Sunday, January 4, 2009

Travelogue : Bangalore to Mangalore to Bangalore

This new year's (2009), we did a road trip to Mangalore. I thought of sharing the details as it may help others touring the same destination.


I have earlier done road trips to :

  • Bangalore -> Shravan Belagola-> Halibed -> Belur -> Chikamaglur -> Kemangundi
  • Bangalore -> Ooty -> Wellington
  • Bangalore -> Wayanad
Perhaps some day I will write about them too.

We were three families (6 adults + 3 kids). We used two cars (Accent VIVA + Maruti Esteem) for the road trip. I clocked a total of 873 km for the entire trip (both ways + local sightseeing) on my VIVA.

Bangalore to Mangalore :

We started from Bangalore on 31/12/2008 early morning at 4:30 am to avoid the city traffic.

Driving Directions :

The route we followed was : Outer Ring Road (starting at Sarjapur ORR junction) -> right turn at dead end towards Tumkur (NH-4) -> left turn onto NH-48 (at Neelamangala-Tumkur Junction) -> Channarayapatna -> Hassan (used by-pass to avoid city traffic) ->Sakleshpur -> Shiradi Ghats -> Mangalore.

The Shiradi Ghats section is horrible and a MUST avoid unless you have a high ground clearance SUV. The road is a mess with very deep potholes. I skipped a lot of heart beats every time my car's underchasis got hit. Also, there is a very heavy truck traffic on the ghats and often there is a jam. We ourselves were stuck close to an hour in the jam as a truck and a bus had broken down in opposite directions blocking the road. We also had to make our way throught two toppled trucks along the ghat section. All the trees here are laden with dust and so you can't even enjoy the scenery.

We stayed at the Summer Sands Resort, Ullal Beach at Mangalore. To reach there, take a left turn at Mahaveer Circle (Mangalore) and continue straight till you hit a junction which has a signboard for Ullal Beach. Turn right (as the sign board says) and continue straight till you hit another junction with a signboard for Summer Sands resort. Turn left (as the signboard says) and continue for less than 1 km. You will hit Summer Sands resort on your right.

http://www.summer-sands.com/
http://picasaweb.google.com/summersands

My trip meter clocked 415 km from my home(ORR) to the resort.

We made 4 stops on the way : tea stop at a road-side dhaba (30 min), breakfast at Hotel Prithvi (45 min), tea stop after Shiradi Ghats (30 min), lunch stop at Taj Restaurant, Mangalore (1 hour). The food at Taj Restaurant (btw, it has no connection to "The Taj" chain of hotels) was surprisingly very good. We reached the resort at around 5:30 pm.

At Mangalore :

Day 1 (31/12/2008) :

The resort opens up to a lovely beach (part of Ullal beach). All our tiredness was gone as soon as we saw the beautiful waters and a lovely sun set. We spent a few hours there. Next, the resort had organized a new year's party along with a live band, dinner and a fire works show. We enjoyed the same late into the night and ushered in the new year !

Day 2 (01/01/2009) :



We relaxed the whole day at the beach and enjoyed the cuisine offered by the resort.






Day 3 (02/01/2009) :

We decided to check out of the resort and go for local sight seeing. We first visited the Pilikula Wildlife Park (bear/deer/sambhar/snakes/leopard/lazy lions sleeping off/kites/langoor/peafowl/crocs/elepant).


http://www.mangalore.com/documents/pilikula.html

If you have already visited the Banerghatta National Park, the Pilikula park will be just an eye-wash. Next, we had lunch at the Lake View Restaurant (the only restaurant in the vicinity, so pack your lunches if you wish for more exotic food). Lunch was decent with veg briyani/chicken briyani/veg fried rice/pomphret (they had very limited menu). We spent rest of the day at the the Pilikula Lake. The motorboat ride (at Rs. 1oo/-) is a must do. There is also a water park there but we skipped it.

In the evening, we went into the city hunting for a hotel. We finally ended up at the Nalapad Residency.

http://www.nivalink.com/nalapadmangalore/index.html

We stayed at their "Lavish A/C" room. It is hardly worth the tariff. Dirty towels, bad taps, bad toilet flushes. The complementary breakfast also lacks variety. I would definately skip this hotel next time I am in Mangalore.

Day 4 (03/01/2009) :

The ladies wanted to do some local shopping (handicrafts/local speciality). However, to our dismay, all we could find was some sarees shops selling silk/cotton sarees.

Next, we wanted to cover some temples but most of them close by 12:00 noon/1 pm and open up at 4:00 pm/5:00 pm. So, we decided to skip the same.

Instead, we went to the famous Ideal Ice-cream parlour and that was definately one of the high points of our trip। The ice-creams were just amazing, and the "GADBAD" is a must-have :)


Towards the evening, we hit the Someshwar Beach. The Someshwar Temple is also situated there. This beach had rocks jutting out to the ocean as compared to the Ullal beach which was all sea and sand. One can easily spend hours at this beach too.






Mangalore to Bangalore :

By night time, we decided that we would like to avoid the Shiradi Ghats section on our return trip. So, we started asking around/net hunting for alternate routes. We found the following alternatives :

  1. Mangalore -> Charmadi Ghats -> Mudigere -> Belur -> Hassan -> Bangalore
  2. Mangalore -> Madikere -> Mysore -> Bangalore

We came to hear that route (2) had pretty bad ghat section and so took route (1) and thank God for the same. The route is amazingly scenic and the road seems to have been repaired recently. Also, there is hardly any traffic on this road. Do make sure that you can negotiate the hair pin bends if you are planning to drive.

Here is a more detailed version of this route : (Driving Directions ) :

Mahavir Circle (Mangalore) -> B.C. Road -> Beltangadi (NH 13) -> Ujire -> Charmadi Ghats -> Mudigere (turn right) (SH 58) -> Belur -> Hassan -> NH 48 to Bangalore -> Turn right onto NH-4 at Neelamangala -Tumkur Junction -> straight into Bangalore City.

Day 5 (04/01/2009) :

We started from Mangalore at 9:05 am. We made a quick stop for fuelling (15 minutes) and then stopped at Beltangadi for breakfast (45 min). The Charmadi Ghats section was a beauty with nice roads (heaven as compared to the Shiradi Ghats), dense greenery and water trickling down the mountains in a couple of places. By 1:30 pm, we had crossed the Ghats section (we also made a 15 min stop on the way to click some pics). Next, we stopped at Hassan for lunch at 2:45 pm and started from there at 4:05 pm. From there on, you can easily average 100 km/hr. Density of traffic increases as you get nearer to Bangalore. I hit the Neelamangala-Tumkur Junction at 6:45 pm. We stopped there for a tea break (30 min) and then joined the Bangalore City traffic. We were home by 9:00 pm.

On this route, my trip meter showed 400 km (Mangalore to Bangalore).

I strongly recommend using this route for visits to Mangalore. Infact, one can even plan a stop at Chikamaglur which is just 30 km from Mudigere.

Overall, a trip well done !

14 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hi Himanshu, your blog proved to be a great source of reliable information on routes and road conditions. I traveled to Mangalore last week through the Charmudi ghats and the drive was great. Thanks for the detailed description of the routes on your blog.
    Please feel free to visit my blog site at http://drcpchinmaya.blogspot.com

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  3. nice trip log . though been 2 mangalore many time in buss . still its a dream 4 me 2 go on a bike trip

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  4. Nice... always wanted to go by bike...

    anyway check out my travelogue i u find time :-)

    http://prabhukarthik03.wordpress.com/

    Cheers \m/

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  9. Hii...Nice One. I liked it very much and felt beneficial for all..I am panning to visit br hills resort and also bandipur resorts this weekend with my family.because their facilites,sevices offered at low cost,Wildlife Safari really really awesome..

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  10. Hi..nice blog and it's great of you to share your travel experience about Mangalore tourism. I'll soon be planning a trip to this port city of Karnataka.

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