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Bangalore to Calicut Road Trip: Travel Time, Route & Traffic Updates

31st March 2025, 18:03 by Kanad Kalasur

The NH66 - section, the dirt track seen in this pic is still work in progress, with news doing rounds that it may be open by end of March.

BHPian mpksuhas recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Late update. I was of impression that I already updated the thread.

24 Jan 2025

Started from home near HSR layout at 3.35 AM, took NICE road and then joined Mysore road. The 100kmph speed limit seems very difficult at this time, I hope they increase it to 120kmph, but at the same instance, noticed some 3 or 4 smaller commercial vehicles (Bolero/ Tata ACE etc) which were swaying across lane. Looked like the drivers were sleeping off.

Reached Bandipur forest check post around 6.20 AM or so. Batherry at 7.20 AM, took a bio break at yet to open Mathai bakery / Mint flower for around 5 mins.

Started onwards, luckily no jams at ghats and also thankfully none at Thamaraserry junction too, surprising considering it was office timings.

Reached Calicut at 9.40 AM, even suprising was that the Malaparamb junction underpass work induced diversion / circling around the junction has made the junction smooth as of now.

26 Jan 2025

Started from home at 2.16 PM, being Sunday as expected traffic was sparse till Ghats. Thankfully, the weekend tourist traffic was just building up and we crossed the ghats relatively quickly.

Took Kalpetta byepass just to see how the road condition is now, re surfacing work was in progress, so hope by now its all done.

Reached Batherry Mathai bakery, our usual pit stop by 4.57 PM, at 2 hour 40 mins, the timing is almost same as it would have been on a weekday (today being a Sunday). The advantage of less traffic of weekend till Ghats being negated by the comparatively higher weekend traffic in Wayanad.

After a 10 mins stop, started from Mathai at 5.08 PM, reached Mysore ring road IOC at 7.06 PM. Though I could have continued to Bangalore with the available fuel, I didn't want to take a chance since it may be a hit or miss situation if there was traffic on NICE road. I had missed to tank up before the trip start from Bangalore, hence the situation.

So tanked up there and started at 7.20 PM, reached home at 9.48 PM.

Overall, past the Mysore road getting done, its possible to reach Calicut in 6 hours consistently with an early morning start and the return drives are usually in ~ 7.5 hours consistently with an afternoon start from Calicut.

Malaparamb underpass work in progress. This has as of now got over, with the overpass section / Wayanad road path being planned for opening in a day or two.

The NH66 - section, the dirt track seen in this pic is still work in progress, with news doing rounds that it may be open by end of March.

Another interesting observation was, all across the forest section came across these multi axle tipper trucks carrying stone / sand from KA side towards KL. Seems like a workaround for construction industry due to the mining restrictions in KL post the landslides.

The count of trucks were really high, I would have counted atlesat 50 trucks in the morning while going towards Calicut. On the return too, noticed many trucks, the pic below was taken on way back.