2nd May 2007, 17:11
| #1 |
| Senior - BHPian  | Travelogue: A drive to Saligrama & back Bangalore – Neelamangala – Hassan – Sakleshpur – Uppinangandi – Beltangandi – Karkala – Manipal – Udupi – Saligrama – Beltangandi – Dharmasthala – Sakleshpur - Bangalore (900 km) Members: Abhi and 2 colleagues (Rohit, Amit) in AltoLXi It was one month back that my colleague Supreet informed me about his marriage in Saligrama, about 18km North of Udupi along NH17. I did have my plans open but it was not concrete till the last moment. A week towards Rohit was planning to go and he called me, I casually told that lets go in my car. I thought they will be scared of the distance and might take a bus but I was wrong. All wanted to go in my car. Only Sangan dropped out in the last moment as he had a conf call with customer even on the May1 holiday. Got a ping in the communicator from Satya (speedsatya of team-bhp fame) who sits in the ground floor that he too will be back from Mangalore at that time. We can jam up together in return. Anyway, April30 evening, I slept for an hour in the evening after an early dinner at 7:30PM. After a nice bath, I started from home at 10:45PM. Had an air check at OMR Shell and started towards Shivananda Circle to pick up Rohit and Amit. After picking up the guys we start for the journey at 11:25PM. As soon as we hit NH4 (Tumkur road), there was a big jam as the trucks are starting up and there were lots of buses. Somehow slowly we managed to reach Neelamangala at 12:15PM where we left the 4 laned GQ and turned left to NH48 (popularly known as Mangalore highway) and personally one of my favourite highways. I also did Bangalore – Mangalore by bike earlier. I was in NH48 in night for the first time and there was very less traffic then. Soon, my car started to hit 100-110kmph. It was really a new experience with those blind curves and only my headlight, the only source of sight. The guys were also upbeat and we kept on chatting while on drive. There were discussion on traffic to cars to my kolkata drive to company to bosses and finally into girls. Both the bachelors in the car were worried of one fact, “How to trust a girl? How will I know she is good? etcetc”. I wanted to explain my bit of experience but after an hour it was decided to leave all this to GOD. Well, then why did we discuss all this time !!! Nice atmosphere, the nice hindi numbers were adding aura to the drive. Between all this discussions Kunigal, Hirisave passed by in no time. You have to take left from Hirisave to go to Sharavanbelagola. Soon we were in Channarayanapatna and into Kamat Upachar. It was 2AM. We did Neelamangala jn – Kamat in 105min. That was fast !!! Satya’s fastest was 1hr 20 min in his mod-Zen with 165-G3 tyres. Hence, I thought for me to do in 1 hr 45min in pitch darkness is commendable without any risk. Anyway we had tea in Kamat in that mad crowd. Crowd in Kamat: On entering Kamat gate, I was astonished to find the parking full of buses. Ther must about 15 buses parked there. Now, I realized why a 11PM start is great because you will see off almost all the buses at Kamat and after that the highway is yours. Buses parked in Kamat Upachar, CRpatna  Nightout in Ghats: We start from Kamat at 2:45AM and soon into Hasan BP. By 4AM we have already passed Sakleshpur and into ghats. It was a different experience of driving in the nights in Shiradi ghat. Roads are not smooth there but it is not pathetic like my last visit in august last year. Except for 2 turns all the other turns have been repaired. I could still do lots of overtaking and managed to cover it in 1.5 hours. Once out of ghat road, the roads looked damn wet as fit it had rained heavily just few min ago. We had to slow considerably once it became foggy and slight drizzle. Our initial plan till now was to take right from Pumpwell circle at Mangalore and head towards Udupi on NH17. But we lost close to 30min due to bad weather and it was dawn when we reached Uppinangandi. I stopped the car and assessed the situation and also promptly decided to take right towards Beltangandi. It was an instantaneous decision and proved very right. Till Beltangandi the road was damn narrow but no traffic at all. From Beltangandi, the road improved and it was an excellent drive through some amazing picturesque surroundings of the Kudremukh ranges in Western ghats. We could easily do 60-80kmph and reached Karkala by 7PM. We stopped at a Reliance Petrol stop in Karkala BP and the guys broke to do their regular early morning stuffs there itself. Car drank 18.73lit for 378.2km. Chalo thik hai, I will wait in the car. Meanwhile gave a call to Supreet’s uncle and told about our whereabouts. That Reliance pump accepts Credit Card, nice to see that in that remote area. We start Reliance at 7:30AM, somewhere immediately after Karkala, we get joined to NH13. What was SH37 till now has become NH13 (which goes to Sholapur via hampi, Chitradurga). Anyway road condition was still same and our drive was fast. Within no time we were in Manipal and in another 5km onto NH17 at Udupi. Took right from Udupi towards Kundapur, Saligrama was another 16km from there. We reached Supreet’s village home by 8:45AM. Nice to be in a place surrounded by trees and not people or concrete. Supreet was laughing and enjoying every moment, “Hans le beta, yehi akhri baar hans raha hai”…Anyway, had some amazing home made food for breakfast and after a nice bath we all moved to the Marriage Hall. We spent sometime till lunch and decided to start our return journey by 1PM. Meet with Samurai: While having lunch got a call from Samurai and he told that he is waiting for me. I told him our plans and soon headed towards Udupi. Samurai guided us through a shortcut from NH17 which directly took us to Manipal behind Manipal University. Samurai came there in his Auto-Santro. I parked my car there and all of us board the Santro and headed towards a viewpoint which was really breathtaking. We took some nice pictures there. Samurai told it will not be the same in a few years as govt has taken up some construction activity there. Anyway, I am lucky!! The 2 good men  and some pics of Manipal   Then, we visited Samurai’s upcoming office facility and a glimpse of his beautiful home. I was floored by the location. You can see entire Manipal from there. While driving there, he also demonstrated a glimpse of his performance filter in his Santro. After spending a good 45min with Samurai, we all thanked him and set for the return journey via Karkala. Actually we have passed through Samurai’s house in the morning. It was 2:35PM, We left Manipal and we started to pump. This time Amit took to the wheel to have a drive in the ghats. The road was deserted and within no time we were in Karkala. By 3:25PM we were passing Beltangadi. We really did it very fast as the road was good and there was no traffic. At Beltangandi, I got a call from speedsatya from Mangalore that he will be starting in 10min. He told, don’t wait for me, just go on, I will try to catch you up. I also decided not to do Uppinangandi rather try out the Dharmasthala route and touch NH48 farther 20km from Uppinangandi. The road via Dharmasthala was also very good and we could cover good distance. We hit NH48 by 4:30PM. Amit stopped there for a changeover and we took a 5min break. It was 4:45PM and milestone read Sakleshpur 53km. Now, I took on the wheel and decided to reach Kamat before darkness. For that I have to reach Sakleshpur in 1 hour. We were amazingly fast. We overtook every car and trucks. Except for an Innova who took it personally and tried to do some dragging during the hairpin climbs. Still he couldn’t catch up. Anyway, we didn’t want to race, just that we wanted to be fast as well as safe so that we can reach Kamat before night. Car behaved very well in those high speed bends and curves but at times I feel a change in footwear would help my car even better. Anyway, the stock JKs are still doing well for the last 16K kms mostly on highways. As planned we did hit Sakleshpur ontime and soon the speed to increased. Soon I found an Accent doing similar speeds and he helped me pass Hassan in notime. We hit 125kmph in that stretch and passed Hassan BP by 6:30PM. In between we had to face a heavy downpour but we didn’t change our plans. Got call from Satya that he has hit the ghats and would be in Sakleshpur soon. By 7PM and the stroke of darkness we stopped at Reliance pump just before Channarayanapatna. Now called up satya, he was reaching Hassan. Kool, he must be pumping very hard. After all the slaughter which I did while climbing the ghat, my car still consumed 18.03 lit for 335km. I checked it again and it really surprised me. Now Amit got so much enthu that he wanted to drive again although I was bit reluctant but still gave him to drive. He was telling that he is having severe headache an hour back. Well, I thought this is what some powerful driving can do. Remove headaches. After Channarayanapatna, traffic eased out. Almost we can see Bangalore numbered cars returning home after marriage season or home from coastal Karnataka as it was long weekend. We started to tailgate a Safari and we were been tailgated by an Accord. We felt like a king. Somewhere in Kunigal, the Accord overtook us and now the chain was Safari, Accord and Alto. Soon after Kunigal we can see a chain of cars doing 90-100kmph and in line and no body tried to overtake anyone. Safari leading, followed by Accord then my Alto, follwed by a Qualis and then a Getz. Some cars did overtake us started to head ahead of the Safari. Suddenly I get a call from Satya, he is telling, “Tu kahan hai”, mein lagta hai Neelamangala pahooch raha hoon. I told, “What”, just check out you just be ahead of me. In no time he honked me in the back at Neelamangala signal at 9PM exactly. Hats of to his 165-G3s. He did 140-160kmph speed in open stretches and finally caught us. We stopped in the roadside on NH4 and discussed the timings, speed, FE etc. Finally we reached home by 10PM. It was an excellent drive and fast too. We covered Dharmashthala to Neelamangala in 4.5 hours, a distance of about 285km including climbing ghats and 30min break. Amazingly Satya covered Mangalore – Bangalore in 4.5 hours and he did Sakleshpur to Neelamangala in 2hr 15min which damn fast in any standards. He told that he got some stretches without traffic and could do 160kmph and he could do Sakleshpur – Hassan in 20min for 38km. Overall the car consumed 46lit of petrol for 902km. Total distance(Home to Home): 880 km. Signing off Abhijit Kumar Roy |
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2nd May 2007, 17:41
| #2 |
| BANNED Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 140
Thanked: 33 Times
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2nd May 2007, 17:49
| #3 |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Chennai
Posts: 2,523
Thanked: 454 Times
| Nice detailed report. Your onward journey is for 10 hrs, 4 hrs at a function, 1 hr with Samurai and return journey for 7.5 hrs. Man how did u managed it? Any plans to upgrade your stock rubber as you seem to do highway travel often  |
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2nd May 2007, 17:55
| #4 |
| BANNED Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Bangalore / Madras
Posts: 1,982
Thanked: 31 Times
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2nd May 2007, 17:58
| #5 |
| Senior - BHPian  | Mr.Travel Guru , another quickie trip but sure a long drive. Hats off !!How is the Belthangadi - Uppinangadi road now? I see that you have only mentioned the road is narrow. Last time I drove it was a mess and regret having done that road. Am sure you did enjoy the Dharmasthala route, quite scenic. Good on you mate and the cheeky Alto. Like you have mentioned , give her some good rubber with alloys and she will run with charm.I miss my car now :( Last edited by rjstyles69 : 2nd May 2007 at 18:04. |
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2nd May 2007, 17:59
| #6 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
 And yes, I did have a nice long sleep last night after the sleepless night and drive the prev night...I do have plans for Alloys+rubber but presently my budget is really denting my desires. In negotiation for Turanza Tubeless for an exchange...lets see... Abhi Last edited by akroy : 2nd May 2007 at 18:02. | |
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2nd May 2007, 18:32
| #7 |
| Team-BHP Support   | Great Report Abhi, looks like you made amazing speed on your return trip. BTW, you didn't spend more than 30 minutes here.  |
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2nd May 2007, 19:53
| #8 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 547
Thanked: 7 Times
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2nd May 2007, 20:01
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| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
Quote:
Abhi | ||
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2nd May 2007, 20:09
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| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
Abhi | |
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2nd May 2007, 20:50
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| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
 Abhi | |
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2nd May 2007, 21:28
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| Distinguished - BHPian   | |
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2nd May 2007, 21:52
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| Team-BHP Support | Quote:
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2nd May 2007, 21:55
| #14 | |
| Distinguished - BHPian | Quote:
Last edited by Samurai : 2nd May 2007 at 22:40. Reason: Haven't earned that title | |
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2nd May 2007, 22:17
| #15 |
| Senior - BHPian  | |
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