[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by sinharishi

[*]Started from Mumbai-Western Suburbs on 23rd at 4:00 AM and reached Morjim around 4:30 PM.[*]It was smooth till Satara ghat(?),

Khambhatki Ghat it is called. And that's 70Km from Pune.

[*]The 4-laned road from Satara to Kolhapur was the best stretch of this journey!

Without any patchwork, this has remained that way since nearly a decade now and it's all concrete. Same is not the case with Kolhapur Satara though which is asphalt.

However, post Kolhapur all the way till you turn off for Sawantwadi is the best concrete ever seen in this country. Thanks to Punj Lloyd.

[roadie_swift]

Originally Posted by sinharishi

[*]Started return journey on 27th at 8:00 PM, was home by 4:30am. Just took one 20 mins break at Food plaza on Mumbai-Pune Expressway.[/list]

8pm to 430am from Panjim to Mumbai Western?

That's awesome! Did it make such a huge difference due to it being a night drive?

Also what car?

Cheers,
R_S

[sinharishi]

Originally Posted by roadie_swift

8pm to 430am from Panjim to Mumbai Western?

That's awesome! Did it make such a huge difference due to it being a night drive?

Also what car?

Cheers,
R_S

Started from Porvorim at 8:00 PM. Yes, night drive made all the difference. We did the trip in my S-Cross 1.3.

[Drivealot]

Guys, Just a update for all our friends on my trip from Pune to Goa and back.
I just got back from Goa last night In my E350d .
As per Team Bhp friends advise, while going from Pune we went past Kolhapur then at Nipani turned right on to the Nipani- Ajra link road then on to Amboli, Sawantwadi, Mapusa and finally Aguada. Roads were excellent. No issues whatsoever. THANK YOU friends.
On the return I made the blunder of my life taking the Anmod Ghat to Belgaum. None of the following words can do justice to actual situation. 38.3 kms of sheer Nightmare, Horrendous, Atrocious, Horrible Roads. Absolutely shameful. No doubt there are very few good patches of decent roads too. But overall the above adjectives are perfect.
Wonder why the road authorities cannot set these roads right. Negligence at its worst. Took me 6hours from Goa to Belgaum.
Avoid this road at all costs unless you are seriously interested in a off road experience in a 4X4.
The other car that travelled with me took the Chorla ghats and those roads are quite OK barring a few potholes and small stretch of bad roads.
Cheers
Drivealot

[panks15]

Friends,

Need COVID related info on trip to south Goa. As Per news article dated 21 Feb’21 negative RT PCR is required for travelling between Maharashtra and Karnataka. Does anyone has any idea about it or is there any COVID testing at state borders.

Will be travelling on 24th Feb along with 2 kids.

Regards,
Pankaj

[abhatt]

Originally Posted by Drivealot

Guys, Just a update for all our friends on my trip from Pune to Goa and back.
As per Team Bhp friends advise, while going from Pune we went past Kolhapur then at Nipani turned right on to the Nipani- Ajra link road then on to Amboli, Sawantwadi, Mapusa and finally Aguada. Roads were excellent. No issues whatsoever. THANK YOU friends.
On the return I made the blunder of my life taking the Anmod Ghat to Belgaum. None of the following words can do justice to actual situation. 38.3 kms of sheer Nightmare, Horrendous, Atrocious, Horrible Roads. Absolutely shameful. No doubt there are very few good patches of decent roads too. But overall the above adjectives are perfect.
Wonder why the road authorities cannot set these roads right. Negligence at its worst. Took me 6hours from Goa to Belgaum.
The other car that travelled with me took the Chorla ghats and those roads are quite OK barring a few potholes and small stretch of bad roads.

I am staying in North Goa at the start of my vacation and then moving to South. I will be driving from Mumbai with a kid and 2 senior citizens. I want to take the fastest route and as per Google Maps, from South Goa the one from Anmod Ghat seems to be the fastest (save 30+ mins). I have a Polo and would like to avoid potholes at any cost as I don't think it can bear the brunt. I will avoid it though based on your feedback. Thanks.

How about the route via Chiplun/Ratnagiri? A return journey with a 1 night stay in a Mango farm would be nice considering it would be a Mango season during the end of March when I plan to travel.

[roadie_swift]

Originally Posted by Drivealot

Nightmare, Horrendous, Atrocious, Horrible Roads. Absolutely shameful.

I did this route on Sat 13th Feb, in my Octavia, and found it pretty good, actually, definitely not as bad as to merit the above adjectives. Although to be fair, it might have seemed much worse in an E-class. But on a serious note, you might want to double check the route you traveled, to make sure it was the Collem-Mollem-Anmod-Khanapur route. I drove very slowly, and yet it took 4.5 hrs to reach Belgaum - with a 20 min Bhaaji-Pav breakfast break at Balli.

It will take some serious effort to make this route cost you 6 hrs to Belgaum, hence my guess that something may have gone wrong with the route - Google Maps can be tricky sometimes.

We left Palolem beach at 8am, had a couple of breaks (~30 min total) around Balli for refuel + breakfast + freshen-up, were in Belgaum at 12:30pm, had lunch (45 min) at Sai International Yelur at ~2pm, Tea break (15 min) in Pune Warje naka at 6:30 pm, and were at home at 10:10pm after another refueling and wada-pav break at Dutta Snacks on expressway. Driving time of 12:16 hrs, total journey time 14:10 hrs including breaks/tolls etc.

Originally Posted by abhatt

I will avoid it though based on your feedback. Thanks.

How about the route via Chiplun/Ratnagiri?

Frankly as of now (unless a fairytale makeover of Chorla ghat has happened in the last few weeks) there's no better route from South Goa than the Collem-Mollem-Anmod-Khanapur route.

The Chiplun-Ratnagiri route will add at least 3 hours to your travel time, apart from the relatively high stress of driving along the Goa-Mumbai Highway NH66 (erstwhile NH17). But then again - only you can decide how much you like mangoes

All the best and happy journey!!

Cheers,
R_S

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by Drivealot

38.3 kms of sheer Nightmare, Horrendous, Atrocious, Horrible Roads. Absolutely shameful. No doubt there are very few good patches of decent roads too

Originally Posted by roadie_swift

I did this route on Sat 13th Feb, in my Octavia, and found it pretty good, actually, definitely not as bad as to merit the above adjectives. Although to be fair, it might have seemed much worse in an E-class. But on a serious note, you might want to double check the route you traveled, to make sure it was the Collem-Mollem-Anmod-Khanapur route. I drove very slowly, and yet it took 4.5 hrs to reach Belgaum - with a 20 min Bhaaji-Pav breakfast break at Balli.

Guys, let me pitch in being from Belgaum. So what could have happened is that ( can say it certainty) @Drivealot took the Anmod ghat route but continued onto Ramnagar and then Khanapur, 3/4 of this 50 km stretch which is under construction. Hence the 38.3 kms of horrendous roads that he has encountered. Had he taken a left at Anmod and driven via Bhimgad wildlife sanctuary route towards Khanapur and Belgaum, it wouldn't have taken more than 4.5 or 5 hours max.

By the way, as of last week, repairs on Chorla ghat had begun as per my friend back in Belgaum.

Cheers

[roadie_swift]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Guys, let me pitch in being from Belgaum...

...Had he taken a left at Anmod and driven via Bhimgad wildlife sanctuary route towards Khanapur and Belgaum, it wouldn't have taken more than 4.5 or 5 hours max.

Ahh, thank you so much, Vivek! That makes perfect sense, must be exactly what happened to them. Let's await confirmation from @drivealot.

Originally Posted by vivek95

By the way, as of last week, repairs on Chorla ghat had begun as per my friend back in Belgaum.

And that's good news, indeed!! Thank you for sharing, let's hope the work progresses at a fast clip to finish before monsoons hit.

Cheers,
R_S

[skasse]

Thank you everyone for your inputs and sharing your experiences on the route options to Goa. I was constantly checking this thread for several days prior to my first drive to Goa, which we finally did between 17th-21st this month. Even though we are from Mumbai, for this trip we joined my relative’s family in Pune and started from there and hence the trip details are primarily from Pune.

Pune to Goa (17/02):

We started at about 6.30 am from Baner and we chose the Kolhapur-Belgaum-Khanapur-Anmod-Mollem option since the place we were staying was in South Goa (Beliza by the Beach - a good option for those looking in the area). Since it was a weekday and probably early in the day, the drive was smooth sailing except for the toll plazas. [An aside on the toll plazas - as expected, it is fairly haphazard with all sorts of vehicles going in any queue available with many of them without Fastag or with inadequate balance and hence opting to pay the double amount in cash. There are 6 toll plazas on the way from Pune to Goa with a total of Rs. 415 put together - so please make sure you have that much at least loaded before the trip.]

The roads, till you take the right after Belgaum to get off the AH, are awesome - but you will see noticeably better condition of the NH the moment you enter Karnataka. Am not sure if they are recently laid, but they are butter smooth. As everyone mentioned there is a stretch of about 10 kms I guess in the Bhimgad wildlife reserve where the road becomes an endangered species It’s a shame really because you will be entirely focused on avoiding the foot-deep potholes instead of enjoying the beautiful jungle-like view you are driving through. If you have a senior citizen or people with back problems with you or driving a low-height car, you may be better-off avoiding this route and taking the other option through Chorla as someone had suggested.

With a 1 hour leisurely breakfast break, we managed to reach our destination by 4.30 pm - which is approximately 9.5 hour driving time.

Goa to Pune (21/02):

The day before we were to leave, news broke that Karnataka had made negative Covid-test mandatory for people coming in from Maharashtra. We feared that Maharashtra would also impose similar tit-for-tat restriction on travelers from Karnataka and hence decided to find an alternate route which didn't go through Karnataka. So, instead of the route we took to reach Goa, we decided to go through the North Goa-Mapusa-Sawantwadi-Amboli route but instead of going on to Ajra and then to Nipani (which is in Karnataka), we veered left before Ajra taking a state highway within Maharashtra joining the AH47 at Kagal.

A gmaps snapshot of the route we took:



That detour (through Gargoti-Mudal-Kagal) was an unexpected beauty with the road winding through small rolling hills and fields on both sides with good road condition all through - only one lane for both traffic directions even though not many vehicles at all. However, it adds almost 45 mins to an hour to the journey time - so be mindful of it.

Even though we rejoined the highway at Kagal, the drive significantly worsened after that. For one, the road had so many tractors dragging one or two trailers of sugar cane fully loaded. Since the highway between Kolhapur and Satara is mostly two-lane, with the left lane having these slow-moving tractors, heavy trucks took up the right lane and the cars then were left playing the classic videogame of switching between these two lanes. The toll plazas were another horror story with each toll plaza having vehicles backed-up for at least 1 km from the plaza. May be the sudden influx of news of lockdows in Maharashtra caused many people to rush back to their homes or it’s the Sunday return traffic, but the road apparently had lot more vehicles on it than usual (as per my cousin, they never saw such traffic on that highway even on a Sunday in the 3-4 trips they made).

All in all, having started at about 9.40 am, door-to-door it took us 12 hours 20 mins to reach Baner with two breaks spanning a total of 1 hour 45 minutes (i.e., approx driving time of 10.5 hours).

Originally Posted by panks15

Friends,

Need COVID related info on trip to south Goa. As Per news article dated 21 Feb’21 negative RT PCR is required for travelling between Maharashtra and Karnataka. Does anyone has any idea about it or is there any COVID testing at state borders.

Will be travelling on 24th Feb along with 2 kids.

Regards,
Pankaj

As mentioned, Karnataka seems to have made negative covid RT-PCR test mandatory for travelers from Maharashtra (source). So, you may look at the route option I showed above for travel to and from Goa without touching Karnataka. Interestingly, today I was reading (source) that among the states that people seeking to travel from and enter Maharashtra that require a negative Covid test is Goa!! Even though no one on this forum seemed to have faced this problem lately and even when I crossed into Maharashtra at Patradevi checkpost yesterday, all the poilceman asked was if we were carrying any alcohol and they didn’t even do a temperature check!

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by sinharishi

• Started return journey on 27th at 8:00 PM, was home by 4:30am. Just took one 20 mins break at Food plaza on Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

Thanks for the updates ! And that is some spirited driving I have done Belgaum--Mumbai ( till Mulund ) in 6 hours 30 mins about 3 times till date, but can never imagine doing Goa--Mumbai in 8.5 hours with all that ghat section, two lane roads etc. Also this requires lot of stamina I believe, as you said you took just one break on Expressway. Kudos ! I did use to have this stamina earlier, its all gone now.

Originally Posted by roadie_swift

Ahh, thank you so much, Vivek! That makes perfect sense, must be exactly what happened to them. Let's await confirmation from @drivealot.



And that's good news, indeed!! Thank you for sharing, let's hope the work progresses at a fast clip to finish before monsoons hit.

Cheers,
R_S

Yeah, I am sure Chorla ghat will be all done up in another 20 days or so. Karnataka part is holding up very good despite 8 years of its age and brunt of heavy monsoons every year. Great work by KRDCL back then in 2013, I had witnessed every stage of its construction. Used to go on my Honda Dio to Jamboti/Chorla during 2011-2013.

[Drivealot]

[quote=abhatt;5007371]

"How about the route via Chiplun/Ratnagiri"?

Avoid the Chiplun route as there major road work going on with lots of Diversions. The
Govt is making the NH66 into a 6 lane(3+3) Concrete highway similar to Scenic Route 66 in the US.
The locals in Goa are quite hopeful that in 1 year this highway will be fully ready.

The NH 748 from Goa via Anmod, jalkhati, Tinai Ghat, Khanapur is the road I took which you must avoid. Pls see the Road you need to avoid
As Roadie_swift has pointed out, my fault us I followed the Google map which took me through NH748.
Thank you R_S.

[abhatt]

Originally Posted by skasse

Instead of the route we took to reach Goa, we decided to go through the North Goa-Mapusa-Sawantwadi-Amboli route but instead of going on to Ajra and then to Nipani (which is in Karnataka), we veered left before Ajra taking a state highway within Maharashtra joining the AH47 at Kagal.

This is a gem. I was under the impression that Nipani is in MH. I want to avoid going to KA as I believe there are some strict checks there for people coming from MH and would certainly add to the traffic and chaos.

If anyone has crossed Nipani from MH, do share your feedback on whether any checks happened or is it only at the border near Belgaum.

I had travelled to MH during peak Corona in May last year and I was checked near Kolhapur. Not anytime before that.

[Drivealot]

Originally Posted by roadie_swift

Ahh, thank you so much, Vivek! That makes perfect sense, must be exactly what happened to them. Let's await confirmation from @drivealot.

@Vivek, Sir you are absolutely right. I turned right instead of taking the narrow road on the left which took me past the various hotels /resorts of Dudhsagar falls which is the the NH 748 from Anmod via Ramnagar to Khanapur. I think there has to be a warning sign at Anmod check post. "Beware of Roads"

@R_S. Probably because of the E350 I managed to get to Belgaum without a Spinal injury. And the worst part is there is absolutely no one repairing those roads till we enter Khanapur. I have taken the photos of those roads but am worried that someone will get a panic attack seeing them.

If the Tbhp admin's permit I can post 2 or 3 photos.

Cheers
Safe Driving Guys.

[Achu]

Short update on Chorla route: route is fine barring about 5 kms of potholed road, nothing unmanageable for any car however.

Longer update:

Travelled Mumbai -Goa - Mumbai on 13 - 20th February. Left Mumbai 7.15 am and reached Hattargi before rear brake pads completely ran out. Ended up spending hours in Belgaum finding a fix, by which time the Anmod Ghat road had obviously shut. As a result, ended up doing chorla at night, which is a most unique experience, I must say. Reached South Goa by 1.00 am. Discounting stops, rough travel time of 11-12 hours.

The story of the nightmare of the return journey has just been made.easier because you can just read @Drivealot's account of his trip through Anmod and Ramnagar. we ended up taking a break at Satara and continued the rest of the journey the next morning. Total driving time was 13 hours, with the two hour rally special through Ramnagar/Londa.

To be fair, Gmaps was trying to signal something was wrong but it is so bad when it wants you to take a U-turn that I couldn't understand what it was saying

Drove a Skoda Yeti 4x2