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17th October 2010, 15:04
| #31 |
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17th October 2010, 15:25
| #32 | |||
| Team-BHP Support   Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Bangalore
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17th October 2010, 18:53
| #33 |
| Team-BHP Support  | Few Notes: Having stayed around Karwar for decade (well technically my parents, I was in and around), never noticed Amruth. I only remember one called Sitara and never liked the food there. (No one mentioned about Amruth, as I am veggie!). Looks like you zipped around Goa-Karwar while your stayed in Goa. Thats a outing in an outing! Nice Another thing I noticed is that you took a different route to Goa. Turn to Sirsi from Haveri and then join NH17 at Kumta. How is the Haveri-Kumta stretch? The Bangalore-Goa thread mostly talks either NH4/NH206/NH17 (Shimoga/Honnavar) or NH4/NH63/NH17 (Hubli/Yellapur/Ankola) or NH4/NH4A (Hubli/Ponda). I have seen many private buses take Karwar-Ankola-Yellapur-Sirsi-Shimoga route to Bangalore. But I have never seen folks take that route, unless they want to spend some time at Jog. Last edited by ampere : 17th October 2010 at 18:54. |
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17th October 2010, 22:11
| #34 | ||||
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 Amrut is a great place, but I'd recommend it only to people who are interested in the food! the ambiance isn't good and sometimes, you might feel like you're paying quite a lot for the food for the sort of ambiance you get! Quote:
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The Harihar - Haveri - Sirsi - Mirjan route seemed fine while going but we took a diferent route while heading back to Bangalore. We avoided Kumta and ended up on a narrow road. I don't even think it was a SH! Stay tuned to this thread. Day 9 is all about this! | ||||
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17th October 2010, 23:52
| #35 | |
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18th October 2010, 00:36
| #36 | |
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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 8 The 9th of October was the last day of our holiday and although I was really looking forward to the drive the next day, I wore a sullen look! I don't like leaving Goa! It's my second home now! I'm going to miss the fantastically paved Goan road network, the beautiful green landscape and the white sandy beaches, but most of all, I will miss the food! So we decided to drive around rather aimlessly around Margao and Benaulim. We stopped by at a few shops and generally window-shopped. And then it started raining cats and dogs! Our Civic, that was quite dirty after parking it underneath the trees in the parking lot, was squeaky clean after the showers! A few interesting pictures from day 8:   As the skies darkened, we headed back to our resort and sorted out our belongings, packed our suit-cases and were ready for the drive the next day. We mentally prepared ourselves for an early departure and decided to hit the hay much earlier than usual. Our aim was to be ready by 5:30 am and check out and hit NH17 by 6 am max! Watch this space! | |
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18th October 2010, 06:26
| #37 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Hyderabad
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18th October 2010, 06:55
| #38 |
| Team-BHP Support | |
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18th October 2010, 09:19
| #39 |
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18th October 2010, 14:41
| #40 |
| BHPian  | Excellent account of Your trip, Suhaas. The photos of Mapusa Market and the stretch between Candolim and Margao are very indulging. I am not surprised You didnt photograph the food and I find my mouth watering reading some of the menu's.  I need to plan a trip soon. Courtesy(!!?) Suhaas, I humbly request //M, Rudra, Sammyboy and Ayan to please photograph the Shrimp-stuffed, Crab-stuffed papads and the Red Snapper. |
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18th October 2010, 19:28
| #41 | |||
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In all probability, we would try a different route next time round! We were thinking of the Belgaum route too and we might want to give that a shot as well. IMO, there is no point sticking to one route when you have the ability to explore! What say? Quote:
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Yeah I'm very sorry for not photographing the food! Every time our order arrived, I would forget about the camera and pick up my fork and spoon instead; and in some cases, I just dove right in, sans cutlery! Oh, and the stretch between Candolim and Margao was absolutely fantastic! Nothing will be able to replicate the sheer beauty of that stretch. There is one picture that I'd taken on day 9 and that's coming up! | |||
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19th October 2010, 01:42
| #42 |
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| Day 9 5:00 am isn't a nice time to wake up, especially when you are on a holiday. But our aim was to make it to Bangalore, or at least Bangalore district before dark. We forced ourselves out of bed and we were in our car and on the road by 6:15 am. The day began on a rather gloomy note as dark clouds loomed large over our heads. We were in for a rainy start! By the time we reached Margao, it began to pour heavily and because of that, we had to slow down! At around 7, the rain stopped abruptly and we were 20 minutes or so from Cancona.  Pit Stop: We made our first pit-stop for breakfast at around 8:30 and no surprises as to where it was! Yes, Kamat Upchaar! The same place where we'd stopped earlier during our holiday.  This time, we ordered for Mangalore bondas and despite being soaked in oil, they were absolutely delicious! The bondas were followed by two plates of Idlis, one large Masala Dosa, three hot cups of coffee and one sweet lassi. I hadn't mentioned this in my previous post; the food at Kamat Upchaar was cold and that was a disappointing. This time round though, I felt that the food was better. We hit the road at 9:15 am. As we were approaching Kumta, my father directed me to take a slight deviation and turn left, off the state highway. I had to drop a gear to proceed as it felt like we had started to climb a bit. And indeed, we were! The narrow road was being hogged by women carrying massive pots on their heads! The road was barely wide enough to accommodate a BMTC bus! This was the by-pass route that completely eliminates the necessity to go through Kumta, thereby saving us 10 km and roughly 15 minutes of crawling through the town. It is advised not to go fast within town limits as people aren't used to the fast-paced life in a city and hence, wouldn't be able to react quickly enough to something that might be doing good speeds. However, the roads thereon got bad. And then they got even worse.  After Sirsi, we had to take a left to go towards Hubli and then turn right at a fork that takes you to Haveri. After taking the right at the fork, the road got narrower and narrower until it seemed to be just 10 ft across! And it's more than a couple of inches higher than the level of the ground. One small turn to the left and I'm sure that our car would've kissed the road and it wouldn't have been pretty. We were concerned.   There was an impatient NWKSRTC bus that was coming the other way and we didn't know what to do. Our tactic is just to stop, stay put and wait for the guy coming in the opposite direction to make his move. But this bus fellow didn't want to give us any space! After staying still for over 30 seconds, he decided to take the plunge. Nothing would've happened to his bus anyway!  As you can see, there were workers at the site, cleaning up the shoulders and possibly, getting it ready for a fresh layer of tar. And in fact, road-roller and gang were present at the site, but a little further away. Some pictures through the drive:  More animals on the road. Observation: If we weren't slowed down by stray cattle and other species of wildlife during our drive, we could probably shave off a good half 'n hour from the total travel time.  Land acquisition issues prevents the Golden-Quadrilateral from being finished. And that's why we might see these sign-boards more often than we want to.  Or is it really land acquisition issues? We encountered possibly the 5th diversion sign-board and when I got a closer look, I saw that the farmers around the highway had acually spread their produce across the GQ and had left it there to soak in the Sun! Beat that! Pit Stop 2 At precisely 3 pm, we reached Davangere and got some grub. Four Benne Doses and three coffees later, we hit the road again. The roads after Davangere were fabulous and even though you can go well beyond 150 in a capable car, I wouldn't advise it, simply because our highways aren't made for such speeds. In fact, through the drive, we felt most comfortable at 90-110. The moment we reached Tumkur, the clouds opened up again and it rained like it had never before! I had to slow down from 130 to 70 just almost no time just because it had started to pour abruptly! The condition of the road wasn't good in patches. And it felt like there was quite a lot of oil spilled on the tarmac! I saw a few cars in front of me lose grip for a nano-second and we followed suit. It was quite a hairy experience, especially since the roads were wet and we had no idea what was actually on the road! Pit Stop 3 At about 6:45 pm, we stopped just outside Bangalore for a little snack. Our family cannot go for too long without something in our stomachs, my sister being the exception!  This time, we stopped at Reliance A1. Decent and homely best describes the food that's served here. And the service was fantastic. That was the last thing we expected from this place! More Idlis and Mangalore Bondas were ordered. The moment we entered Bangalore proper, we went straight into the jaws of a massive traffic jam that kept us from reaching our home for almost 2 hours! It was just horrible. the traffic-jam was right after the Bangalore-Nelamangala Expressway, the area where the Metro construction is in progress! Bleh! We're back in Bangalore baby, and you know it when you see Namma Metro hoardings everywhere! We reached our house with enough time to catch the 9'o clock headlines and the credentials of the 7:30 movie on HBO! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And now for the most important statistic of all, the FE: Highway: 13.8 km-l City: 10.5 km-l or so Overall: 12.7 km-l ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well.. that's it from me, folks. Until next time! Same time, same place, next year! Sayonara! Last edited by suhaas307 : 19th October 2010 at 01:45. |
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19th October 2010, 07:07
| #43 |
| Team-BHP Support | |
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19th October 2010, 08:38
| #44 | |
| Team-BHP Support Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Bangalore
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Maybe you could suggest to us another route. I will forward this to my father and speak to him about it. We had a feeling that we wet wrong somewhere while getting back to B'lore! | |
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19th October 2010, 09:53
| #45 | |
| Team-BHP Support | Quote:
I think the best route is NH17/63/4. Nothing beats NH63 Yellapur stretch. Green and in prime form for driving. You never feel the stress of the ghats. (Karwar-Ankola-Yellapur-Hubli-Bangalore.) | |
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