Sreejith’s NETwork

Wanted to go to Bangalore for some work and thought, why not drive up there ? The only problem I could see was the lack of a willing friend from my place so I called an old friend Sandeep, he was excited from the time I told him the news. So, here is the plan we thought of, First I reach Kannur and then head for Bangalore after picking him up.

Alanallur - Perinthalmanna - Kozhikode (Calicut) - Kannur - Irriti - Viraranjendrepet - Hunsur - Mysore - Mandya - Bangalore (Calculated : 410KM)

I started at 1:00 in the morning from Alanallur and reached Kannur by 4:15 AM. I picked him up and then my smart friend tells me the road through Viraranjendrepet was closed months back, Great! So we headed to Irriti, the road was bad from Kannur to Irriti and but was better after that for 1 hour, then to manadavadi. Its a scenic view but as it was around 5 am, it was still dark so we could not enjoy much. The funny part was I was still not feeling sleepy, considering the fact that I hadn’t slept the day before. Though the mountain road was fun to drive without any traffic. We stopped Manadavadi for a cup of tea at 6.30am, and the guy tells me usually the small vehicles avoid this way at night as wild elephants do roam there at the time. Hmm, lucky us.

From Manandavadi, we reached Sultan Bathery at around 7.30am. (290KM from start)

That’s when I realized we took the long way. If you see the proposed map, Kerala is just 10-15% of the total way and we were still in Kerala after 3.5 hours.

After Sultan Bathery, there was 10 mins traffic jam at the checkpoint as some trucks had totally blocked the way. After clearing it, there was 30 mins drive through forest area untill we reached the vast area which said loadly that we had officially reached Karnataka.

Few things you find different in Karnataka from Kerala, in this road.
- Roads are wider and very less curves
- There’re no humans in sight between towns.
- You could easily do 100kmph+ on the two lane roads.

At 8:40 we reached a town, and had a breakfast at an Udupi Hotel (Very Delicious Food!). Reached Mysore at 11 am. The Mysore-Banglore road was smooth Four-lane highway. We reached Bangalore (670KM from start) at 2 PM and were lost in traffic for 30mins, we had to reach Koramangala at my friends place. Had lunch at 3 PM with her and we started driving around town.
- Brigade road - Really good view
- Mocha - Nice place for Coffee and Conversation.

The way back
We passed Mysore at 12 PM the next day to Sultan Bathery and then to Kozhikode. The view after Sultan Bathery was marvelous, tight corners, through forest, downhill, you won’t get bored or fall asleep even at night. From Kozhikode it was my usual route to Kannur, reached there at 8pm and headed back to Alanallur (my hometown).

The accident
While returning back after dropping Sandeep at Kannur, at 10pm, disaster striked. I was driving at 70-80kmph, at Kollamchira, a vehicle (believe it was an HM Ambassador) was overtaking another with high beam lights on. I could not see a thing so I started slowing down but was too late to realize I had hit the divider there. My car’s front tyre was totally gone and the alloy wheel had broken, The rear tubeless tyre also was punctured but could be fixed by using a tube in it, the front bumper was broken to the left, front under body mud guard was broken. I called the highway police and they sent the Maruti guys to fix the tyres.

In case, any of you drive through this route at night, please be careful at Kollamchira, its around 5mins from Koyilandy junction when coming from Kozhikode to Kannur. There comes this 1km long unexpected divider.

Kerala Highway Police No. : 9946 50 0107
24Hr Maruti Helpline No. : 9847 00 0000
Maruti Breakdown : 9447 87 4537

Flickr URL : http://flickr.com/photos/sreejith/tags/keralabangalore/

Alanallur - Kannur - Bangalore : 675KM in 14Hrs
Bangalore - Kozhikode - Kannur - Kozhikode - Alanallur : 605KM in 11Hrs (The accident and tyre fixing time not counted)