[Tempelhof]

I was recently travelling from Tiruvannamalai to Bangalore, via Harur.

After covering about 65% of the Tiruvannamalai-Harur stretch, I felt that the road was very lonely with very little (or, none) vehicular movement - that too in broad daylight.

The other similar route that I have seen is the Kodaikanal to Munnar route via the Berijam lake - it is a forest road.

Can someone let me know the loneliest road in South India? What about the loneliest road in India? In the world?

Pictures please...

[JohnnyBoss]

The Kodai-Munnar route via Berijam isn't operational, as far as I know.
How did you manage to travel through that route and how was the road conditions?
Please shed some detailed light here.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBoss

The Kodai-Munnar route via Berijam isn't operational, as far as I know.
How did you manage to travel through that route and how was the road conditions?
Please shed some detailed light here.

That SH was in operation quite some time back. Later they closed it in 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodaikanal–Munnar_Road

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by Tempelhof

I was recently travelling from Tiruvannamalai to Bangalore, via Harur.
...
Can someone let me know the loneliest road in South India? What about the loneliest road in India? In the world?

By lonely, do you mean a creepy, deserted stretch or just lack of traffic?? If it is the former, the loneliest stretch I have travelled on (in South India) is the Valparai - Athirapally road. The road passes through extremely thick forests and can give you the creeps. In broad daylight, the vegetation and tree canopy was so thick that I had to switch on headlights at a few places. There was almost zero traffic on this road when I did this ~80 km ghat section stretch around 2 years ago.

We had to take a break at one point and stopped the car for a while. All we could hear when we got out was the sound of insects and crickets, nothing else! It was dark and eerie due to the thick forests. No one in sight for miles! There weren't many towns on the route either. The entire forest ambience was so creepy that we just resumed the journey immediately and wanted to get it done with. If some car breaks down on this route in the monsoons, the guy is surely doomed!

[ramzsys]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

The loneliest stretch I have travelled on (in South India) is the Valparai - Athirapally road.

During the monsoons(June-september) this road is very unsafe. Vegetation is so close to the road so when trees get uprooted one have to wait for forest office jeep to arrive to sort out things.

Also, this stretch has 'mischievous elephants' as told by a TN bus conductor.

[KiloAlpha]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBoss

The Kodai-Munnar route via Berijam isn't operational, as far as I know.
How did you manage to travel through that route and how was the road conditions?
Please shed some detailed light here.

Originally Posted by ampere

That SH was in operation quite some time back. Later they closed it in 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodaikanal–Munnar_Road

In 1993, when we were entering our final year B.E. in Mysore, 4 of my friends traveled on this road, from Munnar side, and reached Kodaikanal after a few adventures. Their rides were on one RX100 and one Hero Honda.

They first got to Top Station. They reported that the road was not all that great, but do-able. Once there, some local told them tall tales about this road. So they decided to take it. The entry at Top Station was not barricaded, there was no signage, so they entered it. Soon, it became a proper off-road track and they were really struggling.
Somehow, by late afternoon, they reached the first forest checkpost on the Tamil Nadu side. After much arguing, some money changed hands, they were allowed to proceed. Same story at the next checkpost as well. By the 3rd one, they were running out of cash and gas. All they had for greasing palms was cigarettes, so they convinced the guard to let them go in exchange for a pack.
Once in Kodaikanal, they went to another friend's house, who lent them the cash to get back home to Mysore.

[thoma]

My experience with loneliest road is the Boothathankettu-Edamalayar dam road through the teak forests. Too creepy and dangerous too - we were warned at the check post at the entry into the forest that if unlucky, drunkard hooligans could target families. Once we went on a friend's i10 who fooled us to believe that the tank could get empty even before the needle hit E. Took dad n mom long back but I dare take my wife there without additional security of other friends or relatives.

The other one was through the road inside Bastar jungle in the then Madhya Pradesh. Not a soul in sight. Was traveling in a Premier Padmini from Bhilai to Kerala!

[500ContyCruiser]

Loneliest road I have ridden so far in South is, between Kaiga and Igundi (on Hubli-Ankola road) at 3:00 am on my two wheeler.

http://goo.gl/maps/90o7j

This is dense western ghat, narrow road and zero (0) traffic. While entering from Kaiga, checkpost officer warned about wild animals and literally no help if something goes bad. Since my friend had to reach Mysore by evening, we took this as shortest route.

My friend is a good rider and he easily zoomed off, however I was new into long rides (especially ghat section) and was left alone till Idgundi. In the entire stretch, all I could hear was insects sound & my bike's thump. For a second I switched off head lamp and it was pitch dark, all I could see was Kaiga nuclear plant few feet below.

Though it was bit scary and different experience for me, had some kind of confidence that I will make it without any problem (luckily I did also ).
Only thing I can think of is.. Did my schooling in that place and during those days, we used to roam around in that forest to eat fruits (purple colored fruit, donno whats it called), collect stones for games and swim in water streams. Probably that gave a bit of confidence

[mazda4life]

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[Tempelhof]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBoss

The Kodai-Munnar route via Berijam isn't operational, as far as I know.
How did you manage to travel through that route and how was the road conditions?
Please shed some detailed light here.

Originally Posted by ampere

That SH was in operation quite some time back. Later they closed it in 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodaikanal–Munnar_Road

You're right. I could not go beyond Berijam.

[Tempelhof]

Here's a photograph of the path that leads to Munnar from Kodaikanal via Berijam. I have a video too, but I'm not sure if we can upload videos in this thread.

[praful]

1. Valparai - Athirapally : Has been mentioned in the thread before, just re-adding it. Was pretty scary to do this all alone in a bike back in 2011. But I've heard that from summer 2012, roads have been relaid and its pretty smooth now. But back in 2011 it was one broken piece of road, not a single soul seen for more than 40 kms. Super eerie feeling crossing doing this stretch.

2. Yana - Gokarna : Firstly I took the route from Sirsi that goes direct to Yana avoiding Devimane ghats completely, that itself was super lonely for the last 15 kms before Yana. Then from Yana I saw a board that said Gokarna 35 Kms, back then this road was not on Google Maps (I've added it now, but its far from accurate). Basically there is no road, just a old non-existent road that was probably used a few years back. For the first 5 kms there was sign of civilization at all. And it the road just kept going deeper and deeper into the forest. Again, solo on a bike added to the whole eeriness experience. There were some signs of a road being built, but nobody working on it. Finally the road emerged and I came out of a forest checkpost. They were too shocked to stop me since I was coming from a direction they didn't expect anyone to come from. Here's one picture of that route!

[tharian]

The loneliest stretch I did was surprisingly was between Veldurthi and Chikaballapur on the Blore-Hyd expressway.

Almost nil traffic, handful of small shops and people. Basically desert like. I was heading to Hyd from Blore and left early morning on my 500 which developed compression issues after Gooty and decided to head back at Veldurthi which is just short of Kurnool. One major reason for that decision was the lack of traffic and shops on that highway as it was my first time and had to return even if the bike lasted till Hyd.
On the way back I was not doing high speeds and for almost an hour after Ananthpur, there was an occasional two wheeler in the same direction as me.

But, I heard in the nights, this expressway is filled with inter city buses.

[Tempelhof]

Lost my way from Thirukovilur to Gingee

Like a stupid, I once lost my way while going from Thirukovilur to Gingee.

No GPS. Horrible Road (if at all it existed). No one to ask in that lonely road.

The blue line in the map shows the route I must have taken. The red line shows the route I took approximately, with my brand new Civic

With lots of difficulty and guesswork - and occasionally asking a few farmers on the way - and after 3.5 hours we reached Gingee. On the way we only had village Gods as our Company !

Photos show some sights on this lonely road.

[praful]

Back in the monsoon of 2011, I was riding from Madikeri to Chikmagalur. The route I intended to take was Madikeri-Somwarpet-Shanivarsanthe-Sakleshpur-Arehalli-Chikmagalur. Everything was fine till I touched Sakleshpur, with the rains were beating down hard and loss of visibility due to clouds I missed the Arehalli turn. I had to reach Chikmagalur before it got dark since I am not familiar with the area.

I ended up taking a wrong turn a few kilometers outside of Sakleshpur, the auto rickshaw guys sitting at that junction just nodded when I asked Chikmagalur?? .. within about 2 kms of taking that turn, the road just vanished. Not a single soul seen for the next 30 kms. The asphalt finally started some few kms outside of Belur. What a relief.. Phew!!

Till date I don't know which was that turn I took...which led me to a "road" like this!!