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Travelled to Palghat last weekend, road are good till CBE. Then after L&T bypass, things deteriorate a bit, but honestly its not horrible, easily manageable and i generally rip over em and it works. From Walayar you get lot of 4 laned bit, so its easy to drive.

This time it was the ol zen :) Cant wait for the whole section to be completed as four lane, should be really nice to drive/ride down.

Thanks a lot gajadonga, ampere & NPV.

@ Ampere - I will take the route suggested till Sathy and then NH209 to Bangalore.
Sabarimala-Sathy or Sathy-Bangalore : is it safe to drive through in the night (in terms of road conditions)?
Is there any blocks in between as we would be crossing forest area (similar to Bandipur-Ooty stretch)?

Does anyone know the condition of highway 183a that passes by Pamba dam. Iam planning to drive to Kumily next week using that route from Varkala beach.

There are no restrictions going on NH209 in the night as the forest area is clearly demarcated from the road. I would advise you to travel during the day time. You can expect more lorry traffic in the night and the dimbham ghats are known for truck break downs.

I will be driving to Vaikom on 19th. Since the Supreme Court will be hearing Jayalalitha's bail petition on 17th, I am not sure whether it will be safe to drive via Tamil Nadu. The other option is this

Bangalore - Mysore - Gundlupet - Sultan Bathery - Wayanad - Kozhikode - Ponnani -Chavakkad - Kodungalloor - N. Paravur - Kalamassery - Vaikom.

Questions.

1. How is the road condition.

2. How to bypass Kozhikode and proceed to Ponnani to join NH 17. Is it straightforward?

3. How is the Kalpetta bypass, is it easy to find?

I will not be taking the Kanakpura route as Mysore road will be faster early in the morning.

Thanks.

1. Road Conditions till Ponnani are excellent (Not sure beyond that). Slightly patchy roads between Mysore and Nanjangud and some pot holes between Kalpetta and the Churam. Nothing to worry about. Watch out for humps betwen Nanjangud and Gundlepet.

2. Kozhikode has a by-pass that takes you to Ramanatukara. It is easy to find. The first major signal as you approach Calicut. Take a left and go all the way to the end of the by-pass at Ramanatukara. Now you are on NH 17. if you plan to take Ponnani route, you need to deviate from Chelari and go via Parappanangadi-Tanur-Tirur-Chamaravattam- Chavakkad. Chelari comes a few km after Calicut University,there is a HP or BP gas bottling plant at CHelari, post this there is a downward slope at the end of which, there is a Y kind of junciton the main highway goes left and Parappanangadi road goes right. Alternatively you can continue on NH 17 and go via Valanchery-Edappal-Kunnamkulam-Chavakkad. I assume you don't want to take the NH 47 via Thrissur (By-pass Kunnamkulam-Thrissur-NH47 route).

You may also want to consider Gundlepet-Gudalur-NIlambur- Perinthalmanna-Thrissur-NH47. Bad roads between Theppakdu and Gudalur. But should be shorter than Calicut route

3. Yes, Kalpetta by-pass is easy to find. There are boards indicating the by-pass. It comes just after the road that join the highway from manathavady. so that is a landmark

Thanks for the inputs.

I thought NH 17 is the one via Ponnani. I have taken both the Kunnamkulam and Ponnani route. Which is shorter/better. I do not want to go via Thrissur.

I do not want to take Nilambur route as it passes via Tamil Nadu. It is the shortest route (Shorter even than the Salem route by 40 KMs).

Forgot that Gudalur route passes through TN. stupid:

Yes, NH17 goes via Ponnani. But the NH 17 alignment is a curious one. The actual NH 17 is Calicut-Valanchery-Kuttipuram-few KM after Kuttipuram deviates to Ponnani and then on to CHavakkad. But the Kuttipuram-Ponnani road is almost non existant and in vry bad shape, while the Edappal-Kunnamkulam route is excellent. So most people have the impression that NH 17 is the Edappal-Kunnamkulam-Chavakkad route.

There is a new Kuttipuram-Ponnani road that has been under constuction for ever. Latest reports indicate it is in its final stage currently. Once that opens the NH 17 link via Kuttipuram to Ponnani will be a good one.

To your specific question, I would recommend the Valanchery-Edapal-Kunnamkulam-Chavakkad route. The parappanangadi route is quite crowded now a days and crossing Parappangadi-Tanur-Tirur-Chamravattom etc can be time consuming. So the other route should take you same or less time although it is longer.

On October 7th, I was in Salem town when the news about her release came. Few people celebrated by bursting crackers, thats all.

By the time I reached Erode, the news about bail plea rejection came. I crossed Erode city in the evening and went through Coimbatore city to Kochi but nothing unusual noticed.

Decide final route, depending on situation then.

Nothing untoward will happen as the fear of president's rule being imposed in TN will be there amongst the party workers. I would still suggest stick to TN route. Anyways wait and watch and then take a call on your destination routes.

I suggest start early from Bangalore and try to cross pollachi before 9 am( if situation is not that bad). I was crossing pollachi on sept 27th when the verdict came and nothing much was observed.

Calicut route will slow you down considerably if you are driving in KL during day time. If you decide to take calicut route, then plan for a 2 pm start from Bangalore so that you can be in clt by 10pm and vaikom by 2 am.

+1 to what Arijit said. If you start by 3AM, you would be past Pollachi by 9. Early mornings you wont see any problems. This would help you in a much better way. Pack food for the way so as to not lose time.

Ponnani-Chavakkad is also in excellent condition, Chavakkad to Chettuva (About 6-7 kms I think) is bad, then again very good up to the end of Kodungallur bypass. From thereon NH17 is very narrow, so it can be slow progress. May be a good idea to take the ICT road from Cheranalloor to get to Kalamassery and take the Seaport-Airport road from thereon to avoid the traffic mess in Ernakulam.

My experience was quite the opposite when I travelled a couple of times along that route in the past 1 to 1.5 months. The heavy and mad traffic between Ramanattukara and Chelari (which reminds you of the Bangalore-Mysore SH17 traffic on weekends) virtually forced me to deviate to the Chamravattom route, and I found that route (including the passage through the mid-size towns of Parappanangadi, Tanur and Tirur) to be very smooth - perhaps because it was early in the morning (Around 6:30-7AM). Not sure how bad it becomes later in the day.

Make it +2 :). The route via Calicut will take you at least 50% more of travel time (Around 13 hours), so it may very well be worth it risking a drive through TN in the very early hours. In case you want to avoid major towns like Salem and reduce the travel time through TN, you could even take the NH209/Karumathampatti-Pollachi route - The stretch through TN - i.e. Dhimbham to Pollachi shouldn't take you more than 3 hours.

Hi Ampere,

From Odanchatram you can go to Sathy bypassing Gobi via Kurumanthur (link shown below). It is around 7 KM shorter. Any reason to avoid this road?
https://goo.gl/maps/fQZsJ

One is not sure about the road conditons as highlighted by you. The route mentioned by Ampere (kangeyam, dharapuram etc) is a proven route with very good 2 lane roads. Traffic is also less on these roads comparitively.