Last time I visited Goa was long back, during my bachelor days. After that, everytime a vacation came up, I thought of Goa, but didn’t happen. This time, I was quite determined to make it to Goa with my family. So began the numerous reseach on tbhp about the routes, places to stay, things to do and joints to eat in. The trip was finally planned for 18-24 Sep, with the onset of my son’s dussera vacation in school. Our ride was to be my 10-month-old Honda city vtec, which would be due for 4th service after the trip.
Day 1: (18-Sep)
As usual, the previous night was so full of anticipation that I could hardly sleep, even after hitting the bed at 10:30pm. After frequent breaks, woke up at 3:45am and started getting ready. Promptly at 5pm, we loaded the luggage in the boot of my vtec. After eating 1 big suitcase, 1 huge rucksuk, 2 smaller bags, 10 bottles of water and 1 water drum (5L), the honda’s boot still has enough space left. Petrol tanked-up and air-check was done the previous night, Tripmeter set to zero and I chugged out of my garage at 5:10am.
Route: Bangalore – Tumkur – Gubbi – Tiptur – Arsikere – Tarikere –
Shimoga – Sagar – Jog –
Honnavar – Kumta – Gokarna – Ankola – Karwar – Madgao – Panaji –
Anjuna.
Why the above route:
There are around 3-4 routes from Bangalore to Goa. But almost all routes apart from above are bad.
1. Bangalore – Mangalore – Goa is out as Shiradi Ghat section is in terrible condition.
2. Bangalore – Hubli – Alnavar – Goa is out as “Spitfire” informed that Amboli Ghat section is undriveable.
3. Bangalore – haveri – Sirsi – Ankola – Goa is out as “mclaren1885” suggested that roads between Chitradurga to Hubli were almost non-existant. He had taken 2 trips to belgaum that same week and witnessed the condition first hand.
4. Mclaren1885 also informed the shimoga route is very scenic and still better, hence settled for that route.
After hitting tumkur road via jalahalli, we found ourselves behind a sea of trucks, speed breakers, potholes and deviations upto Nelamangla! Speeds were nothing more than 40kmph. We hit nelamangla toll booth at 5:50am. With half an hour of brisk speed, we reached tumkur at 6:20am and took the bypass to Gubbi. This road was a rough stretch with big potholes and marshy slush (due to monsoons). I could barely go beyond 30kmph in this stretch. (Suggest others to take come via Tumkur city, as it's quite devoid of traffic in the mornings).
We passed Gubbi at 7:00am. The roads had improved (potholes of this route were repatched). We passed Tiptur at 7:45am, never pushing the car, just cruising and relaxing between 80-100. Crossed Arsikere (8:15am), kadur, birur, tarikere in no time. Took the Bhadravati bypass for Shimoga and reached Shimoga at 10:05am. This entire stretch (Tiptur to Shimoga) is extremely scenic, lush green fields with stooping trees making an arch on the entire road! Also, the road condition is very nice and it’s a pleasure to drive on this section. Best part was, truck traffic (or even traffic) was minimal and most of the stretch was totally devoid of any traffic.
Shimoga stretch
Took a break of 15 minutes at Shimoga (tea/bathroom) and then started the drive to Honnavar via Sagar and Jog.
Reached Jog falls at around 11:40am but did not stop to see the Jog falls. Around 5kms before Jog falls (and 65 kms to Honnavar), the first ghat section began. Unfortunately this entire ghat stretch is bad. Broken in most parts, some parts had big potholes and loose stones. Few hit my vtec below the belt. Only good thing, the sparcity of traffic made driving easy and the beauty of the ghats kept me mesmerised.
Waterfall in this stretch
Finally, reached Honnavar (NH17) at 13:10 and pitstopped for my kid/wife/myself. The first restaurant we saw in Honnavar was Shiv Sagar and stopped right there for lunch, as we did not stop for breakfast in Shimoga (as planned earlier). Had 2 south Indian thalis, 1 veg noodles (for my kiddo) and 1 coke. All of it came to Rs. 110.
Around 14:00, we started from Honnavar and decided to feed the car at the first available decent bunk. Around 3 kms later, I found a IOC bunk, tanked up and put in 30.63 litres of premium petrol. I was pleasantly surprised to find petrol 8 rupees cheaper per liter than Bangalore! Finally at 14:20, I started for Panaji. Initially the first 20 kms of this stretch was good. But as I closed in on Kumta/Gokarna, the roads became worse though the surrounding beauty became better. Every now and then (read frequently), parts of the road were broken and repair work was going on. It was quite cloudy the entire stretch.
By the time I reached Ankola, the weather became awesome, it rained in some places and other places, the clouds were kissing the small hillocks.
So the entire stretch till Karwar was bad, though in driveable condition. After some time, it suddenly started smelling fishy, literally! And we had reached Karwar port and then Sea at 16:00. The first glimpse of sea always makes you excited and I felt an instant high! I wanted to have some tea, wanted to rest my legs a little and wanted to get a good view of the sea. So, stopped at “Hotel Bhadra" (near Kali bridge) for some tea.
Started from Karwar at 16:30, the roads had improved immensely and the vtec was in song! Passed South Goa- Cuncolim, Navelim in a brisk and reached Madgao around 17:40. Unfortunately, it was peak traffic within city and it took me 1 hour to reach Panjim. Finally reached the resort(Country Club de Goa) at Anjuna Beach around 19:15pm in the middle of a slight drizzle. Driving after Karwar was fun, brilliant tarmac made the pre-goa entry ghats look easy and all the bad KA roads were forgotten! Afterall, we were in Goa and we just wanted to have fun! We were quite happy to see the resort and our room. Since we were tired and the bed looked inviting, we took a quick bath and hit the hotel restaurant “The café garden”. Had a sumptuous dinner (soups/chicken starters & gravies/ rotis) with some drinks. The bill came to Rs. 600. It was almost 22:30 and we retired for the day.
Some Stats:
Total distance (home to hotel):
665 kms.
Approx Time:
14hrs, 10 mins.
(This time includes 4-5 bathroom/smoke breaks, lunch break of 50 min and tea breaks of 40mins.)
At this point I would like to extent my personal thank to fellow-tbhpians, who become friends in the process:
1. mclaren1885- I had sent number mails to Rahul to check the best route. He sent me quite a few replies with valuable suggestions of route, resort and restaurants in goa. I called him one day prior to leaving Bangalore to get the correct picture of the route.
2. Spitfire- I had called Abhijit to find out the route to Goa via Haveri.
Finally did not take his suggested route as the one taken is more scenic and better road conditions. He also gave me a full itinerary of things to do in Panjim and South Goa which helped me immensely in my trip!
3. Akroy- for pushing me to drive without night halts as that turned out to be the highlight of this trip to Goa!
[To be continued- Day 2 and feedback on resort].