[finneyp]

Traffic is badly handled in Channapatna, was stuck in jam both ways on a trip 2 weeks back...

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by kala

NICE road is overkill - especially if you're going to be travelling in non-peak hours (i.e before about 8AM in the morning).

Since you live close to ORR, you can take the ORR itself to get to Mysore road.

Once you reach SH17, there shouldn't be any issues - just keep to the 4 lane road and you should be in Mysore in about 2 to 2.5 hours. Remember to keep your speed under check, there are gigantic speedbreakers all over SH-17, and some of them are unmarked (Or may be marked, but difficult to spot the markings in time).

Originally Posted by parik_ind

Hi DCEite,

If you are leaving on Sat morning try and leave as early as possible. Latest by 6:30-7:00 AM. We drove to Nagarhole last weekend and made the mistake of leaving post 8:30 from Banaswadi and it took us forever to get there.

Since you stay in Hebbal, I would suggest that you go through the city rather than ORR and then NICE Road. This will a very circuitous route.

Try this route instead:

1. Hebbal to MG Road via Mekhri Circle
2. Once on MG Road head towards Anil Kumble Circle (this is past the Metro station near the Reliance Jewelry store)
3. Head onto Kasturba Road from Anil Kumble Circle (The middle road - reliance jewelry to your left and cubbon park to your right.
4. Head straight down the road. You will see an intersection with Coffee Day Square in front of you. Continue straight but keep to your right (this is a one way). You will pass Mallya Hospital on your left.
5. At the end of the road turn right and head straight
6. Another signal; continue straight - you will see Canara Bank on your right (big building)
7. At the next signal take a right, go straight and head up the fly-over. You are now on Mysore Road
8. One straight road from here till you hit Mysore. Indication will be a Columbia Asia hospital on your right

The entire route has sufficient signs so you wont get lost.

Things to keep in mind:

• Leave early to avoid traffic in the city and on Mysore road
• The Bangalore-Mysore Road is not your typical highway. You will encounter several speed breakers and barriers on the road
• Since you will pass through may of the smaller towns do expect traffic there
• Passing through Mandya will take the most time as it is a larger city

You could return the same way but I would suggest that this time you take the NICE Road and then the outer ring road to get home.

Hope this was helpful. The rest of the thread lists out places of interest and place to eat.

Parik

Originally Posted by ampere

I would go with @Kala. Take the ORR all the way to Mysore road.

- But note that ORR now has an underpass at Mysore road junction.
- Also note ORR breaks-up at NH4. The instant you hit NH4, you need to turn away from Bangalore.
- Drive a km or and take left at the next signal to continue on ORR.

Route LInk

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

Since you are new to Bangalore, I would advise you not to go through the city. There are lots of one-ways / two-ways which you may not be familiar with.

Also, there is metro construction work happening at several places in the city, and you may not be familiar with the reroutes. Even the GPS device can't help you in such cases and you would keep going round in circles.

Then there is some renovation work happening on the Mysore Road flyover near Kalasipalayam.

Finally, there is a huge traffif jam after this flyover all the way up to ORR junction, even in the mornings.

Start as early as possible. 6:00 would be ideal, worst case 7:00.

Rohan

Originally Posted by NPV

As others have mentioned, one simple route option is to keep to ORR all the way till Mysore Road (SH17) near Kengeri.

Another option if you're leaving early is to go via the central part of the city itself (if you know how to get to MG Road from your place near Hebbal). Once you reach Chinnaswamy Stadium (on left) and Cubbon Park (on right) you're at MG Road at the Jewels D' Paragon traffic signal. Turn right here to Kasturba Road, past Mallya hospital, reach Corporation circle. At Town hall junction turn right, go over on the flyover and you're on Mysore Road.

Once on Mysore Road, you just have to follow the directions to Mysore, no confusion and its well marked.

Originally Posted by finneyp

Traffic is badly handled in Channapatna, was stuck in jam both ways on a trip 2 weeks back...

Thanks a lot for those suggestions guys.

I will follow the ORR route. Already been many times till Nagarbhavi - and the breaking of ORR at NH-4 .

Thanks for the route link Ampere!

Will take care of the speed humps.

Any suggestions on eating places/restaurants ? Not looking at North indian type "Dhabas" - will prefer a decent value for money restaurant.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Any suggestions on eating places/restaurants ? Not looking at North indian type "Dhabas" - will prefer a decent value for money restaurant.

You are asking food options on Mysore road?
Its like asking where can I find food while roaming around a food court!

(I like that term coined by Ranjit for Mysore road).

You get CCDs, McD, many many Kamats, Adigas, Maddur Tiffany, Kadumane ... List is endless!
If you see crowd in one place drive to the next!

[alokgunhal]

paragsachania and I with family tried a novel route to Mysore to avoid the chaos and rush on SH17. http://goo.gl/maps/VtNo7. We took Tumkur Road until the NH48 Junction and hit the NH48 until Bellur Cross. From there took a left turn toward Pandavapura and voila in under 3 hours we reached Srirangapatna. This route can be a boon for people staying North Bangalore. What you get is 4 laned roads which are fairly empty until Bellur Cross and then 2 laned roads until Srirangapatna which are not too busy. Effortless way to reach Mysore especially on a weekend.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Any suggestions on eating places/restaurants ? Not looking at North indian type "Dhabas" - will prefer a decent value for money restaurant.

I generally stop at Kadu Mane (near Toyota Factory in Bidadi) for breakfast.

My next stop is generally at McD / Kamat Restaurant (midway between Channapatana and Maddur).

Both these restaurants are on the left side while driving from Bangalore to Mysore. Both restaurants have huge BP petrol pumps next to them, you won't miss them.

For the return journey, I generally prefer to stop at Adigas and KFC, again both on left side of the road, while driving from Mysore to Bangalore.

Rohan

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by ampere

You are asking food options on Mysore road?
Its like asking where can I find food while roaming around a food court!

(I like that term coined by Ranjit for Mysore road).

You get CCDs, McD, many many Kamats, Adigas, Maddur Tiffany, Kadumane ... List is endless!
If you see crowd in one place drive to the next!

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

I generally stop at Kadu Mane (near Toyota Factory in Bidadi) for breakfast.

My next stop is generally at McD / Kamat Restaurant (midway between Channapatana and Maddur).

Both these restaurants are on the left side while driving from Bangalore to Mysore. Both restaurants have huge BP petrol pumps next to them, you won't miss them.

For the return journey, I generally prefer to stop at Adigas and KFC, again both on left side of the road, while driving from Mysore to Bangalore.

Rohan

So finally it happened! Went there last Saturday and came back on Monday.

Left from our place in Sahakaranagar at 9.30 and by 1.30 we were at our Hotel in Sayyaji Road Mysore.

This included 3 stops (Kamath, Right-O and one more restaurant).

Went through the ORR route from Hebbal-> Jalahalli-> Nagarbhavi -> Kangeri town -> Mysore road. Took us approximately 1 hour to escape the Bangalore city. The roads were bad near the Kangeri Town though. :(

Lots of speed bumps as expected, but the longest time was taken at the Mandya town and not at Chinapatna as expected.


Reason being that on Saturday, the Mandya town MLA was coming to his home town (i guess after being elected as state minister). So the narrow roads of the town were clogged. By the way he is a very colorful man, had his posters all over the Mysore road. In some he is posing with Moustache, some are with his wife and son, some in traditional south indian dresses, and so on.

The Mysore road was good for most part of the journey. And really enjoyed the scenary of mountains near Ramanagara.

I really liked the Masala Dosa at Kamath Lokaruchi's (there was one moer kamath down the way though, didn't try that out). Probably only restaurant where you have ducks chirping around as you get to have your food. The "filter" tea was a bit underwhelming though.

There is a food court approx 25 kms away from Mysore, called Right-O. Really good icecream at Polat Bear and nice momos at Shanghai Junction.

Return trip was comparatively shorter because it was a working day and traffic at Mandya and Chinnapatna was not too much.

Some random pics from the trip:

[odyssey045]

Happened to be coming from Madikeri yesterday and reached the bangalore - mysore highway exactly at 5 pm. It was a real punishment to dothis stretch. Planning to do a weekend ooty trip next month and wondering if i should ditch my car and hop on to a bus for the fear of driving back on congested 4-lane highway on sunday evening. Any one knows how the malavalli - kanakapura stretch is on sunday evenings.. is it any better than the SH 17 ?

[kala]

Originally Posted by odyssey045

Happened to be coming from Madikeri yesterday and reached the bangalore - mysore highway exactly at 5 pm. It was a real punishment to dothis stretch. Planning to do a weekend ooty trip next month and wondering if i should ditch my car and hop on to a bus for the fear of driving back on congested 4-lane highway on sunday evening. Any one knows how the malavalli - kanakapura stretch is on sunday evenings.. is it any better than the SH 17 ?

If coming back from Ooty, take a right turn at Gundlupet to Chamarajanagar and then take NH209 from there via Kollegal-Malavalli-Kanakapura. The traffic between Kanakapura and Bangalore will be higher than normal on Sunday evenings (but nothing worse than the Ramanagara-Bangalore stretch on SH17), but the drive till Kanakapura should be far more relaxed, and so overall this should be a much more pleasant journey compared to the drive through SH17.

[Fauji]

I just came back from Gudalur on Sunday and drove via Gundlupet-Chamarajnagar- Malavalli-Kanakapura as usual. What a pleasure it was!! The road condition is excellent through out. This is the best option for anyone travelling to Ooty or Wayanad.

If travelling to Mysore, take deviation at Malavalli towards Bannur to reach Mysore.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by Fauji

If travelling to Mysore, take deviation at Malavalli towards Bannur to reach Mysore.

Sir, how is the road condition between Malavalli-Bannur-Mysore ?
Last weekend I suggested this route to Lukeskywalker but he'd heard reports about it being bad from Malavalli onwards so decided against taking it. I was sure that upto Malavalli is excellent but wasn't sure of the conditions from there towards Bannur.

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by NPV

Sir, how is the road condition between Malavalli-Bannur-Mysore ?
Last weekend I suggested this route to Lukeskywalker but he'd heard reports about it being bad from Malavalli onwards so decided against taking it. I was sure that upto Malavalli is excellent but wasn't sure of the conditions from there towards Bannur.

Bannur route is pretty ok and manageable, you gotto watch out for those occasional nincompoops who appear out of nowhere with their bikes putting Rossi and his likes to shame.

[ramzsys]

For those taking the NH209 option: Although the road is smooth, the road will surprise many with sudden sharp turns.

[pratyush6]

Originally Posted by ramzsys

For those taking the NH209 option: Although the road is smooth, the road will surprise many with sudden sharp turns.

Honestly, NH 209 is way better than the normal route. It is not your typical 6 lane highway but the traffic is decent and roads are very good. And people dont drive like tis the end of the world. It helps that the way is very picturesque. I however could not find too many eataries till Mandya.

The advice of leaving early and reaching early still holds good.

P.S. : Drove on this road on the 8th June.

[satshen]

Originally Posted by alokgunhal

paragsachania and I with family tried a novel route to Mysore to avoid the chaos and rush on SH17. http://goo.gl/maps/VtNo7.......

Hi Alok,

Any landmark for the turn out at Bellur Cross towards Nagamangala ?

Thnx

[kala]

Originally Posted by NPV

Sir, how is the road condition between Malavalli-Bannur-Mysore ?
Last weekend I suggested this route to Lukeskywalker but he'd heard reports about it being bad from Malavalli onwards so decided against taking it. I was sure that upto Malavalli is excellent but wasn't sure of the conditions from there towards Bannur.

The Malavalli-Mysore section was also quite decent when I travelled that way last (a couple of months ago I think, may be 3). Some rough patches around Bannur town itself and the occasional unmarked speedbreaker at the entry / exit points of villages are the sore points, but overall it is very much drivable with most stretches capable of 80kmph+ speeds.

But the Bannur-Malavalli-Kanakapura route is about 15 kms or so longer than SH17 if my memory serves me right, so may not save you too much in terms of time.