[mpksuhas]

Unfortunate incident in KA side of forest on Calicut - Bangalore highway.

Traffic was held since yesterday night a truck hit an elephant causing its death, the herd stood around the dead elephant causing road blockage when traffic was opened up in morning.

From the news report, it seems the herd has moved on now and traffic is restored, they are yet to move the dead elephant from the road it seems.

https://youtu.be/BpeuDVInQK4

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

Unfortunate incident in KA side of forest on Calicut - Bangalore highway.

Where exactly did this incident happened? As far as I know trucks are not allowed to run through the forest in the night. So did it happen just before the forest area, where trucks can still run.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by sachinpk

Where exactly did this incident happened?

Yes, vehicles are banned during night time. From the video, however it looks like happened inside the forest itself.

My guess is that the truck was inside the forest before the checkposts got closed, they may have taken a break and then started late in night / early morning. Have seen overnight trucks parked inside the forest when crossing this section soon after checkpost opens.

[balenoed_]

Gone case!! All the efforts of KL government and its people to have KA lift this night travel ban through the forest is doomed. It is never going to happen with this incident now.

Probably more stricter restrictions will be put in place, like having the travel restriction from 6pm onwards as against 9pm which it is currently.

[binand]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

Probably more stricter restrictions will be put in place, like having the travel restriction from 6pm onwards as against 9pm which it is currently.

Already afoot:

https://www.deshabhimani.com/news/ke...el-ban/1061732

(in Malayalam, sorry folks).

[satnan]

Did Bangalore - Kozhikode last Saturday (24th). Road condition is good overall.

Started 5AM from Bellandur. Bangalore - Mysore road is completely done till about few kms before Mandya. You have to still go through Mandya town and from there on road is partly done with some diversions. Drove through Mysore town, crossed Gundulpet and reached Kerala boarder by around 9.10AM.

Had breakfast in Sultan battery and took Kalpetta bypass (road condition is decent / drivable and should be better option during heavy traffic compared to Kalpetta town). From then on, it was a painful drive due to a broken down KSRTC bus on the 7th hairpin bend on Churam road and lost about 2.5 hours. Finally reached home near Kunnamangalam by around 3PM

[Ranger747]

Drove to Calicut and back in the last week. Here is short report

Onward : Bangalore > Mysore > Nanjangud > Gundlupete > Sulthan Batheri > Kalpetta > Thamarassery > Calicut

Overall road condition were good. No bad patches that stand out.

Return: Calicut > Nilambur > Edakkara > Nadugani > Gudalur > Gundlupete > Nanjangud > Mysore > Bangalore

The section close to Nadugani was very bad. Road is full of bad patches and you have go slowly. Other sections were reasonable. I will recommend first route only at this point.

cheers.

[vista_qjd]

Originally Posted by Ranger747

Drove to Calicut and back in the last week. Here is short report

Onward : Bangalore > Mysore > Nanjangud > Gundlupete > Sulthan Batheri > Kalpetta > Thamarassery > Calicut

Overall road condition were good. No bad patches that stand out.

Return: Calicut > Nilambur > Edakkara > Nadugani > Gudalur > Gundlupete > Nanjangud > Mysore > Bangalore

The section close to Nadugani was very bad. Road is full of bad patches and you have go slowly. Other sections were reasonable. I will recommend first route only at this point.

cheers.

Thanks for the update. We were planning for a trip from Calicut to Bangalore on a Sunday leaving at 1:30PM. Will take the Kalpetta - Gundulpete route. Would anyone know the traffic conditions when leaving in the afternoon. And what time we can expect to reach Bangalore?

[capnemo]

Drove from Bangalore to Calicut and back over the last week.

Route was the usual NICE - Mysuru Expressway - Nanjangud - Gundlupet - Bathery - Kalpetta

This was the first time that I was driving on the Mysuru expressway and noticed a drastic reduction in my travel time. I am a sedate driver and usually take around 9.30 - 10 hours door to door. Due to the expressway, I was able to complete the trip in 9 hours flat. Once the Mandya stretch also completes, expect the time to go down further.

Quick caveat - concrete work is still ongoing on the NICE road and this reduced both directions into single-lane at one place. Costs some more time.

Wayanad's ghat roads were a problem while going towards Calicut. The entire ghat road from top to bottom was bumper-to-bumper traffic, with the hairpins becoming a bottleneck. What usually takes around 40 minutes to descend took me a whopping 3 hours this time. This was mostly due to the mad rush for the Christmas holidays, I presume.

[kala]

Originally Posted by vista_qjd

Thanks for the update. We were planning for a trip from Calicut to Bangalore on a Sunday leaving at 1:30PM. Will take the Kalpetta - Gundulpete route. Would anyone know the traffic conditions when leaving in the afternoon. And what time we can expect to reach Bangalore?

Depends a lot on the ghat section bottleneck. If you encounter no traffic blocks in that section, Calicut to Sulthan Bathery should be doable in about 2.5 to 3 hours maximum. From Bathery to Bangalore NICE road junction should be about 4 to 5 hours again depending on traffic conditions - especially close to Bangalore.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by vista_qjd

Thanks for the update. We were planning for a trip from Calicut to Bangalore on a Sunday leaving at 1:30PM. Will take the Kalpetta - Gundulpete route. Would anyone know the traffic conditions when leaving in the afternoon. And what time we can expect to reach Bangalore?

1.30PM on a Sunday is a bad time to leave Calicut traffic wise. You will encounter heavy traffic all the way to Bathery. It will take 3-3.5 hrs as mentioned by Kala above provided there is no jam in the churam. From there to Mysore Ring Road exit- Roughly around 2hr 15 min to 2hr 30 min. This should be constant irrespective of the time. This will get you to Mysore-Bangalore highway around 7-7.30 assuming some break time. From there also expect heavy Sunday evening traffic towards Bangalore. The expressway would make it much better, but I would still think it would take around 2-2.5hrs max to hit the NICE road junction.

The best time to drive from Calicut to Bangalore is with an early morning start-by 6-6.30am. I just returned today with a 6.30am start. This helps minimize the traffic till Bathery (churam is still a gamble though-Today was smooth). I was at Bathery by 8.40am. Stopped at Jubilee Restaurant for breakfast. Left around 9:15am. Crossed Mysore Ring Road by 11.35am and thanks to the expressway and light traffic, was at NICE junction just past 1pm.

On the contrary, when I drove Bangalore to Calicut on 27th Dec. Nice road to Bathery time was almost same even with a 9am exit from NICE Road, but Bathery to Calicut took me 4+hrs with a lot of mini blocks all through.

[vista_qjd]

Thanks for the updates both. This is for a function so the earliest I am estimating is 1:00PM leaving Calicut. Will have to face the traffic is what it looks like. Will share an update post the travel on the conditions.

[vista_qjd]

Did the Calicut - Thamarassery - Kalpetta bypass - Meenangadi - Sultan Bathery - Mysore - Bangalore route last week. Roads are all in good condition. Having started in the afternoon end to end with 2 breaks took 8.5 hours. Only trouble was the traffic while passing through some of the towns - there were places with +6 to +8 minutes delays. The hairpin turns in the ghats are ok, but again in some places there is a wait time to let the opposite traffic pass.

[mpksuhas]

8-Jan-2023.

Calicut - Bangalore

Was planning on starting earlier since it was a Sunday return, which I try to avoid. However, unfortunately that didn't happen and it was 02.25PM when starting, was worried on getting stuck at the now regular traffic jams at Thamaraserry ghat. Thankfully, inspite of one truck breakdown towards end of the ghat, though slow moving, there was no jam as such.

However, all way till Sulthan Batthery, traffic was high and it took close to 3 hours to reach Mathais bakery, our usual stop on this route.

Started from here after a 10 mins break around 5.30PM, past Gudulupet, traffic was high, however strangely as nearing Mysore it was much better. Toll and also Mysore ring road signal was relatively less crowded. Crossed Mysore around 07.30 PM, took ring road though it was bit late worried about Sunday tourist crowd near Mysore Palace and city.

With all the bye-passes open till Mandya, it was a very much better drive than what we had in Nov mid on the same route. There are few sections were work is still ongoing and was causing slow moving and traffic, however nothing to be concerned about.

At Mandya, thanks to TBHPIans Rajeev and Binand who shared the details based on their trip done few days prior to mine, took the diversion from old road to the work in progress byepass.

Point from where I took left turn and headed to under construction Mandya byepass. Do check in satellite view for better understanding.

Location

Surprisingly, there was no other vehicles taking this route, along with me only a biker gang from Bangalore took this turn. This easily saved some 20 mins for me considering that the old road through Mandya was jammed.

Reached Bangalore end / Hotel Amaravati side exit in no time, the whole section is done and apart form the Mysore side short cut which I took to enter this, one need not be bothered about any route diversion.

From there till end of Mysore road it was fine, though there are numerous middle of the lane drivers who test both your patience and reaction time.

Once you reach exist of highway / Kumbalgodu flyover. There left lane is dug up for ongoing work + the traffic from below the flyover merge causing a bottle neck and it takes a while to clear it. I guess once the road work is done, this jam will get shifted slightly ahead towards the NICE road entry.

Inspite of that, from Mysore ORR till here it took just about 2 hours which was great on a Sunday evening.

From here to NICE - HSR layout took another 1 hour. Reached home around 10.25PM.

[binand]

I did a trip to Calicut last week (2nd out, 4th back). Early reports about the new BMEW suggested that I could start from Bangalore early evening and still make it to the Bandipur forest entry point before the night closure. So after consulting several people I decided to time things so that I was entering the expressway at 5 PM. Working backwards, I left home at 3.30 PM and went through the city (Richmond Circle > Hudson Circle > Nayandahalli big interchange > Kengeri) - which was the right thing to do, as it transpired that the same afternoon NICE road was gridlocked because of an accident.

Traffic was sparse on the expressway; so even with the 5 major detours (I counted) I could still reach MRR in 65 minutes. After a stop for tea & stretching I continued; turning off the MRR onto NH 766 at 6.30 PM on the dot. Easily made it into Kerala and was at Wilton in Sulthan Bathery at 8.45 PM. Reached home at 11.45 PM - but not before seeing two accidents one each at Kalpetta and on the churam.

On the return trip I had time to spare; so decided to take the Perambadi churam. The section from Calicut till a bit north of Vatakara was excruciating; but the Thalassery-Mysore highway was a breeze. The churam is rather lonely and long, entirely in Karnataka state. Traffic progressively increased as I merged with other major highways; so much so that the dual carriageway section couldn't come too soon. The MRR arc from Hunsur Road to Bangalore Road still has the three unfinished railway underpasses exactly as they were about 8 years ago when I first took this section. :-)

At the end of the expressway - Google was showing +15 minutes at Jnana Bharathi and NICE, so did the smart thing by taking NICE only till PES University exit and then merging back to Mysore Road at Nayandahalli. Was home at about 9 PM.

Stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Casa Mia at Nirmalagiri. Avoid. I still have stomach cramps from their terrible food.