[9tMax]

Hi Zappo,
I just went thru ur blog. Its wonderful and quite informative. I am planning for a goa trip during jan via your route. Can u please give some details about the hotels in bijapur ? I am planning for my night halt in bijapur.
Thanx.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by 9tMax

Hi Zappo,
I just went thru ur blog. Its wonderful and quite informative. I am planning for a goa trip during jan via your route. Can u please give some details about the hotels in bijapur ? I am planning for my night halt in bijapur.
Thanx.

Max, i suggest you stop at Kolhapur rather than Bijapur as the hotels there are better and food also would be great. your planning this trip in an omni?

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Max, i suggest you stop at Kolhapur rather than Bijapur as the hotels there are better and food also would be great. your planning this trip in an omni?

oops my bad, bijapur is karnataka route and Kolhapur is Maharashtra route. I had taken the latter.

[9tMax]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Max, i suggest you stop at Kolhapur rather than Bijapur as the hotels there are better and food also would be great. your planning this trip in an omni?

@ mobike : yeah, i'm indeed going to make the trip in my omni, and don't worry, this isn't going to be my first trip. over the last five years i have been travelling extensively in AP and have gone down south upto pondy with my good ol' trusted omni and never felt like complaining.

[dsreddy]

Hi 9tMax,

I recntly went Goa by Bijapur and checked into Hotel Pearl near Gol Gumbaj . It's on the same way . Hotel is nice and clean.

[dsreddy]

Hi Zappo ,

you blog is quite informative. on your advise I took Homanbad route recently on my trip to Goa and I covered Hyderabad- Bijapur in just 6 hours. I agree with you that Hyderabad-Goa can be covered in 15 hoours.

On the way back to Hyderabad , I took Karwar-Hubli-Rayachur route. It is also the best route.

[Zappo]

9tMax, one of the better hotels in Bijapur is probably Pearls Inn. It looks pretty ok by that city's standard (Bijapur is awfully dusty, and dark at night). We had our dinner there while going and again had the lunch there while coming back.

We did not stay there though. The reason was that Pearls Inn is pretty new and the guy whom I talked to never heard about it. Actually he studied in Bijapur some 5+ years back. In his days one of the best hotels used to be Samrat. Today it must be one of the most pathetic anywhere in the world.

Another good hotel there is Hotel Madhuban International, I am told.

[9tMax]

Thanx zappo and reddy for all the info, only it came slightly late. I have already finished my goa trip. I started from here on 12th morning and came back on 20th night, and the best part is that we stayed in hotel pearl in bijapur bcoz that one was the first hotel to catch our attention while we were looking for the hotels on that main road. It is no doubt a pretty decent hotel with nice big rooms at a very economical rate. We got a nice big 3 bed room just for 650. And the food was also pretty good and damn cheap (it feels so even more after coming back from goa). Your route was also excellent.

[mobike008]

@9thmax, Can you post some pictures and perhaps a nice short travelouge of your trip?

[vnabhi]

9TMax, which route did you take, and how long was the journey. Also how was the road?

[9tMax]

While going i followed the hyd - gulbarga - bijapur - athni - chikodi - belgaum - amboli - sawantwadi - panaji - colva route. Hyd to colva total distance was 854 km.
Road conditions were like this:

hyd exit via patancheru - u know how it is, moderate road, heavy traffic;

Upto sadashivpet - zaheerabad - ok, light traffic;

Zaheerabad - homnabad - bad road with rough surface, no potholes though;

homnabad - gulbarga - bijapur by k'taka SH - excellent road, almost no traffic;

bijapur - athni - kagwada - good road with very little traffic;

kagwada - chikodi - road is good but slightly narrower than earlier roads, occassional potholes at some places and slightly more traffic;

chikodi - sankeshwar - some stretches are slightly broken road, but repairing work was going on, not much traffic again;

sankeshwar - belgaum - NH4, part of GQ, simply speaking - highway to heaven.

belgaum - amboli - sawantwadi - initial part is good, after that some stretches are with rough surface or slightly broken but not very bad, only u have to drive a bit slowly. But once the descent starts on the ghat section the road becomes pretty ok.

sawantwadi - panaji - colva - once u enter goa, roads are very good and what i liked even more was the much more well behaved traffic as compared to our hyd.


While coming back, we followed colva - palolem (via NH17) - karwar - ankola - yellapur - hubli - gadag - koppal -hospet - raichur - mehboobnagar - jadcherla (NH-7) to hyd. Total distance was 839 km.

Road condition wise this route was quite ok all thru out except for the stretch between gadag and koppal where again the road surface was rough due to repaired patches all throughout, but nothing serious. I saw indigos and SX4s passing by me at pretty good speed on this stretch. And the last stretch from jadcherla to hyd on the bangalore highway had innumerable diversions due to the 4 laning work. And if u are entering hospet in the evening at around 8, be prepared to face a flood of truck traffic. U will also face hundreds of trucks on the ghat road between ankola and yellapur. It took us almost 3 hrs to reach yellapur from ankola.

[mobike008]

Max, thats one detailed description of the road condition. I am sure lot of people will benefit from this information. Do post some pics asap of the trip

[vnabhi]

Thanks Max. So if somebody wants to go to Goa, which route would you suggest for :-
1.reaching earlier
2. from driving comfort point of view
3. For scenic beauty
The difference between both routes is around 15 kms only.
I assume each route must have taken around 15 to 17 hours, right?

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

Thanks Max. So if somebody wants to go to Goa, which route would you suggest for :-
1.reaching earlier
2. from driving comfort point of view
3. For scenic beauty
The difference between both routes is around 15 kms only.
I assume each route must have taken around 15 to 17 hours, right?

I can tell you about the first route vnabhi. The one via homnabad, bijapur, athni... This road is doable in 14.5 hours easily with all your luxurious lunch breaks (1 hour), tea breaks et al. And then again a big chunk of time gets eaten away in crossing the Hyderabad-Patacheru stretch. So much for our roads here.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by Zappo

I can tell you about the first route vnabhi. The one via homnabad, bijapur, athni... This road is doable in 14.5 hours easily with all your luxurious lunch breaks (1 hour), tea breaks et al. And then again a big chunk of time gets eaten away in crossing the Hyderabad-Patacheru stretch. So much for our roads here.

Thanks Zappo. The Hyd-Patancheru stretch is not bad if you start early and go via Gachibowli instead of the regular Ameerpet-Miyapur road. I went to Mumbai last month, and could cross Patancheru by 715 am, after leaving my house on Raj Bhawan road at 630 am.
I took the same route on my return and avoided dense traffic on the Kukatpalli road.
I don't know how fast I went, but I could reach Zaheerabad in around 2 hours. But the journey to Thane took totally 14.5 hours, and the main culprits for the delay were heavy truck traffic on the Solapur -Pune road, an little over an hour to cross Pune,and an equal time to get into Thane once the expressway ends. This of course is in addition to breaks for breakfast, lunch, tea and pee.