5 days in all. Actually 4.5 days. Covered, 1073km. Coimbatore - Ooty - Mysore - Bangalore - Coimbatore. Me the driver and few other co-passengers. Learnt quite a few things.
1. My car is actually very good! Not once did I face a single minor problem!
2. The road from Ooty to Gudalur is a great piece of driving stretch. Not the flat out kind, but the well laid mountain road kind.
3. The road from the Karnataka Border to Mysore is crap. Its even quite bewildering because it has several speed bumps continuously. there were 7 at one stretch which had the Fiat Linea in front of us prancing like a wild horse!
4. The 4 lane highway from Mysore to Bangalore is great. Ignoring the speed bumps in the first 10-20km stretch. Its got several Cafe Coffee Day's, a Barista and even a 24x7 Mcdonalds! :D Makes for a great weekend driving trip!
5. Bangalore is truly becoming an international city. the infrastructural development that has happened and is happening is amazing. The roads leading to the airport are well paved and well light at night. No Autorickshaws! :D (rubbing hands in gleee) or motorcycle traffic. Hence all traffic is doing 60kmph plus. Thus giving faint reminders of driving to the airport in Singapore. Reach the airport and you see an amazing glass facade, Metallic Green Renault Logans as taxis or Big red Volvos as city shuttles. Sexy man! is all I can think!
6. The drive back to Coimbatore from Bangalore was even more fun! 300km of nearly arrow straight or nice curved, 4 lane highways! Kept an avg speed of 100kph! Infact they seem to be testing out interactive, real time digital displays over the highways as well! I've seen those being used to give traffic updates to drivers abroad! It will be amazing if such a system became active here too! Currently they just display warning messages about how you should drive safely! :P
I took 6 hours to reach Coimbatore from bangalore, inspite of the fast highway. Reason behind this being, getting out of Bangalore took me quite some time and the last 60 kilometres before you reach the 6 lane road at Nilambur near Coimbatore is still a 2 lane road. I guess the Bangalore traffic issue might be solved with the current flyovers under construction, but I don't see any respite from the 2 lane highway because there doesnt seem to be any construction activity happening as yet! TN govt! please, construct the road soon! :(
7 comments:
I've read about Curitiba, in Brazil, and it has supposedly got the best traffic management system in the world. Really want to visit it someday.
How come all you wrote about the trip was driving, traffic, roads, and stuff? What about your actual experiences? Dont tell me you spent these 4.5 days jus driving, Aswin! What about the places you visited and saw? I hope there is a Part 2! And do complete your other story, too... waiting eagerly ;-)
Highway reminds me.. I loved NH17 to Goa and other one being a new highway from pune to kolhapur..the trip was amazing because of the cheesy road.though tolls are too much to be ignore.
You are one in the crowds who huff on Bangalore traffic..I am already amongst the scared..
Interesting but do tell us about what you did on the trip??Share some interesting anecdotes too.
its always fun to drive.. though my dad never let me drive in high-ways, i always enjoyed the trips to agra n mathura from delhi... ur trip reminded me of mine :)
share in sum more happenings!!
you said it buddy..about the roads..
coimbatore - bangalore road is awesome!!
you said it buddy..about the roads..
coimbatore - bangalore road is awesome!!
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