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I am a regular traveller between hyd-blr (count every weekend) and i always prefer HKB as my first choice and then orange comes close second.

About the fares, HKB is probably the lowest around or atleast in the bottom group and never hike their prices with demand. There have been instances where the bus runs at 20% occupancy, but will not stop anywhere in transit to pick up people. Similarly, the price is same during festive season, when even KSRTC charges a bomb for their special buses. The catch is, HKB will run full quicker.

All their buses are spic & span in every journey and the no-nonsense concept means no dinner stop and thats why they provide chips, butter cookies & a 1 litre water bottle from Aquafina (i am sick & tired of seeing quite a few junk brands in 250ml & 500ml packaging used by many travels, providing water just for the sake of it)

My wife had another amazing experience with HKB, when she travelled alone. The seat beside her was left empty for the entire journey and this was during Diwali season, when they could have earned atleast 1500/- selling it locally and convincing her with some excuse or juggling the seats, which never happened !!

Hatsoff to HKB for their impeccable service. Probably it helps that they run very few services and give a lot of attention to detail in those !

I had the misfortune of driving behind a Seabird bus towards Chennai yesterday evening. It was horrible. The driver was driving the bus like a Maruti Swift weaving at 100+ kmph and bringing my car, a civic, few government buses and some bikes to screeching halts. He was doing it from almost Walaja byepass to Poonamallee on the outskirts at Chennai. I have never seen such rash driving. I hope someone in the passenger crowd gave their piece of mind to that madcap behind the wheel.

Had to make a last minute Bangalore-Calicut-Tirur trip on Sat night with return on Sunday night. As expected there were no train tickets. Called up Kallada and they had one seat in the back row. Had never traveled in the back row of the Multi-Axle Volvo and was a little apprehensive as the bus has to go through some bad,narrow, twisty sections in the Hunsur-Gonikoppa-Kutta stretch. But had no choice and booked it. I had to go to Tirur direct and good thing was that they had a official stop on the NH at Edarikode (10km from Tirur). The journey was a little bumpy in some sections, but not as bad as expected. Reach Calicut on time at 6.15am. Expected a long stop. But we were off in 10 min with the bus half full. Was dropped at Edarikode by 7.30am. Overall a good journey and no cause for complaints.

Return journey was a problem. Being the Sunday night of a long weekend, there were no tickets. On Sunday morning I casually checked redbus and surprisingly saw 2 buses from AR travels and Cauvery travels (Mercedes Benz AC) listed with 10-15 free tickets. Ticket cost was Rs1200 (As opposed to Rs800 on the Kallada Volvo) assumed these were some special buses and was again apprehensive since I had never used these travels, never booked on these special type buses and had never used redbus also:D

Again, since I had no choice I booked it. Reached AR travels in Calicut at 9 and was issued the boarding pass and directed to the nearby private bus stand (Palayam Bus Stand-For those who know Calicut). I was asked to pay attention to the bus number and I wondered why. Went to the bus stand and realized the reason. There were 4 Mercedes Benz buses standing in a line. All from 'SAM Tourist Bangalore' and all special services to Bangalore. All the buses were full by the time we left. Our bus had a AC issue and was not working properly. They did something and it started working and we left half hour late (10.15pm). We were worried if the AC would stop working as soon as we left. But it actually started working too well and in no time we were all shivering (no blankets provided). The journey was decent and we were dropped in Madivala by 6.15am which was a pretty good run. My seat was again towards the back and I personally felt that they Volvo was more comfortable as compared to this Benz.

Did any passenger join at Calicut? Half full beyond Calicut is quite an achievement for them. When I went by this service in Feb this year, there were only around 5 pax beyond Calicut.

In MB buses blankets don't make any difference. The fantastically awful arrangement of the air vents is at fault here. The air vents are directed directly at your head, and you are chilled to the core.
Once While I was travelling from Nagpur to Pune in a Prasanna Purple MB, I was luck enough to have a woolen scarf with me.

P.S: Redbus/Booking agencies should mention the necessity of a Scarf/ Woolen cap while booking an MB ticket for you.:D :D

Cheers,
Abhijeet

Abhijeet,

Air vents near window will act as air curtain when you are travelling along the side of sun. But this will be unconfortable during night journey.

You can go by this logic if you are going to use the bus for day travel only and necessarily for short distances. like Pune-Mumbai, Delhi-Agra etc.
But even though their thinking may be good in larger perspective, I feel very uncomfortable when sun blazes on side walls and you have a blast of cold air directed at your head.
Cheers.
Abhijeet

Yes, Around 7-8 passengers joined at Calicut and there were around 10 passengers already in the bus.

Yes, I found the air vents near the window a big issue. Made it extremely cold

Did not realize that it was meant to function as an air curtain. Good information. Thanks. I guess it would be very comfortable for a day journey in areas where it is extremely hot. For this particular journey, which was at night and a large part through the relatively cooler areas like Wayanad and Coorg, it made the journey quite uncomfortable.

The AC console near the drive seemed to have quite a few controls. Wonder if there was an option for them to turn those off.

Came back to Bangalore today from Kannur in Kalpaka's brand new bus. Body is built by Veera. Odo read 899 km when I was about to get down at City market. Dazzling blue color bus with lot of LED lights inside and outside! Being a new bus, there was absolutely no rattling and hence could sleep very well. The crew distributed laddoo to all the passengers after the bus left from Kannur!
Also observed that Ashoka travels, Golden and the new operator Lama have all procured new buses!

The interesting part is that all the Malabar operators replace buses very frequently - and all of them take Veera buses! I heard from a person that Veera bodies are a good 7 lakhs cheaper than Prakash. Veera delivers buses in a very short time - less than a month since they build on a fixed template for every order.

Binai, any idea about the pricing of Tata/AL a/c, non ac, Veera/Prakash interstate buses?

No doubt, Kalpaka does change buses frequently! I feel they have the best buses on this sector. All their buses have more leg room than most other operators and usually they depart sharp on time from Kannur fort road.
7 lakhs is not a small amount by any stretch of imagination! but is there any difference in the quality of the materials used? Regarding the fixed template part, Yes, I did observe that the alloys (or wheel caps?) of the bus I had come yesterday was exactly the same design (almost like a 3 blade fan)as that of a golden travels new bus I had seen last day at Kannur! Only, this was blue and that was white!
There was a sticker on the windshield which says the speed is locked at 60 kmph (speed limiter installed) :eek: But I am 100% sure that the bus did clock well above this speed on most of the straight stretches!

Prakash buses cost between 17-22 lakhs for the intercity type. Veera, from what I heard, is about 7 lakhs cheaper - so should be around 10-15 lakhs. The Chassis costs around 10~20 lakhs

Since the cost is a good 7 lakhs less, there should be some change in quality - because Prakash wouldn't be able to command such a premium had the quality been similar. This is purely from my perspective.

A speed limited is compulsory to get a bus registered. So they install one, put the stickers, get the bus to clear fitness testing and finally disconnect it!

Sorry, saw this post just now. I traveled on the KSRTC Rajahamsa non-AC bus from Shanti Nagar bus station at Bangalore to Munnar in May 2010. The bus was very comfortable with decent leg room. Temperature during the night was not hot either.

It departed at around 9 pm and reached Munnar at 10 am. It went via Udumalpet and Marayur. I'd highly recommend this option if AC options are not available.

Highly :OT info.
You are also in for a visual treat of various wild animals. Wild Elephants are sure to be seen. The bus passes through this area(Reserved wildlife sanctury and Restricted Sandalwood forest) in early morning. So probability of a good sight is high.
The private operators from Munnar charge you anything between 3-4 K for a night safari through Marayoor. So maybe this one is a cheaper option as well, first to see and then if liked go in for a night safari.