Two Days in Heaven - Mangalore - Kasaragod – Kannur – Calicut – Vythiri TWO DAYS /NIGHTS IN HEAVEN
Date: 05/10/2011 to 08/10/2011
Tour plan was conceived 2 months back. Reviews on the various resorts were read online and a selection was made, booking done and amount paid one month in advance. Little did we know about the road conditions. This was my first tour to this particular district.
Members: 4 adults – myself, wife, my parents and 2 kids – son 5yrs and daughter 8mths old.
Vehicle: Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire Vdi – 24K kms old and serviced a week back. Route: Udupi – Mangalore- Kasaragod – Kannur (overnight stay) – Calicut – Vythiri. Return – same way but without stay.
Road conditions – Udupi-Mangalore : 4 lane under construction but mostly smooth. Have to switch from left to right many times. No issues in daytime. Took 1 hour.
Mangalore- kasaragod: Virtually no road. To call it a national Highway would be shame. Be prepared to drive in I/II gear for long periods and on pebbles and pot holes, dust all around. Avoid at night if possible. Took 11/2 hours which should have been less than an hour when road is good.
Kasaragod-Kanhangad: Took 45min, NH 17 (not the state highway which is few kms short) was in excellent condition save few short bad patches. Stopped at Nalanda Resorts at Neeleshwar for lunch.
Neeleshwar to Kannur – 11/2 hours. Highway for most of its length is in good condition.
Checked into Hotel Blue Nile at Kannur at 5pm. (They have a website, just google it if you need details. – stay was comofortable, can recommend it)
Started at 8.15am on 06/10/2011 from hotel.
Kannur-Calicut: Pure nightmare. Once you enter NH17 in Kerala, be prepared to get frustrated as it is narrow, congested, enters into Talissery and Mahe. NH 17 at Talissery was in same condition as it was between Mlr and Kasaragod -non existent and small signboards. Ask directions frequently as once you miss the correct road, to get back again on track takes long time and is very frustrating. Particularly at Talissery.
Most important lesson: avoid journey to this part in October as bad roads after heavy rains are probably repaired around this time and multiple diversions, missing roads and finding it again will make your journey 2 hours longer and frustrating if you are used to driving at good speed on 4 lane highways. Starting well in advance would be much better.
Calicut to Vythiri (Wyanad): Hill roads- steep and 9 hairpin curves and no road at most hairpins.
Road from NH 212 (mysore – Calicut) to vythiri resorts: non existent. Same as non existent roads mentioned earlier.
Checked into Vythiri resorts at 1.30pm on 06/10/11. our good time started now.
Resort Stay: Chose 2nights plan/ wooden haven. 2 additional single cots+bed+food, total cost including all food- 34K. spacious cottage with balcony overlooking a stream and dense forest all around. You have 24 hours non stop music by birds, cicada, water and multiple other creatures. Ambience is purely heavenly. Walk from reception to our cottage is bit difficult for elderly with knee pains. However battery operated “Buggy” vehicles available on request. I had to avail the facility as my mom had knee pains. No issues for physically fit ones.
Veg food at restaurant was among the best I have tasted in any resorts. Multiple choices too.
No A/C needed as such. Its quite cool and mornings are quite cold at this time of year. Swimming pool was so-so.
You will be amazed to see the amount of wood used in this resort.
Also something new to me was lemongrass oil diluted in water to clean the toilets gives such a beautiful fragrance and also is supposed to be an insect repellant. Bought some on way back to try.
Plenty of friendly Malabar giant squirrels and monkeys here.
In a nutshell, our time flew and suddenly we realized it was time to leave.
We completed the return journey in a single day.
Started from Resorts at 8.45 am and reached Kannur by 1.30pm and took lunch break at 2pm. Started again at 2.45pm and by 6pm reached Mangalore and another break for coffee. At 7.30pm we were in Udupi.
Mileage was apprx 18kms (TF to TF) with AC on all the time.
Last edited by Technocrat : 22nd October 2011 at 01:59.
Reason: Edited formatting for better readability, thanks
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