[arundeepbv]

Every year, in the last two weeks of December, I would be among the Himalayas. This has been the case from 2008, I'm usually on a cross country road trip in the last two weeks of the year. This year it was a short trip to Dandeli and my wife was my travel partner. I started from Kengeri at 5:30 AM. Initially I taught of taking the NICE road towards Tumkur road, but as many of my friends know me, I always try to avoid the highways and travel on district roads. On the single lane carriageways, the life moves on at a much slower pace when compared to the highways. We can see the country side and enjoy the drive. So, from Kengeri, I took the road towards Tavareykerey and joined the NH48 at Nelamangala. The road after Tavareykerey until the Mallasandra is in bad shape. After that it is nice smooth road until you hit the NH48 at Nelamangala.

The road from Nelamangala till Tumkur is a 4 laned and it is crowded. The road widening is going on and once completed, it will be a much better experience. After Tumkur, we are into the 3 lane, access controlled road, and the drive becomes monotonous. We had breakfast at a Hotel Shiva daba just after Harihara. The food was okay and there is much noting to mention about. I got the first taste of the crowd that I would be part of in the next couple of days. I deviated from NH48 towards Tadas. The road was very narrow for the next couple of kilometres. The road is wider once you join the SH1 at Adavisomapura. I drove towards Halliyala via Kalgatagi. The roads are under construction till Halliyala and the progress is very slow. I would like add that one of the birgdes just before Tabakadhonnihalli is broken and there is a rather long deviation. The road is a narrow mud road and goes through Bullanaikanahulikatti village. The road from Halliyala till Ganeshaguddi is very scenic and I was able to reach my hotel, whistling woods, in time for lunch.

The hotel is on the banks of Kali river and has scenic location. The hotel is very good with nice amenities, but the service was really bad. There is no room service and you have to walk down to their restaurant for everything you need. Unfortunely, the resort was filled with people on a day package and the restaurant was filled to the brim, we was not even able to find a table to have our lunch. The plates were dirty, had to stand in a long queue to get the hard roti’s and bland curry. After a strenuous effort of getting lunch, the rest of the evening was spent in the hotel. There were some activities like boating, zip line, cycling, trekking and others. We spent the evening watching the turquoise waters of Kali following gently.







The plan for the day was to return back to Bangalore, we taught we will take the long way home and ended up in Panaji, Goa. We had started from Ganeshagudi around 11AM, drove up till Castle Rock railway station. In the railway station, we were talking to some of the employees there about the Dudhsagar` falls and My wife wanted to see the Dudhsagar. So we planned to go down till Colem to take the Jeep safari. For those of you interested in the train journey, I was told that we can take a goods train till Dudhsagar falls, if you are able to find anyone willing to take you up on their train and return back by the Huballi-Miraj Express. This train has a stop at Dudhsagar station at 4:30PM.




The Anmod ghat road is very good now and on the way to Colem, we got an urge to see the sea, and drove towards Panaji. We were lucky to get a room in Goa Marriot in spite of the huge rush in Goa. We reached the hotel around 4PM. We took a boat ride to see the dolphins. Ours was one of the last boats to go on the cruise and we were blessed with one of the beautiful sunsets. We had a nice dinner and called it a day.




The next day, we completely forgot about the Dudhsagar falls and planned to see Om Beach and Marvanthey beach on the way back to Bangalore. We started from Miramar around 11 AM and were struck in a long traffic jam in Agassaim. The inauguration of the Zuvari bridge was the next day, if I was late by one day, I could have driven on the Zuvari bridge on the day of its inauguration.





I wanted to visit the last/first beach of Goa and we went to the Polem beach. The beach was very clean and was devoid of any human's.





We spend some time on one of the small hotels there and started towards Om Beach. The NH66 is mostly 4 laned and the drive till Gokarna was a breeze.

It was around 5 PM when we reached Gokarna. The traffic was dense from the NH 66 till the Om Beach. We had to park our car almost a kilometre away from the parking lot. Since we had to drive back to Bangalore, initially we taught that we will only spend a few minutes at the beach. But, on a spur of a moment we again hopped on a dolphin boat cruise. The cruise here was a much better one when compared to the one in Miramar. There were only about 6 people on the boat including us and it was peaceful. They took us to the Half Moon beach , Paradise Beach and back to the Om Beach. We were also able to see some dolphins playing around.




By the time we started from back to Bangalore it was 7 PM. There was no point in going towards Marvanthey, so we decided to drive towards Bangalore.

From Gokarna, I took the NH 766 towards Haveri via Sirshi. The roads are non-existent in the Devimaney ghat. The entire section is under construction and the progress was very slow. The roads get a bit better once you cross Sirshi. The roads are good once you cross SH1 just before Akki Alur. Once you reach Haveri, the roads are straight till Bangalore. I reached home by 3AM. A one day leisurely trip turned into a 3 day whirlwind tour. The below map is from my GPS tracker. If anyone is interested I can share the gpx files.

[sumannandy]

Nice travelogue. What is the road condition from Dandeli to Goa?