[luvurride]

Originally Posted by J.Ravi

The genuine Hotel Saravana Bhavan [HSB] has branches at Chennai, Kanchipuram, Vellore and Delhi in India apart from overseas branches/franchisees. All others are fakes. They play around with different spellings and prefixes and suffixes. Similarly, there are many fake Sangeetha's in Tamil Nadu. In these fakes, the food might be good, but they are encashing on HSB's look-alike names. I stay away from these fakes.

Very true! But fakes or not, I see just for food!

FYI, my wife and mom suffered food poisoning from HSB a couple of months back. Kid and myself narrowly escaped by unintentionally averting the dish that they had. Now they refuse to step in! Just another point of view!

[Aiel]

I made a Bangalore - Chennai - Bangalore trip this week. I left Bangalore at 4.30 AM and reached my destination (Tharamani) by 9.45 AM. Teh construction activities have reduced considerably in this direction (as compared to a few months back). Krishnagiri - Vellore is superb presently, with a few diversions and I was able maintain a higher average in this stretch. However, the stretch after Ranipet has stretches where the top layer of tar has simply disappeared (due to the rains possibly) leaving a very jarring and bone shaking ride. It would be better to go at a lower speed in this stretch. I took a turn from Sriperumbadur towards Tambaram (taking the road which leads to Kishkinta Theme Park), cutting short the normal time by more than an hour (compared to the Porur- Guindy route).

On the return trip, I left around 4.30 PM and reached Gottigere by 10.30 PM with a break for picking up Biryani from Star Biryani. Similar situations exist on the return trip also.

[BackInTheFold]

I did a roundtrip last week via the Hosur-route. On both instances (early morning Tuesday and a rainy Sunday afternoon), I managed to avoid the invariable Hosur traffic mess.

The road quality is decent overall, except for the horrendous stretch between Ranipet and Kanchipuram. Collecting any toll (the amount was Rs. 30 incidentally) for this stretch is criminal - there are extensive stretches of broken tarmac which can wreck havoc with the side walls/suspension. To any aerial observer, my car's traversal of this route would have appeared almost like a Brownian motion instead of a sane straight line.

I stopped at the Krishnagiri A2B on both legs. One warning if you choose to stop there on the Chennai -> Bangalore leg - the U-turn to head back to Bangalore has been moved quite some distance and is poorly marked. Keep a sharp eye out!

[mogambo]

All - I'm not sure if this is appropriate? (Please take this off if it is not). I'm supposed to travel to Chennai this weekend - needed to leave on Sat (30th Nov) morning but I can't. I can leave only by around 9:30 - 10PM and I need to reach Thiruvanmiyur by 4AM Sunday (1st Dec). Any chance someone is driving down from Bangalore to Chennai that I can hitch a ride with? I'm considering a bus but the timing is a wild guess and no trains reach that early. Thanks

[ampere]

Originally Posted by mogambo

All - I'm not sure if this is appropriate? (Please take this off if it is not). I'm supposed to travel to Chennai this weekend - needed to leave on Sat (30th Nov) morning but I can't. I can leave only by around 9:30 - 10PM and I need to reach Thiruvanmiyur by 4AM Sunday (1st Dec). Any chance someone is driving down from Bangalore to Chennai that I can hitch a ride with? I'm considering a bus but the timing is a wild guess and no trains reach that early. Thanks

KSRTC's service to TN runs from Shanti Nagar terminal on double road. Theyy are very-very efficient. If I remember correctly at least 3-4 Volvo services between 9 and 10:30. And in fact there is a multi-Axle Mysore-BLR-Chennai service too.

[binand]

Came to Chennai yesterday afternoon - took half a day off from work. Started from home (Marathahalli) at 3:15 PM and reached Besant Nagar at 8:45.

- Took the new "hidden" bridge to cross over from RG Salai to Indira Nagar. This is a welcome addition :-) To get to the bridge, one has to plan in advance - take the slip road that leads to Indira Nagar MRTS station.

- The road widening has definitely reduced the travel time. I did door-to-door in about 5h 30min, with a 30-min fuel+tea break at Vellore. That is quite an improvement from my previous average of 7h+. In fact, Attibele-Poonamallee was around 3h 30min of driving time, which works out to an average speed in excess of 70kmph.

- This, despite quite heavy traffic almost throughout. Since I usually do Bangalore-Chennai early mornings, I had never in the past seen such heavy traffic on NH 48. The downside is the large number of vehicles on the road with not even a reflector at the rear, travelling leisurely on the GQ.

- Someone was complaining about the Ranipet-Chennai sector? I thought it was way better than the Bangalore-Hosur section. :-) Hosur town continues to be a problem - I crossed into TN at 4PM on the dot, and exited the town at around 4:20PM (about 10 km).

Overall, despite the traffic, I had a very pleasant and enjoyable drive.

As an aside - looks like the Chennai Metro will be inaugurated in 2014? Press reports say that CMBT-St. Thomas Mount sector is nearing completion. Even the Central-Airport sector has progressed lots - perhaps by 2015 end the full 45-km metro will be running in its full glory.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by binand

- Someone was complaining about the Ranipet-Chennai sector? I thought it was way better than the Bangalore-Hosur section. :-) Hosur town continues to be a problem - I crossed into TN at 4PM on the dot, and exited the town at around 4:20PM (about 10 km).

Bangalore-Hosur is worse. You need a timing strategy to beat that problem! On Ranipet-Chennai section traffic at least flows. Where I think max damage happens is within Ponamallee. But that cannot be compared to Bangalore-Hosur because its more of a city traffic problem and not a highway problem. Its more like equating to chaos at Silk Board!

[binand]

Originally Posted by ampere

Bangalore-Hosur is worse. You need a timing strategy to beat that problem!

Er... I was talking of road condition! :-)

[ampere]

Originally Posted by binand

Er... I was talking of road condition! :-)

Oh yes! That also is true. God only knows when they would complete the end-to-end 6-lane work.

[binand]

Originally Posted by ampere

Oh yes! That also is true. God only knows when they would complete the end-to-end 6-lane work.

End to end has a long way to go. I didn't see even preparations for 6-laning beyond the Ranipet turnoff.

[Gokrish]

Originally Posted by binand

End to end has a long way to go. I didn't see even preparations for 6-laning beyond the Ranipet turnoff.

I don't know whether this 6 laning is on the anvil at least for this stretch. In fact I have stopped taking this stretch and instead do ulundurpet stretch nowadays.

NHAI has in fact called for an RFP for O&M of this stretch way back in Nov 2011 and as usual nobody even knows the fate of this proposal.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Gokrish

I don't know whether this 6 laning is on the anvil at least for this stretch. In fact I have stopped taking this stretch and instead do ulundurpet stretch nowadays.

If you are talking of the same Ulundurupet that I see in Google Maps, then it is useless when driving from Bangalore to Chennai. Works when driving from Salem/Coimbatore/Kochi, perhaps.

[ampere]

I think @Gokrish's point might have been with respect to usage of Chennai-Krishnagiri 6-lane for driving to Salem. Hence the point on Chennai-Ranipet 6-lane part.
But as you said the 6 lane may only be for Hosur-Krishnagiri-Vellore. I am not sure about Bangalore-Hosur or Chennai-Ranipet-Vellore.

[prabhuferrari]

Just did a Bangalore chennai over weekend with a halt in vellore for a night. Hosur stretch has become better and takes around 20 mins to cross. I left by 3 PM on Friday. Post Hosur except for few diversions work is almost 95% complete till wallajah. All flyovers at pallikonda krishnagiri ratnagiri etc have been opened.

Post wallajah roads are not good. And be careful post kancheepuram till sriperumbudur. Especially the stretch leading to sunguvarchatiram bridge is horrible. Spotted half or 1 foot deep potholes. And there is a very nasty bump on top of sunguvarchatiram bridge when you climb. It will catch you by surprise if you are on high speeds.

So once hosur stretch is complete it's a dream drive till ranipet and nightmare from then on. Worst part is you can never avoid this stretch. Hope the highway department does something to improve this stretch.

On a side note arya bhavan has opened just after wallajah toll when you come from Bangalore.

[Gokrish]

Originally Posted by ampere

I think @Gokrish's point might have been with respect to usage of Chennai-Krishnagiri 6-lane for driving to Salem. Hence the point on Chennai-Ranipet 6-lane part.
But as you said the 6 lane may only be for Hosur-Krishnagiri-Vellore. I am not sure about Bangalore-Hosur or Chennai-Ranipet-Vellore.

Thanks ampere. That is what I meant. Even regulare o&m does not seem to happen on this stretch. The Ranipet-Chennai side is worser than the the other side.