since I had to stop at Mysore, route taken was Mysore-Gudalur-Nadugani-Nilambur-Manjeri-Malappuram-Tirur. Taking this route after a long time and roads are in very good condition. Especially the Gundlepet-Gudalur stretch. Nadugani ghats was slightly patchy on the TN side and there is some culvert work happening on the KL side. Did not cause any delays. Traffic on the Nilambur-Tirur stretch was high as expected.

Stopped at this place called Cuppa Cafe just after Nilambur. Decent place with clean rest rooms.

Tirur-Calicut is becoming more painful each time. No respite from the heavy traffic irrespective of the route taken. This time chose the Parappangadi-Kadalundi-Chaliyam-Ferok route. Was not a great idea since the Chaliyam Ferok stretch was quite bad and then ran into a major block near Meenchanda by-pass. Since my destination was Gandhi Road, decided to take the new panniyankara railway overbridge-kodhi palam- beach road to reach Gandhi road. Nice stretch from Kodhi Bridge to the point where the road joins the regular beach road (coming from Pushpa Jn).

Return from Calicut was via the usual route- Bathery-Mysore-Bangalore. Left at 6am and was worried about blocks in churam, fortunately traffic was surprisingly light in the churam and also rest of the way, Entered NICE road at 1.30PM with an hour of breaks. One of the faster drives in recent times.

There is some work being done on the hair pin bends. Unfortunately still looks like temporary fixes.

[tharian]

I am planning to to drive to Quilandy/Calicut sometime this month and wanted to avoid the usual route via Thamaraserry.

I was looking at Kuttiady ghats route. Has anyone done this route from Mysore recently. Sorry if I missed out on the post if it mentioned earlier,

[binand]

Originally Posted by tharian

I am planning to to drive to Quilandy/Calicut sometime this month and wanted to avoid the usual route via Thamaraserry.

I was looking at Kuttiady ghats route. Has anyone done this route from Mysore recently.

Not very recently (for the past year I have been driving via Salem/Palakkad); but have taken this route a fair number of times. The problem with Kuttiyadi churam is that it is very narrow all the way from the top till Calicut bypass (the orthogonal Koyilandi-Thamarassery road seemed a lot wider). So if you are stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle - which you'll invariably do - then opportunity to overtake are minimal and you end up taking a lot of extra time. 25-30 kmph from Thottilpalam to Calicut is not unheard of.

It is very nice to drive on the other way, with an early morning start from Calicut. Though there is some bad stretch between Mananthavady and Niravilpuzha (about 15-20 km, I think; might have been resurfaced by now).

[sajidclt]

Originally Posted by tharian

I am planning to to drive to Quilandy/Calicut sometime this month and wanted to avoid the usual route via Thamaraserry.

I was looking at Kuttiady ghats route. Has anyone done this route from Mysore recently. Sorry if I missed out on the post if it mentioned earlier,

Originally Posted by binand

Though there is some bad stretch between Mananthavady and Niravilpuzha (about 15-20 km, I think; might have been resurfaced by now).

I did this route on 23rd night. The surface from Naalam Mile to Niravilpuzha is still bad. I travelled from Panamaram to Calicut and took me around 3 hrs. As binand mentioned, the route is narrow and it is not easy to overtake.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Back from the year end trip.
Onward journey was to Tirur and since I had to stop at Mysore, route taken was Mysore-Gudalur-Nadugani-Nilambur-Manjeri-Malappuram-Tirur. Nadugani ghats was slightly patchy on the TN side and there is some culvert work happening on the KL side. Did not cause any delays. Traffic on the Nilambur-Tirur stretch was high as expected.

I drove to Thenhipalam on 23rd morning via this route. Started from BG Road, Bangalore around 4:40AM. Took the Kanakapura-Malavalli-Chamarajanagar-Gundlupet route after a long time. Just after before and after most of the towns, the road has been widened, but one has to be careful as the road surface drops suddenly when it merges back to the old one. Overall, the road condition was good. There is widening work happening at many places, so one needs to be careful. Was in a fix till Gundlupet, on whether to take the regular Thamarassery ghat route or Gudalur-Nadugani route. Something in my mind told me to take the Nadugani route and at the nth moment, I decided to go straight at the junction. It turned out to be a very good decision as Thamarassery ghat was choke blocked. My friend got stuck there and got the info from him via phone. Thanked my stars and moved on. Nadugani was OK. As Rajeevraj mentioned, there is some culvert work happening and there was traffic regulation at two places. Still, it was not bothersome. Edakkara, Chungathara and Nilambur were a different story. Heavy traffic and narrow roads. Even after all this, reached Thenhipalam by 12:30PM, including a 30 mins breakfast (Took the Edavanna-Areecode-Kondotty route).

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

There is some work being done on the hair pin bends. Unfortunately still looks like temporary fixes.

I drove back to Bangalore on 31st morning via Thamarassery. The top layer of the tarmac was completely taken off (cut out) at many places, especially at the bends. I hope they did it to repair it properly.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Tirur-Calicut is becoming more painful each time. No respite from the heavy traffic irrespective of the route taken. This time chose the Parappangadi-Kadalundi-Chaliyam-Ferok route.

Did you take the route via Anangadi-Athanikkal-Kottakkadavu or the Feroke-Karuvanthuruthy road? At times, I feel it is better to take a right at Chettippadi or Anangadi, merge to NH66 at Chelari or Chettiyarmadu and continue via Ramanakttukara, Nallalam and Meenchanda. At least you will have comparatively wider roads and better surface.