[Gokrish]

Originally Posted by King Advert

I could not find any recommendable restaurant on the stretch from Chennai to Nagpur, particularly in the route Chennai to Hyderabad (NOT via Vijaywada) via Nellore, Ongole (specifically on the left side of the road).

Both Delhi Highway at Ongole and N5 Food Plaza at Tanguturu are decent options.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by niCo_neOz

Is this for the Thorur route ?

Yes

Originally Posted by King Advert

Chennai-Nagpur-Chennai by Road, it took me about 16:30 hours to do Nagpur to Chennai

Timings are good. I attempted this twice and fell short both times. First time Nivar cyclone and Audi Shankara bridge collapse happened, ended up staying at Nellore.

Second time was too tired and stayed at SRM Hotel at Sri City for the night.

Both attempts the timings were close to 18-19 hours (with 3 breaks).

For a morning start from Nagpur, the stops were usually breakfast at Jamb Ashoka (meh choice, but nothing else is open that early) - Ramayampet Aadya Grand for lunch (slow service, but timings are perfect) - refuel at Chityal BPCL COCO - dinner at Tanguturu N5/Nellore Grand.

For Madras morning start (4-5 am types), the choice is always N5 for breakfast - Vivera for lunch. I've not attempted Nagpur drive, but guesstimate Adilabad dinner.

Originally Posted by Gokrish

Both Delhi Highway at Ongole and N5 Food Plaza at Tanguturu are decent options.

Does Delhi Highway have breakfast? The 3 times I've been were all for lunch.

[Gokrish]

Originally Posted by narayans80

Does Delhi Highway have breakfast? The 3 times I've been were all for lunch.

Yes, they do have breakfast. But, with limited basic options like Idly, Vada, Dosa, & Pongal.

[King Advert]

Originally Posted by narayans80

Yes



Timings are good. I attempted this twice and fell short both times. First time Nivar cyclone and Audi Shankara bridge collapse happened, ended up staying at Nellore.

Second time was too tired and stayed at SRM Hotel at Sri City for the night.

Both attempts the timings were close to 18-19 hours (with 3 breaks).

For a morning start from Nagpur, the stops were usually breakfast at Jamb Ashoka (meh choice, but nothing else is open that early) - Ramayampet Aadya Grand for lunch (slow service, but timings are perfect) - refuel at Chityal BPCL COCO - dinner at Tanguturu N5/Nellore Grand.

For Madras morning start (4-5 am types), the choice is always N5 for breakfast - Vivera for lunch. I've not attempted Nagpur drive, but guesstimate Adilabad dinner.



Does Delhi Highway have breakfast? The 3 times I've been were all for lunch.

Need to make a special mention about German-Tech, Chennai;
Mr.C.K.Jayaprakash (ex- serviceman VW and AUDI) V.V. Giri Road

While I was around about 100 kms from Chennai (travelling towards Chennai), glow plug sign started flashing (was in my Jetta TDI Highline AT) and there was a sudden drop in acceleration, as a layman's guess, it had something to do with intakes. There was a reasonable delay in gear shifting and visible drop in milage also (Mentioning in details so that if any one encounters this problem these symptoms shall point out to the probable cause) I decided not to switch off the engine and continue till my destination near Tambaram. (Reached around 10:45 pm)
The next morning after the start car was Hunting and there was a delay in gear shifting. I could not get any support from some local nearby mechanic or towing services (it was Eid holiday that day 11th April 2024). My brother in law is with Mahindra (Chennai) and upon his insistence, I searched for local help through Go-Mechanic, a guy came and took the car to his garage (Madras Car Care), he could not diagnose the problem and kept doing the guesswork related to EGR Cleaning, Airmass sensor and what not.
Apprehending the risk, I decided not to let him go ahead and brought car back to Tambaram, as it was.
The next day I decided to seek help from Google and from Team BHP forums also, where I found this guy C.K.Jaiprakash. (Thanks BHPans for the positive reviews).

I decided to take my car to him by road itself (about 25-30 kms from Tambaram), as I had planned my return to Nagpur a day after.

He had diagnosed the problem immediately even before he did the system scan. After the complete scan, He fixed the problem without any delay, in about 20-30 minutes including oil replacement . There was plenty of oil on the Engine underbody cover and he advised me to top-up the the oil, however, as the car had already done about 11k after last oil replacement I asked him to replace the oil (Liqui-Moly) and the car was great to go. I decided to do a trial run to Pondy (Touch and Come) the day before i was to leave for Nagpur, just to make sure that car is doing fine, as I had my wife and kid with me and did not want to take any risk of break-down mid way.

I reached Nagpur without any hassle !

Special thanks to Mr. C.K.Jayaprakash, German-Tech!

P.S. : I asked for Ceratec (Liqui Moly Product) but he did not have it that day. I have been using this in all my diesel cars since 2018 and highly pleased with the results ( Engine oil additive after every 30-35 k kms). Experts please enlighten on this product.

[bblost]

Need Suggestions / Advice.



Planning on a drive to Chennai later this month. Instead of driving directly to my parents home in Chennai, am thinking of making a short detour and staying overnight in some nice hotel resort.

Option 1, is to drive to Horsley Hills. Spend the night at the Haritha there and then resume the journey the next afternoon.

Option 2, stay at Ongole and chill out at Kothapatnam beach. I have never been here before and found it only by looking at places on GMaps.

Any other options?

Its just my family in the car. My kids are both over the age of 10 so not very fussy.

[narayans80]

You are asking about interior/coastal Andhra in the middle of the hottest summers in a decade. But its ok, you are a parent of 2 and I understand why you are asking

Originally Posted by bblost

Option 1, is to drive to Horsley Hills. Spend the night at the Haritha there and then resume the journey the next afternoon.

Out of the 2, I'd go with Horsley Hills.

I've not gone via the Anantapur-Kadiri route. But used the Kurnool-Kadapa-Rayachoty-Chittoor which is in great condition including the ghat.
---
Gandikota-Belum would entertain them, but Nandyal-Kurnool is burning at 46C. Its suicidal to suggest

[gajadonga]

Update on the stretch between Nalgonda and Addanki.
Pidugurala bypass is open completely as it was opened partially before.

[bblost]

So we decided to drive down to Horsley. Stay was at the APDTC Governor Bungalow, AC room.
It cost about four and a half thousand per night.

Its a decent room and was quite clean. But the facility is aged and the overall upkeep leaves a little to be desired.

The weather was very pleasant and there was a welcome chill in the air.















We had dinner at some restaurant in the Windwave restaurant.




The pizza and chicken was good but the chicken curry was a let down.

The next day morning we went to the zoo and did some walking among the trees.






There is a lot of trash all over the place.
But I blame the complete lack of dustbins and other amenities and not the public. The public can do better but its the civic services that are a huge letdown.


We drove down from Horsley for lunch at Ambur. Wanted to have the original biryani at a location close to its hometown.










By evening we reached Kanchipuram and checked into an AirBNB.

Then went to the city for dinner:







The next day some saree shopping and left for Chennai.

[sreeram625]

Did a very sedate Hyderabad - Chennai via Vijayawada, last week on the 29th & 30th May 2024 with my Tata Nexon with a night stay in Guntur.

Started from Nanakramguda at 2PM, climbed the ORR and exited through the Vijayawada Exit. The road immediately after the ORR exit towards Vijayawada probably has to be the worst stretch in my entire trip, with erratic city + highway traffic & abrupt diversions & lane closures. Reached Hotel Vivera at Narketpalli by around 3:50PM and breaked for a very late lunch. Had the combination of Veg Biryani + Mirchi Bajji, and both the items were pretty good.

The entire stretch till Vijayawada was fairly breezy & we entered AP while vibing to 90s Telugu hits. Reached Vijayawada Kanakadurga temple at around 7:45PM, had an accelerated darsanam and went to Minerva Grand in the Vijayawada city for dinner. Night halt was at the ITC WelcomHotel Guntur, so started for Guntur at around 9:45PM. Google Maps messed up here and routed us through the Prakasam Barrage bridge & Mangalagiri town to reach Guntur, instead of directly going by the NH-16 bridge & by-pass Mangalagiri. Even in Guntur, GMaps bothered us by suggesting narrow by-lanes & alleys instead of going by the main roads, so we ended up reaching the stay by 11PM.

Day-2
ITC WelcomHotel Guntur seems to be a fairly new property and for 3.4K per night inclusive of breakfast, we surely got a bang for the buck! Departed Guntur at 9:30 AM and cruised down to the N5 hotel by the Tanguturu toll-plaza by 11:15AM.

Dilly-dallied re-fueling a tad too much in search of an IOCL COCO bunk to fill XP95 and ended up filling 1K worth of petrol at a random HPCL bunk as an emergency buffer, only to stumble upon an IOCL Swagat petrol bunk literally 1KM later just prior to Tanguturu town. Had a second breakfast at N5 as we were slightly early for lunch and the N5 Hotel offered some good views of both the highway & the railway traffic as well. The car cum train buff in me was fully satisfied and we had a one hour halt there, spotting cars & trains.

Nellore bypass had a work going on & had some lane closures, but wasn't much of a bother. It was scorching hot outside and I was grateful for my Nexon's AC. Also, the blazing heat meant that the two wheelers & autos were very few and had a gala time zipping through the NH16, stopping for a good lunch at Padmavathi Vilas at Manubolu, just short of Gudur by 2:30PM.

After a rather heavy lunch, set out for reaching Chennai without anymore halts and reached Nallur Tollplaza by 5:20PM. The ingress into Chennai was painful was expected, with an underconstruction flyover & evening rushhour traffic adding to our woes. Got onto NH 48 at Madhavaram & exited at Tambaram, thus concluding the trip.

Need to do another round trip to Hyderabad in July, and thinking I'll do the shortest route through NAM one-way and experiment with the Kurnool, Kadapa, Renigunta route the other way.

[vnabhi]

Folks

I have a tentative plan to drive to Kilpauk Gardens, Chennai from Hyderabad. Is the NAM highway still the best route? Will a 5 AM start take me to my destination by 5 PM, factoring in stops for around 30 minutes each for breakfast and lunch?

Thanks in advance.

[gajadonga]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

Folks

I have a tentative plan to drive to Kilpauk Gardens, Chennai from Hyderabad. Is the NAM highway still the best route? Will a 5 AM start take me to my destination by 5 PM, factoring in stops for around 30 minutes each for breakfast and lunch?

Thanks in advance.

Traveled last weekend to Chennai.
This is still the best route.
After crossing Ramoji film city road work is happening for about 15kms after that roads are good throughout.
Only problem was the Nalgonda bypass flyover construction can encounter traffic snarls.
Pidugurala bypass completely open and one side of the road is open to traffic over the railway line no hassles as such.
After crossing Tada only one Flyover is still pending to enter Chennai city rest all of the flyovers are complete.
There are two outer ring roads to Chennai.
One after Sholavaram which takes you to Vandalur as I had to go to Mahabalipuram took this route elevated 3 lane express highway within no time was in Vandalur to cross over to ECR Mahabalipuram road
The second Ring Road is after the town Puzhal. This you can take if you want to go to which part of Chennai city

[bblost]

Drove to Chennai from Hyderabad today.

The update is identical to the one above by gajadonga.

Found a new MacDonalds just after Nellore.
Stopped for a quick bite.


I was worried about traffic but luckily the route was quite fine today.

I entered the ORR at Hyderabad(TGPA) around 10:30 AM.
Reached Puzhal at 7:30 PM.
Adyar around 8:30 PM.

I used Cruise Control and forced myself to drive at or under 100 kmpl for most the trip.
This resulted is a milage of 17.x kmpl for 450 kms and 16 kmpl for the remaining 150 kilometers home.

[bblost]

Since my dashcam had the recording for a couple of hours...I just combined it all and uploaded on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcMvXNmUpT0

From Addanki to Adyar.
Some 350+ kms.

[bblost]

And a part of the recording from my return trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ8hW0Ib2lY

This covers some 450 odd kilometers from a little after Nellore till TGPA exit on the ORR.

[Paddy19]

Drove from Chennai to Hyderabad on Dec 25th. Started from Saligramam at 4.45AM and reached Chandanagar by 3.45PM. This is my first time doing this route.

I could only do an average 60kmph the first hour due to truck and city traffic. I had planned to stop at the skyview toll restaurant but there was something wrong with what I entered in GMaps. It was showing the location to be another 20km ahead, and I realized only after passing through the tool that I missed the restaurant. We stopped at Delhi highway for breakfast. Decent place with very clean washrooms. Stopped to refuel on NAM, and then made another quick stop at Kumbakonam degree coffee on NAM.

I would say roads were good 95% of the way. Some portions of the NAM stretch had potholes and diversions. And it also slows you down around Addanki. But all-in-all this was a comfortable drive. I usually drive Hyd-Blr/Blr-Hyd, which takes me 10-11 hours door to door. Hyd-Che is an additional 100 km and I was mentally prepared for a 12+-hour drive, so pleasantly surprised that we did it in 11 hours!