[vinboy]

Originally Posted by TracerBullet

@vinboy: If these are pictures of the worst/bad stretches, the road is not bad isn't it? Many a time driving through Shiradi I have experienced altitude change (ok I went too far exaggerating). I remember on couple of occasions you literally had to get into a pot hole or crater and climb out of it.

Well the pictures are not of the worst parts of the section! The really bad patches are down the hill and I couldn't take pics as it started raining. But you said it right it is not the way it was when the iron ore loaded trucks use to ply!

[UB_007]

Here are some pictures of shiradi ghat this week.






Quite a few Small spans on ghat are still in mint condition .











Though the ghat is not in its worst shape yet as it used to be, the plan of avoiding night driving still holds good as recommended by bhpians in their earlier posts .

-UB

[TracerBullet]

A short update on Udupi-Blr (Udupi-Mlr-Shiradi Ghat-Sakleshpur-Hassan-Blr)

Shiradi Ghat is definitely not at its worst, I have seen worse. Earlier only the curves were bad, now some stretches of road (some close to 200m - 300m) have no road and extremely bumpy. Was careful to scrape myself only once.

The 4 - laning has definitely helped in coping up for the time lost at Shiradi. Udupi - Blr took 7.5 hrs excluding 1.5 hrs break.

[addyhemmige]

Did a small trip to Hariharapura (near Sringeri) last friday. These are the updates on the road conditions.

Starting from Hassan, I took the following route for the forward journey

Hassan-Belur-Chikmagalur-Aldur-Balehonnur-Jayapura-Koppa-Hariharapura

Hariharapura is situated between Koppa (10 kms) and Sringeri (20 kms)

Hassan-Belur: is still in very good condition

Belur-Chikmagalur: Getting worse by the day. They have filled up the broken stretches/potholes with mud, but given the rain, they have been washed out or have become slush pits. It still has a couple of good stretches though.

Chikmagalur-Vastare-Aldur: Decent surface with potholes here and there till Vastare. After Vastare, the road has gone to the dogs. Pathetic stretch of road.

Aldur-Balehonnur-Jayapura: Alternates between good and bad stretches. Road is broken at most curves.

Jayapura-Koppa-Hariharapura: Good surface with very little potholes. But the road has lot of undulations till Koppa. After Koppa, it is very good with almost no potholes and broken stretches till Hariharapura (and the same continues till Sringeri)

We also went to Sringeri and Kigga from Hariharapura and the road is just lovely all the way to Sringeri and till the Kigga turn-off. Kigga is around 7-8 kms from Sringeri towards SK Border-Karkala. This is the NH 13.

For the return journey we took the following route

Hariharapura-Koppa-Jayapura-Balehonnur-Aldur-Haandi-Baskal-Gendehalli-Belur-Hassan

Till Aldur, the road conditions are mentioned above. At Aldur, we decided to take a new route after taking advice from a local friend.

The friend told me that Aldur-Haandi route was newly laid and suggested I take it to reach Chikmagalur via Haandi-Vastare instead of Aldur-Vastare-Chikmagalur.

Coming to the road conditions.

Aldur-Haandi: Lovely road. Newly laid and barring a couple of small humps, is awesome to drive. We join the Chikmagalur-Mudigere road at Haandi. Took a left towards Chikmagalur and after a km or so, we took a right towards Baskal.

Haandi-Baskal: Initially the road was a good single road. But a 2-3 kms after the main road, the potholes began to surface. The next 5 kms to Baskal was pretty bad. The road is broken in lots of places. I did scrape the bottom of the i20 one time. If you have good ground clearance in your car, you can manage it easily.

Baskal-Gendehalli-Belur: Single road with a mixture of good and bad stretches.

This route is 10 kms lesser than the route I took for the onward journey and is faster. But, vehicles having low GC could find it tough.

We were in three cars (an i20, a swift and a Vento). The Swift and the Vento were ahead of me and had already passed Aldur before I reached there. They had taken the regular Aldur-Vastare-Chikmagalur road to reach Belur. Me, in the i20 managed to reach Belur when they had just left Chikmagalur. It was raining heavily on both the routes.

[VindyWheels]

Hi, we plan to go to Kerala in Dec and return to Bangalore after staying at Manipal and Kollur. I have never done Manipal/Kollur to Bangalore. Will be driving my Hyundai Accent with family.
Will be of great help if I could get some idea on the below:

Best route to Bangalore from Kollur - leasurely drive, have plans to even stay overnight at Sakleshpur or any other nice place in between with homestay facilities. Pls also mention the best time during the day to avoid traffic.

Thank You

VW

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by VindyWheels

Pls also mention the best time during the day to avoid traffic.

Any time apart from the night (11pm-6am) is a good time to drive because during this duration, 75% of the buses are off the road.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by VindyWheels

Hi, we plan to go to Kerala in Dec and return to Bangalore after staying at Manipal and Kollur. I have never done Manipal/Kollur to Bangalore. Will be driving my Hyundai Accent with family.
Will be of great help if I could get some idea on the below:

If you plan to do Manipal/Udupi another option is to stay at Manipal and with that as a base visit Kollur and come back.
Then drive back from Manipal.

Manipal to Kollur is 80-90km.
So if you start early from Manipal you can easily return back by evening after covering Kollur.

[VindyWheels]

Thank You Ampere, that was real quick.

Its a good idea to return to Manipal if we cannot go to Kudachaadri with our kid. Which is the best route from Manipal to Bangalore with a suggestion for overnight halt in between?

VW

Originally Posted by ampere

If you plan to do Manipal/Udupi another option is to stay at Manipal and with that as a base visit Kollur and come back.
Then drive back from Manipal.

Manipal to Kollur is 80-90km.
So if you start early from Manipal you can easily return back by evening after covering Kollur.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by VindyWheels

Thank You Ampere, that was real quick.

Its a good idea to return to Manipal if we cannot go to Kudachaadri with our kid. Which is the best route from Manipal to Bangalore with a suggestion for overnight halt in between?

VW

More than me, its for Samurai-san to comment.
He is the one who drives on that sector, as we go to office and back every day

Do PM him for an update on the best route option available as of today.

[@ri]

Planning a trip to Manipal this weekend to start from Bangalore on Saturday.
I am intending to take the route Bangalore --> Tumkur --> Shimoga -- > Thirtahalli --> Agumbe -- > Manipal. Couple of years back , had taken the same route which was quite good, except for a stretch after coming down the Agumbe ghat. Would be great if someone could give me info on this route as to the situation now.
Also a thought that crossed my mind was to drive down to Jog from Manipal on sunday morning and then come back to bangalore. Would this be too much of a stress as I am traveling with my parents. Initially was intending to do a stop over at Murudeshwar but unable to get bookings there.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by VindyWheels

Its a good idea to return to Manipal if we cannot go to Kudachaadri with our kid. Which is the best route from Manipal to Bangalore with a suggestion for overnight halt in between?

Any reason for the overnight halt in between? As such you can reach Manipal for lunch if you leave Bangalore by 6AM. You'll be doing breakfast at midpoint (Sakleshpur) and have to hang around whole day there if you want this to be a 2 day trip.

Originally Posted by ampere

More than me, its for Samurai-san to comment.
He is the one who drives on that sector, as we go to office and back every day

After doing Shiradi 4 times last month, I am taking a break this month. Using my jet airways miles this month to fly up and down.

Originally Posted by @ri

I am intending to take the route Bangalore --> Tumkur --> Shimoga -- > Thirtahalli --> Agumbe -- > Manipal. Couple of years back , had taken the same route which was quite good, except for a stretch after coming down the Agumbe ghat. Would be great if someone could give me info on this route as to the situation now.

Agumbe to Manipal is in terrible state. The best route to Manipal now is via Shiradi and Mangalore.

Originally Posted by @ri

Also a thought that crossed my mind was to drive down to Jog from Manipal on sunday morning and then come back to bangalore. Would this be too much of a stress as I am traveling with my parents.

What do you intend to do at Jog? The falls is not worth seeing these days.

[@ri]

Originally Posted by Samurai

What do you intend to do at Jog? The falls is not worth seeing these days.

Well, my parents have never seen Jog and they would be moving to Kolkata as well. THanks for the route info.

[VindyWheels]

Thank You Samurai,

Actually we will be travelling from Manipal to Bangalore and not vice-versa. Our trip starts from Kochi (that makes it a 5-6 day trip halting at Guruvayur, Kasargod, Manipal and Kollur before coming to Bangalore).

Since we will be travelling with plenty of breaks to attend to our little one, we decided not to travel more than 200-250 kms a day. But the decision to take a halt will also be based on finding a nice place in between to stay. Sakleshpur looked quite nice in Fauji's travelogue and I believe you too would have it in your favourite OTR list. Since your advice is to travel via Shiradi my next step will be to research on a place to stay.

Thank You again

VW

Originally Posted by Samurai

Any reason for the overnight halt in between? As such you can reach Manipal for lunch if you leave Bangalore by 6AM. You'll be doing breakfast at midpoint (Sakleshpur) and have to hang around whole day there if you want this to be a 2 day trip.

After doing Shiradi 4 times last month, I am taking a break this month. Using my jet airways miles this month to fly up and down.

Agumbe to Manipal is in terrible state. The best route to Manipal now is via Shiradi and Mangalore.

What do you intend to do at Jog? The falls is not worth seeing these days.

[sandeep joshi]

I am planning to go to Mysore and coorg from Udupi in Christmas holidays
What is the best option to reach coorg from udupi
and then to mysore from coorg.
Best Route with minimum potholes between udupi - coorg - mysore is needed.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by sandeep joshi

I am planning to go to Mysore and coorg from Udupi in Christmas holidays
What is the best option to reach coorg from udupi
and then to mysore from coorg.
Best Route with minimum potholes between udupi - coorg - mysore is needed.

If the Sulya road is open, then thats the best option.
But if not, then its better to go to Mysore first

Karkala/Hassan/Halenarasipur : Mysore-Hassan SH is very nice.
Now I dont know which is the better option to Hassan from Udupi (Charmadi or Shiradi)

Then you can do Mysore-Madikeri. (Very nice roads again via Hunsur).

Now for return to go back to Hassan from Coorg, there is an option via Arkalgud and Gorur.