[zurura023]

Hello everyone,

After being a reader for about 10 years on TeamBHP, I finally got my ID created and thought I may have a couple of things to contribute now to the forum. My first post is dedicated to my love of traveling and especially road trips.

We recently got a used Jeep Compass Longitude Diesel MT in late October to replace the 11 year old VW Vento Diesel. Long term ownership threads and other threads about pre-loved cars made me take the plunge. We had long planned this road trip in end December centering around Goa to attend a relative's wedding and wanted to add another location for a week before returning back home. The plan was finally locked to a week in Goa and then onwards to Hampi followed by Badami and back to Bombay [Thane].

After a bit of reading on TeamBHP for the better roads, I had finalised on these routes,
1. Bombay-Pune- Kolhapur-Sankeshwar-Amboli-Sawantwadi-Mapusa route for Bombay-Goa leg
2. Mapusa-Panjim-Mollem-Anmod-Hubli-Gadag-Koppal-Hospete route for Goa-Hampi
3. Badami-Kulgeri-Ramdurg-Yaragatii-Belgavi-Kolhapur-Pune-Bombay for the final Badami-Bombay leg


19th Dec - Leg 1
We started our journey at 6:20 as against the planned 05:30-06:00, which was quite decent considering the timeliness of my family. Nonetheless we cruised uneventfully till our first stop at 08:40 which was Shri Dutta on the expressway after the Pune side toll gate. After some light eats and an unsuccessful hunt for PUC at the petrol pump, we resumed our journey through Pune, and crossed the Katraj tunnel at 10:00.

Traffic was light overall as it was a Sunday and that made the drive less stressful. The Pune Satara stretch was ok from a road surface point of view and we crossed Satara at 11:45. The Satara Kolhapur road stretch was better than the previous one and we made good time to reach Kolhapur by 13:45. We had taken a couple of bio-breaks of 5 mins. The ladies prefer managing their business outdoors with the passenger side two doors opened on the service road. This they find is more hygienic than relying on the rest rooms on our highways and we have been sticking to it for our trips all over India since the past 10-12 years.

The Kolhapur Sankheshwar road is quite awesome especially once we cross over to Karnataka. I did floor the Jeep a bit in this section and it touched 140 easily with three people and loads of luggage, thanks to the wedding. It was a pleasure driving the Compass and I think it was relatively less stressful than the Vento - that may be slightly mental though.

We were looking for a Davengere Benne Dosa outlet before taking the right for Gadhinglaj. Although, Google maps assured there was a place, but it didn't turn out to be so. We didn't waste much time trying to locate the dosa outlet and moved ahead to halt right at Gadhinglaj turn around 14:30. We had food at Hotel Swad [renamed now to Hotel _____, I'll fill this in once I recall]. The owner was warm and chatty and the food was really nice. Quite a decent stop, if one is around this area.

After spending an hour for lunch, we resumed our journey and reached Gadhinglaj at 16:05 and Ajara at 16:40. There was a road closure at Ajara and we were routed through some internal roads, where we ended up losing around 10-15 minutes roughly courtesy of Google maps. The road was frankly ok and I did not find much incremental advantage taking the Gadhniglaj route as against the usual Nippani-Gadhniglaj from Goa Ves hotel, which we did last in September. But it did give a slightly extended run on the excellent NH48 stretch from Nippani to Sankheshwar.

I had initially planned for a brief halt somewhere after crossing Amboli for the sunset. But as we were slightly late, we stopped right before the Amboli waterfall, at the Amboli sunset point for some tea and a photo opportunity. The sun still had around 15-20 minutes to set, but with two ladies with me, I couldn't stay longer and set off for the last leg. We reached the base of Amboli around 18:30 and skipped the Danoli way. We took the Danoli way back in September and were not impressed by the road there. We moved straight to Sawantwadi and joined NH66 at Insuli.

The NH66 road work in Goa has resulted in some confusing points with diversions and oncoming traffic a bit too much for my comfort. Also, the exits from NH66 to Mapusa are not that well marked and in addition involve U turns right on the highway, which I declined to take. We finally got an exit to Mapusa and reached home around 20:05 covering a total of 562 kms with an MID indicated average of 17.1 kmpl.

The exact route that we took is here - https://goo.gl/maps/QVHkedSotfuvwMyq6. The car performed exceedingly well and it was a pleasure to drive it. The commanding position [or the excitement or driving this vehicle] somehow had us less fatigued than our usual road trip. I was taught to drive by my wife mostly and she is the more experienced drive going by sheer number of years. We do fight a lot while driving and those fights revolve around who'll drive more. We time and measure the other person's driving time and try and evenly distribute the driving honours. I cheated this time and drove around 75% of the way convincing her that she slowed us down on the Pune-Satara stretch.

On the COVID entry restrictions, we were stopped at the Karnataka entry point on NH48, right on that bridge. They just asked our destination and asked us to proceed without checking anything after saying Goa. We did not encounter any check on the Maharashtra-Goa border. We did not even slow the vehicle at the check post; I rather realised we had crossed into Goa after a bit actually. But another relative's car which crossed into Goa around 10 minutes after us using the same route was stopped at the border and double vaccination certificates were checked for both occupants.

I'll post the return leg and a few images in the subsequent posts. Happy to pen this down here as my first post.

[zurura023]

28th Dec - Leg 2

Thanks to WFH, I spent the week working from Goa while others were preparing for the wedding. I used NomadGao as my work destination; they do have multiple locations around North Goa where work spaces and cabins are available. I had used the Anjuna one last time but preferred the Assagao one this time as that was slightly closer to home. The Jeep did local rounds of dropping me off to work and shopping trips this week. I topped off the fuel the day before the wedding and tank-to-tank indicated an average of around 15.7, thanks to all the local driving for the wedding preparation. I always look forward to washing my car and did a nice wash one morning with the Karcher pump that the cousin had. That gleam just wins me over.

After completing the wedding on 27th Dec, we set off from Goa for the next leg of our trip which was to be Hampi and Badami in Karnataka. Thanks to the wedding festivities, we managed to sleep at around 3 am and left only at 10:15 am way behind the planned departure. On the way we picked up some food from Babaji, which is our go to place in Mapusa for picking up local breakfast items. Also, our PUC had expired around a week back and we wanted to get it done before crossing the Goa-Karnataka border. An unsuccessful hunt along the Mapusa-Panjim road meant we trudged along Panjim-Mollem route without the PUC. Thankfully, we did manage to find one before Mollem and got the document done.

We had finalised the Mollem route against Chorla, thanks to TeamBHP and the warnings about the potholes at Chorla. The entire Mollem - Anmod route was quite decent and the road quality was pretty good. The checkpost at Anmod was dead serious about carrying alcohol and had me open a couple of bags to inspect if I am carrying any bottles. They did not bother about RT PCR or vaccination certificates but did a thorough search of the car for bottles. Never had I seen such a check on the Goa-Maharashtra border.

We ate our packed breakfast/lunch on the way in the Anmod ghat under a tree in the forest breaking for just 10 minutes. Visually, I feel Chorla is slightly more beautiful than the Anmod route but the better road make up for it though. The forest section ended by 13:15 leading up to NH48 which I was eagerly awaiting. Passing through Hubli town slowed us down a bit along with the speed limits in the city. I totally forgot about my earlier theoretical idea about rounding off Hubli by sticking to NH48 and exiting through Gabbur and Hubli bypass bridge.

Nonetheless, we skipped our lunch as we were quite full from our packed Babaji meal and continued our exit from Hubli. The sight of road construction, diversion and oncoming traffic in the same lane right at the end of Hubli got me worried as I imagined reaching Hampi well after dark as this stretch had seen a lot of road work since quite some time as reported here. I had expected the entire stretch from Hubli to Hampi to take around 4-5 hours and based on that I updated my friend, who was waiting for me in Hampi, as 8-9pm ETA. But I recalled the more recent post of the road being in better shape and hoped for the best.

I was so happy to be wrong on my estimate. The road opened up after around 800 meters and it was a butter smooth ride all the way after that. I consistently stayed around 95-100 for the entire stretch barring for a few segments that had some bits [2% of the stretch] of construction work being completed. No tolls along the route added to the fun as well. We covered the entire Hubli-Gadag-Koppal section to reach Tungabhadra dam by 6 pm and before sunset. We bypassed Hosapete and moved towards Kamalapur side while being greeted by post-sunset hues over the Kamalapur lake. I couldn’t resist that and did a small drone fly by over the lake.

We managed to reach our hotel Clarks Inn by 7:20 pm covering a total of 358 kms [MID average 16.2 kmpl] and were pleasantly surprised by the time that we made this trip in. All thanks to the nicer Karnataka roads must say. The hotel was quite decent and the staff was extremely courteous making our stay quite comfortable.

The exact route that we took is here - https://goo.gl/maps/uEyz1D9yBXVAbB6k9

[zurura023]

29th Dec & 30th Dec

Having visited Hampi previously 6 years back, I and my friend were aware of the circuits and where to spend more time and which areas to skip. We did arrange our plan accordingly and visited the area in 2 days covering most of the major attractions. This was a major relaxed itinerary considering we had our partners for the trip along with my friend's 8 year old kid.

I won't go in details here but outline the rough itinerary that we followed.
Day 1 Morning session - Octagonal bath, Queens enclosure, Mahanavami Tibba, Basavalinga and around
Day 1 Evening session - Pushkarani, Temples around Hemakuta hills, sunset at Hemakuta

Day 2 Morning session - Vitthala temple and around
Day 2 Late Afternoon/Evening session - Lunch at Mango Tree, Virupaksha and around, Matanga hill sunset

I'll add in a few photos from Hampi here as most information is already there. But am happy to answer any questions around this.

Try and do the monument and temple hopping around early morning [7-10 am] and during evening [4-7 pm]. Hampi gets quite hot during the day under direct sun and may get uncomfortable for most folks. Also, consider the fact that you'll need to walk a bit to actually see Hampi as exploring on foot is quite rewarding in Hampi.


31st Dec - Leg 2A

We had a few things on the agenda for this day which involved moving the base from Hampi to Badami and covering Aihole and Pattadkal temples on the way. My anxiety was on a high considering the boot space in the Compass and my wife's inability to ever pack light. We somehow stuffed all the baggage that we had and my friend's bags and set off. My camera bag was kept on the passenger seat while my friend had to hold another small backpack. I need a clear vision in the rearview mirror and avoid stuffing bags to the roof. I dearly missed Vento's bootspace then though. But the Compass did not feel loaded at all even on the highways. The braking took slightly longer than usual but the overall sluggishness of a loaded car was only fractional and nothing major.

We started off a bit later than usual and set off for Badami after 10:30 am. We took a slightly longer route around Anegundi covering the other side of Hampi, the erstwhile Hippie island. My friend and I recalled our trip 6 years ago when this side of the island used to be quite happening but no more. We drove through at a leisurely pace enjoying the waterfronts around Anegundi & Sanapur and joined the highway in some time.

The NH50 was a decent two lane highway and we chugged along till Kushtagi where we halted for lunch at NandGokula restaurant. The food was decent and fresh and the coffee served outside it was quite good. It was already 2 pm by the time we were done with lunch and packed out to leave. We gave up on the Aihole, Pattadkal side for now and decided to continue to Badami as it was getting late and we wanted to avoid driving in dark. We took a left from Kushtagi on the state highway 30. This road a narrow single lane highway and was riddled with peeled surface. I could maneuver around the entire width of the road for most times as there was minimal traffic but it still slowed us down quite a bit. Also the road kept crossing through small villages breaking the speed quite a few times.

The road got marginally better after turning right post Katral. This didn't improve the speed and time by much and we trudged along with roughly an average speed of 40. The road widened around Belur and we were on our way to Badami, reaching our hotel around 5:30 pm. We had covered roughly 155 kms on this leg and just rested around our property. We stayed at Krishna Heritage in Badami and the room was one of the biggest rooms that I have ever stayed in. The place was quite well laid out for families and was surprisingly cheap given the period that we were staying in.

We were quite relieved to be away from any party like scenes or loud music here and there was no fancy celebration in or near the property as well. We retired early dismissing the celebrations with a plan to get up early to see Badami.

The route that we took - https://goo.gl/maps/CGUNkygzY91XFqt9A



01st Jan

I won't bore you with the things that we did in Badami. But similar to Hampi, we did it in two session - morning and evening. The first sunset of the year that we experienced near the Bhootnath temple was quite spectacular. We retired early with the long trip back home the next day.

[zurura023]

02nd Jan - Leg 3

We got all prepared to leave by 7 and started loading our stuff in the boot. I had noticed the additional space around the spare wheel the previous night and kept some loose stuff around the it under the board. It made some space for the additional bags and we could now fit those two loose bags in the boot. This made it slightly more comfortable for the passengers now.

I was in two minds earlier about the route to be taken for this leg. There were two options primarily - follow google maps and join NH48 at Nippani via Lokapur, Mudhol, Chikodi or maximise NH48 journey and join in at Belgaavi going through Ramdurg, Yaragatti. I had enquired about the condition of the road with a few local guys the day before and everyone assured me that the road to Belgaavi is quite good. No one had an idea about the Mudhol Chikodi route. I stuck to the Belgaav route and loaded this in Google maps going against the slightly older feedback of the road around Ramdurg being terrible.

With the breakfast done at the property itself, our Compass rolled off around 07:20 from the property. The initial drive was good and we were maintaining good consistent speed around 80 for the initial 40 odd kms past Kulgeri and into Ramdurg. The road continued to be good and I was happy at the leap of faith taken. We did a couple of small halts on the way for those sunflower fields and some photos that the girls wanted. I managed to sneak a quick flight during this as well.

The road after Chandargi called Bachi-Raichur/Bagalkote-Belgaun road was super smooth and a freshly laid tarmac and was a pleasure to drive on. I thoroughly enjoyed driving on this stretch and we made it to Belgaavi around 10:50 despite the 30 minute stoppages. This route is highly recommended if someone wants to get to NH48 from Badami.

We started our NH48 journey from Belgaavi and continued uninterrupted till Kolhapur on that fine stretch of the highway. We took a small halt around 12:30 at McDs in Kolhapur to use the rest room and get a quick bite for the kid as she had not had anything since morning. It turned out to be a 30 minute stop as the McD guys were super slow in taking my order along with other folks in the queue as well. Probably, it is my anxiety or a very Bombay thing to expect quick turnarounds while people from most other places like to take their time for things.

We set off from Kolhapur McDs by 13:00 and started moving towards Pune noticing the increased number of vehicles on this stretch. It was expected as people would be returning from their year-end vacations and new year parties back. We were going slightly slowly trying to look for the eating joint that we stopped back in our September trip. That guy had prepared a light flavoured chicken khichdi in chicken stock for me the previous time and I was sold on it. We eventually found the place and did the lunch halt around 13:30. The meal did not match my expectations which was based on the previous visit but we finished what we had ordered and were done in an hour.

We set off around 14:30 and took a small stop in Karad to get motion sickness tablets for my friend's wife. I kept ignoring needless google map suggestions to exit through Chiplun and join NH66. Add to it a chocolate stain that I noticed on the seat during the lunch break that was riding on my mind. Amidst the barrage of thoughts in my head about car cleaning after the trip, we were unaware of the onslaught awaiting us further.

Google maps was persistent with her suggestions of cutting through to NH66 even crossing Mahabaleshwar on the way. At around 5pm when we reached Satara-Bhuinj, right before the Khambatki tunnel was a massive jam which took us around 30 minutes to navigate and get to the other side of the tunnel. I was expecting the worst on Bombay-Pune expressway and thought that was the reason Google suggesting to cut over to NH66. It seemed a vague idea anyway to save 15 minutes now and I ignored it.

We got two-three such massive jams around Shirval and Khed-Shivapur toll which took us around 3 and a half hours to reach Pune from the Wai turn at Satara. A distance that usually is done in an hour and half roughly. The road stretch is also terrible here and definitely not worth the toll that is paid. The carriage way towards Pune is somehow worse that the opposite side going towards Satara. Or probably I was too bugged by this point. We did take two 5 minute bio breaks on this stretch and were craving for some tea. We stopped at a place in Pune called All India Permit [right next to Rangla Punjab] at 20:30 and requested him to make some tea. He happily catered and we also gleefully ordered some snack which turned into an early meal.

I was expecting heavy traffic on the expressway and kept away from checking the route on google maps. Much to my surprise, it was all clear once we started our return journey at 21:15 and we reached home at Thane in exactly 2 hours 30 minutes as suggested by Google maps. We drove around 620 kms for over 14 long hours in this leg barring the food breaks. We concluded our trip at my society's main gate where my friend's Uber had arrived to pick him up.

The detailed route taken is here - https://goo.gl/maps/WtxZV3biL3F3WoAU7

[zurura023]

Uploading a few images from the trip. I haven't processed all images yet and haven't shot much during the journey.

1. The companion for the entire trip - my precious


2. Sunset at Amboli


3. Vagator beach - December sunset along our west coast are not usually dramatic and result in subtle pink shades


4. Reis Magos Sunset


5. Sunset in the Goan fields around Assagao - I'll share a few drone videos soon


6. Hampi - Virupaksha temple


7. Hampi - Pushkarani at sunset


8. Sunset from Hemakuta hills


9. Tree in the Vitthala temple complex


10. Sunset at Badami

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[WheelJack]

Originally Posted by zurura023

02nd Jan - Leg 3

I was expecting heavy traffic on the expressway and kept away from checking the route on google maps. Much to my surprise, it was all clear once we started our return journey at 21:15 and we reached home at Thane in exactly 2 hours 30 minutes as suggested by Google maps. We drove around 620 kms for over 14 long hours in this leg barring the food breaks. We concluded our trip at my society's main gate where my friend's Uber had arrived to pick him up.


Attachment 2258125

Superb post, wish you many miles more. Since you used mum pune expressway recently were you able to avoid the speed fines or you maintained it under 80kph all way round. As many places show 100kph limit but have 60 or 80 limit, so its a little confusing and now passerby's are getting fined helter skelter. So just wanted to check your experience.

[zurura023]

Originally Posted by WheelJack

Superb post, wish you many miles more.

Thanks. I am glad that you liked it.

Originally Posted by WheelJack

Since you used mum pune expressway recently were you able to avoid the speed fines or you maintained it under 80kph all way round. As many places show 100kph limit but have 60 or 80 limit, so its a little confusing and now passerby's are getting fined helter skelter. So just wanted to check your experience.

From what I understand, the overall speed limit is 100 on the expressway, unless otherwise explicitly mentioned. I did cross 100 only at couple of points though and stayed around 90-95 throughout apart from sections where it was specified as 60/80. There were quite a few of these sections of 60 & 80 which we did not adhere to cleanly but have been lucky in avoiding challans. Although the margin of error was small here.

Overall, the experience on expressway was not as much fun with too many sections where lanes were closed for road work and erratic drivers getting in too close from behind, overtaking from shoulders at triple digit speeds, blocking right most lanes - too much to rant out.

[sukhbirST]

Apart from thanking you , just want to say, Give me more - real classy photographs. Surely they are a class apart.

[zurura023]

Originally Posted by sukhbirST

Apart from thanking you , just want to say, Give me more - real classy photographs. Surely they are a class apart.

Thanks. I have not shot much on this trip. But shall definitely try and share once I get the next lot processed. Have a few drone videos which I need to package together and shall share here.

Thanks again.

[zurura023]

Tried editing all the drone footage from Goa over the past few days. Be prepared for long and boring takes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qXBxbZCbFk

[panda1707]

Hi Everyone,
I am traveling to Hampi from Candolim this weekend. Is this still the best route to take?

Mapusa-Panjim-Mollem-Anmod-Hubli-Gadag-Koppal-Hospete route for Goa-Hampi