Sivanasamudram Waterfall Panoramic view

How do we get there?

Very simple actually. Somehow get to Kanakpura road from Bangalore. If you are residing in South Bangalore, half the job is done. Getting to Kanakpura road from south Bangalore is a breeze. But if you are from North Bangalore or from satellite towns like Yelahanka, things are a little bit more tricky. On a weekday I would recommend the Outer Ring Road for a problem and misdirection free ride till Kanakpura road. This would be a long ride, so start early. You can also take the shorter route through the city but that will be plagued by extensive one-ways and too many traffic signals.

Once on Kanakpura road

Once you are on Kanakpura road, just head out. The road is also known as NH 209 and can take you all the way to Coimbatore. But then we are not going all the way there. The road has been recently redone from its earlier painful self. It’s a beautiful 2 lane road sans a lane divider and very minimal traffic. It also has excellent twists and turns, and a good surface to test your driving skills if you want to.

Kanakpura Road, the good sections. Some sections are still getting done and may be painful.

Lone standing rock / hill on Kanakpura Road, looks like a good place to try some rock climbing.

Once officially outside Bangalore, the road takes you through mini forests, orchards, grape farms, various other farms, flower fields, picturesque hill tops and what not. Overall, a beautiful drive. The distance to Sivanasamudram is about 120 Km. You will pass through Harohalli and reach Kanakpura Town, where some tricky one way through the town bus stop has to be navigated through. The details are there in the adjoining map (thanks to Google).

Right after the small detour, you will be faced with a Y junction with a dubious tourism board pointing nowhere in particular (they might have changed that). Keep to the right at the Y junction and continue on NH209.

Navigating through Kanakpura

Pass through small place called Halagur and reach Malavalli. On reaching Malavalli, the NH209 bends sharp to right at 90° and continues on. Do not turn left or you will head towards Mysore. After this things get a little bit more extensive and detailed. A few kilometers down (about 5km) after the turn you will see a board on your left pointing to the waterfalls. Get into the road and continue straight till you reach a toll gate kind of place where someone may ask you for money. Why I say ‘may’ is because I have been there a few times and only sometimes they have asked for some fees. Once inside, you would have reached the power station.

Asia’s second hydro-electric power station after shimshapura, is located at the waterfall and is still functional. This station was commissioned by theDiwan of Mysore, Sir K. Seshadri Iyer. The electricity produced here was initially used in the Kolar Gold Fields. Thus, Kolar Gold Fields became the first town in Asia to get hydro electricity.

- Wikipedia

If you are interested in the power station, you can dig up more information by just following the various links in the quote. But, if you are not, then drive straight till the power station, turn right (you may need to ask for this direction, else look for signage) pointing to Gaganachukki and Barahchukki, thats the name of the two falls.

Rest is easy, you will reach the place. A simpler method is to follow the mad rush of tourist taxis headed in the same direction.

Getting to the viewing gallery through the power station. Route is approximation from satellite imagery.

The place is a dead end. Your car, bike, SUV wont go any further and sit in the parking lot (open space under nature’s umbrella). You will have to take the staircase from here on to get to the viewing gallery. On a good day, right after the rains, you can feel the water spray till here. Note that the viewing gallery is almost half a kilometer away from the actual waterfall if not more. The view is worth the drive in almost any weather.

This place earlier used to have small vendors selling inane stuff and fool items. In recent years they have been removed in favor of a Karnataka Tourism run restaurant, managed by Bengalis and serving North Indian Food. Needless to say, the results are not that good. I would suggest carrying your own food.

If you do carry your own food, please do not dump the plastic bags there itself, as 90% of the educated population do. Do the place a favor, preserve it by carrying all that junk back.

Once you are done with this place, there is more. When you are at the viewing gallery, you will realize that there is a way to get even closer to the foot of the waterfall by getting to the other side of the river. Get back out on NH209 and continue further out. You will cross a bridge eventually and then come to a T junction, turn left and continue straight on. If lost, ask for the Durgah. Yep, it’s a religious place and this however has more options in terms of junk food than the other side. Get there, there is ample amount of place to park the vehicle. Get on your feet and explore the waterfall up close. From the word go, you will be stunned by the deafening road of water gushing down hundreds of feet so close.

While returning, chances are you will be tired, not from the drive, but from climbing up and down so many stairs which you probably are not used to. It will also probably be dark by the time you start back. The best way to handle Kanakpura road in the night is by not getting on it.

Getting to the other side

The Picnic Spot

Come to the junction on NH209 where you took a hard left while going, this time don’t turn and continue straight through Malavalli town. Maintain absolutely straight direction and soon you will reach Bangalore – Mysore Expressway touching it a little before Mandya Town. Turn right and head towards Bangalore. If you want a coffee break, there is one right there on your left on the expressway right after you get on it.

Enjoy and drive safe. More info on Wikipedia

The plan was simple. Get from Kolkata to Kharagpur (spend somehow less time at Kolaghat), hit the GQ to Balasore, continue till Puri and do a night hault. As we know, plans are plans and reality is something totally different.

3 AM Start

Wanted to have a similar pre dawn start, but saying bye bye to everyone and packing the extra luggage that we accumulated in Raurkela and Kolkata took a while. We got out of the house at 4AM. An hour late and yet not too shabby. 5.10 AM we reached Kolaghat, this time I was hell bent upon avoiding and smarting the traffic there. Turns out the approach to Kolaghat Bridge from Kolkata side has very little shoulder space, and we were stuck. The time it took for us to reach the next gap in the median was a staggering 4 hours. The moment I got that, was on the opposite lane like a regular cabbie and crossed the next 4 Kms in a giffy. Yes, we were stuck behind 4 Kms and 3 Lanes of Truck traffic.

Looks like I am praying for the Jam to clear. (actually killing a mosquito)

The Kolaghat Bridge - Or the lack of it

Crossed Kolaghat.

The roads were a bliss till we were about to cross into Orissa. A local boy had assaulted a local girl and the local population had blocked the roads and blaming the truckers and cars. huh!!. To me it seemed like a publicity stunt being pulled off by the local youth to get on TV. No sooner the TV channels left after the reporting, the blockade was off and we were on as well.

Orissa

We were stopped at the Orissa border and a man came and demanded for the DL. The illiterate government employee had a look at the Karnataka License and said, “Don’t give the Credit Card, give DL”.. At this I said “It is the DL, if you please, read.”

It seemed every vehicle passing through Orissa had to pay a 6 month temporary road tax. They said they were collecting it because other states like AP, TN and Jharkhand were doing that too. I quietly paid the 800 Bucks and moved on. I hope governments in these states become more organized about such things instead of treating everyone line “Criminals”.

Stop at Cuttack

After the two hold ups we decided we would rather spend the evening and night in Cuttack than venture into Puri.

Places to stay in Cuttack

http://wikitravel.org/en/Cuttack

We got off to a great start in the morning and headed straight to Puri. The next 20 Kms from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar was shrouded in heavy fog. Thanks to great roads, good fog lamps, we did nit have to step down from 80 – 90 Kmph.

The fog thanks to Mahanadi. Was enjoyable drive though.

Puri came up early even after 3 long good stops to enjoy the Green Orissa Countryside.

Green green Orissa

Puri beach

After spending quite a few hours in Puri we headed to Konarak. The road from Puri to Konarak is easily one of the best I have been on. Its a simple highway with perfect banking, perfect surface and it has the sea on one side.

Puri - Konarak highway. Without dispute the best place I have ever parked the car in

Konarak - Puri road. And the sea right next to it.

We left Konarak at about 6 PM and took the state highway till Khurda to get onto the GQ. Chilka was our next stop. The 5 hours that we lost at Kolaghat and 1 more at the blockade bundled our plans to get till Vizag. We stopped at the ‘now usual’ Pantha Nivas and prepared for Vijaywada the next day.

Vizag

No one asked for road tax when we entered AP. Just that I think AP should really ask for taxes as they have the best roads. Vizag came up fast. Lack of signage in the city costed us enormous amount of time. We were disappointed by the quality of service available at beach side food joints as they had easy access to hungry tourists who would almost always eat anything.

Target. Vishakhapattanam. Incidentally, this was the road where we had the puncture while going to Chilka 2 weeks back

Roamed around a little, got out of there soon after and headed to Vijaywada. But we did lose 4 precious hours trying to find things in Vizag. At this point we were seriously considering Rajahmudri as a night halt instead of Vijaywada. On reaching Rajahmundri we decided otherwise, the city seemed shady and avoidable even in the evening and we continued straight till Vijaywada.

Oversized beauties on the road

To Chennai

Roads in AP are the best, (I have not been to Rajasthan lately but heard they are good as well.)

Started at 2PM. Chennai came up easy at about 10PM, navigating out of Chennai was still a pain given the colossal lack of signage. With generous stops after every 100 Kms (literally) we were home in no time. Although, the Krishnagiri – Chennai highway does seem a bit irritating in the night, the overuse of ‘Cat Eyes’ just does not allow you to see anything else on the road, not even the oncoming traffic.

Overall

A great trip. Now that the east coast is done, really looking forward to hitting the west coast.

After a break though.

Photographs: Shubhodeep Das, Aparajita Ghosh

The thing I mentioned about going the extra 120 Km via Sambalpur, well be ditched that idea and decided we can take on these bad roads with the Fusion definitely in broad daylight if we could have managed well in the night while coming. We were absolutely right, even though the roads were extra bad, the car never really complained as such and managed gracefully. I do have photos of this section in the morning.

Size does matter. If you have a steel plant nearby, chances are you will face traffic like this. Navigating around this chap on a bad road with gradient on a foggy morning took all the skills that I had acquired over the last few years.

Barkot

This is the place where one gets to take NH6 which goes all the way from here till Kolkata via Keondjhar and Simlipal National Park. I had heard lots of stories about this road and its status or the lack of it. The fact that this is the main road connecting Mumbai to Kolkata confirms that there will be unusually high truck traffic. Assumption was not wrong, the traffic was high, but very organized and I must say that the truckers do know their road manners. The percentage of private vehicles and cabs in this section was about 0.1, which was good as there were very few surprises.

An industrial sunrise. The panorama, even though high res, cannot really describe it. The bad roads were worth it.

Keondjhar

This bit of Orissa came totally as a surprise to me. I had lived in Kharagpur as a kid and never knew that a few 100 Kms and there was this beautiful ghat and National Park. The road starts winding about 70 Kms into the journey after Barkot and you realize that you are climbing, and that too rapidly on a very busy ghat section. This was the Simplipal National Park and the road quality, as expected, started deteriorating rapidly. Until we came up to sections that were almost un-motorable in a Fusion. I think I should mention here that we did not see any other vehicles other than Sumo, Scorpio, Bolero and Max, one or two locals in Altos do brave the roads, but then again, they are not going the whole distance.

Kid selling Chai at a pit stop

There are roads, then there are bar roads, but this was insane

The scenery was beautiful, the winding roads climbing up and down were scenic. The truckers are really helpful in this section and they do signal you when to pass. Else you are just stuck in second gear behind a gigantic slow moving vehicle. Overtaking opportunities are minimal as NH6 does not have a lane divider or a median, its just got a while marking and rest is up to the skill and the vehicle.

Leaving Orissa

We were hoping for better roads ahead and at this point the road entered Jharkhand.

Our perception of “Bad Road” got redefined once again. People who complain about “Shiradi Ghats”, listen very carefully. This was a complete section of NH6 which had potholes the size of an Alto. This was by far the worst road we were on. Not to mention even the trucks with their gigantic wheel dia had difficulties navigating this. There was a way though. Got on to the muddy shoulder and pressed the pedal, the 15” wheels on the Fusion were meant for this business and we crossed the whole section of about 20 + Kms in less than 2 hours. (achievement, specially as it includes two octroi check posts.)

Bengal

Once in Bengal, we faced our first hurdle right outside Kharagpur. A bridge was being repaired and there was a 2 Km long truck line. I did not wait, since this was a area I have grown up in, I just followed the local ambi and got onto the dirt road running about 100 meters away from the highway. The Zen and WagonR behind us stayed clear, and with god reason too. Soon after I found the ambi stuck, thankfully they moved out of the way and we joined the line of trucks right about at the beginning of the line. At this point I just parked the vehicle and we took a Tea – Cake break.

Greenery greets the eye

The whole thing cleared in 1/2 hours and we were on the GQ roads once again from Kharagpur till Kolkata. We stopped for a quick evening bite, and met up with many injured getting back home from the Coromandal Express crash the earlier evening.

Kolaghat

Now we were 70 Kms away from Kolkata and we reached this “Never Been Repaired” bridge. Its 4 lanes of traffic on each side, its the only entry into Kolkata from South, and this bridge allows only one way traffic for 1 hour. (The new one being constructed right next to it was stuck in litigations) We promptly got stuck in the middle of the mess. Saw some of the locals taking the opposite lane and getting ahead of the trucks, it seems they let cars and smaller vehicles pass easily. But the information was too late as we had to wait till we got onto the next gap in the median. We did not bother, Kid and wife were sleeping in the back, did not want to offroad here and there and wake them up. I took up this opportunity to mingle with the truckers and see what they think of the roads.

The lineup of trucks, 4 Kms long.

From 8 PM till 2 AM we were at this spot.

The traffic was allowed to go at 2 AM and we crossed the next 70 odd kms in 50 minutes and were at home by 3 AM. Approach to Kolkata after the bridge was a breeze. 7 Km after the tollgate on NH6 GQ we got the exit for 2nd Hoogly Bridge Via Kona Expressway. I must say here that Kolkata is way ahead of Bangalore and Chennai in terms of Signage and Road Layout.

Photographs: Shubhodeep Das, Aparajita Ghosh

Car got fitted with tinted windows. Metro Ford did an OK job, but it could have been better.

Actually consulted a vehicle designer on the headlamps and he suggested NOT to upgrade to 100/90 as that would screw up the geometry. The light would be bright but will light up all the wrong places. Also, it will heat up the lamp more and bend the reflector in the long run. Changing to newer bulbs of the OEM variety was a better option as these bulbs loose about 15% brightness every year.

Got a Kenwood KDC MP6539U fitted in the car. Its a single DIN headunit made to handle iPod and data CDs. The audio quality is excellent once set up and fine tuned. Operating the iPod through the in-dash click wheel interface is a bliss. A subwoofer would help boost the audio quality even further.

• Wheel alignment and tyre check was done.
• Car cleaning. Every corner of the car was cleaned to make it feel better. It’s good to start new after a bath.
• All fluids in the vehicle were topped up.
• About 30 pages of Maps were printed with city details to avoid any delays.

Upgraded to Kenwood 'made-for-iPod' head unit so that I dont hear Phantom's pets hissing in the background. The Belkin was good, but it did take away a lot from the music experience.

The route map. Just to put the distances in perspective, here is a route map of the whole trip. The green dots are stops for onward and return trip, the only yellow dot is a specific stop for return trip.

First stop was Vijaywada (850 Km), Second one at Chilka (700 Km) and the third Raurkela (450km). Then Raurkela to Kolkata (530 km). Kolkata to Cuttack (405 km). Cuttack to Puri to Konarak to Chilka (240 km). Chilka to Vijaywada (700km) and Vijaywada to Bangalore (850Km)

The Start

The idea was to start a little early and cover as much ground during the time the kid is sleeping. The plan was to cover all known roads very early in the morning (bordering on Night). We got off to a good start at about 1.40 AM from home hoping to hit the clear roads to Krishnagiri a little before daybreak. The results were even better, in 45 minutes we were out of Bangalore, past electronic city and on a road with 10% traffic. We touched Krishnagiri turn-off under the fly-over to Chennai at around 3.30 AM, the roads after this were beautiful, and occasional toll gates were welcome. Driving in the breaking dawn was great and before we knew it, it was 6.30 AM and we were in Sri Perumbudur, looking for directions to get to NH5 in the least complicated manner.

Road through krishnagiri

In Chennai

After entering Chennai, it became a little frustrating to navigate as most roads do not have any signage to guide you to major roads. This continued till about 7.30 AM, at this point I went up to the only Police Patrol that I found to ask him for directions. They were extremely helpful, they clearly said that there is no legible signage that I can follow to reach NH5 and instead offered us a better solution. They escorted us out of the city so that we do not loose any more time.

Sunrise on the road to Chennai

NH5

Right after we found NH5, we stopped for breakfast. Alu-Puri being the choice of the hour. Food was good. Little Luke has his dose of Cerelac, Lactogen and Boiled Apples. We were off. The roads after Chennai keep improving. The plan was to reach either Vijaywada or Vizag by 4PM with healthy amounts of breaks. The 2.5 hours lost navigating Chennai put Vizag out of contention. Target was Vijaywada by 4PM.

Golden Quadrilateral in AP

This section of NH5 is beautiful for driving. Yet it’s equally boring. The roads are devoid of any bends of scenery which tends to make the drive very very boring. We soldiered on bravely, the temperatures were intolerable and the AC and Sun Shades (fitted 2 days before the trip) came in handy.

Average speeds on these roads were high, nearly hundred, as in the next 8 hours we did cover 700 Km with breaks (big long lots of breaks). When we did hit the road, it was with a vengeance and speeds were above 110 Kmph for most times. Peak speeds touched on this stretch was 140 Kmph (did not want to venture any further up with a kid in the car, and long way to go)

The Roads

The roads from Bangalore till Chennai were in one word – Excellent. The roads after Chennai were even better. The highway was 4 lane all the way with clear markings for Bus Bays, Truck Bays, Distances, Turn Offs etc. The road surface was flat, the Banking calculated to 120 kmph and you can actually take them at a little higher speed as well. For early mornings or late nights, they had Cat Eyes placed at strategic points to aid drivers and driving was a bliss.

The youngling seat

We reached Vijaywada a little before 4 PM and went about looking for a place to stay and eat. I had a few ideas from before, thanks to my Movie Industry friends from Andhra. Finding a place to rest took about 30 minutes of our time, and we were all bathed, fed and crashed out by 7 PM.

Places to stay in Vijaywada

Hotel Manorama (moderately good)

Address: 27-38-61, M.G. Road, Vijayawada 520002, India

Hotel Fortune Murali Park (good)

Address: 40-1-28, M.G. Road, Labbipet, Vijayawada 520010.

Onward to Vizag and Bhubaneswar

Got up at my usual driving routine time of 2 AM, got everyone ready to leave by 3AM and was out of Vijaywada clearing all bills by 4 AM. The roads improved. The surface and the quality remained the same but the scenery around was breathtaking, specially early in the morning. This is where we faced a lot of thin fog as well, limiting vision to about 200 meters ahead on a clear road. Speeds dropped to 80 Kmph and I was thanking my stars that I did not upgrade the headlamps to 100/90 Phillips Rally. Well, the 100/90 does illuminate more on a clear night or day break, but it does illuminate more of the fog as observed by the countless Innovas that were traveling the same route. The fog lamps on the Fusion do a great job with the Low beam set at the lowest level to assist it.

Kolkata in Sight

Fog cleared after 20 minutes of travel and the windscreen literally transformed into a picture frame. We were a few Kms from Vizag by this time. In an hour Vizag came up, crossing the city was a pain as there are no bypasses that connect you through. One has to battle the regular 8 AM traffic to get through the city. Once out of Vizag, we continued straight down maintaining speeds of 110 – 130 throughout for hours on. Took breaks of 15 minutes after every 1.5 hrs.

North Andhra Pradesh

Slowly the traffic sense that I was enjoying and was used to by now was thinning away. There were the occasional tractors on the wrong side of the road which slowly increased to people walking in the middle of the road, buses traveling on the wrong side of the road, bikers having a conference in the middle of the road. In fact the road was being used for everything but for traveling. I quietly tucked myself behind a scorpio letting him do all the hard work and following him from a safe 200 meter distance. Speeds were still 90 – 100 kmph.

A pit stop in North Andhra, also the strangest 'Bread Omelette' ever.

The Blowout

Its surprising how a good road when used badly can turn into a disaster. On a clear stretch after Sompet, the rear right tyre met its match and blew out at 120 kmph. Here’s where a heavy car showed its character and did not budge at all from it’s line. The road turned out to be a dead end. Turned back and took a diversion (which can be only found by telepathy). By not the road was the old, pot hole ridden NH5, the directions were missing or blacked out (language issues) and all hell broke loose.

We were officially in Orissa.

Stopped to repair the puncture. The Jack worked but the standard spanner supplied with the Fusion failed badly. In about 4 tries, all the grip got eaten away. With no options left, drove another 100 meters on the flat and stopped at a tyre guy. The guy managed to get the Alloy off the car and fix the Spare. The next part was to fix the destroyed rear right Goodyear. The problem was, this was the first time this chap was seeing a Tubeless. He did some job on the tyre which I did not trust one bit. Decided to sack out at Chilka and travel only the following day.

Chilka lake was beautiful early morning, food was great as well. Recommended - 'Chilka Dhaba' on NH5

Places to stay in Chilka

Pantha Nivas (OTDC)

Location: Opposite Chilka Dhaba, Barakul, (there is another one at Rambha)

Ford Service

The following morning I got the number of Capital Ford on NH5, located on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar. The Ford call center was very helpful and they were able to provide the correct number in less than 5 minutes. I was in no hurry to leave Chilika as the food was good. We headed out at about 9 AM for Bhubaneswar and next destination was Capital Ford.

On reaching Capital Ford, I was informed that they cannot repair the tyre. They cannot even take the good tyre off the spare and fit it on the alloy. In fact they cannot do anything with the tyre and actually rely for all their tyre work on the roadside chap 100 meters away who neither has a number or a name. I was was amazed.

They did check the vehicle and confirmed that everything was A OK. I did not waste any more time and continued further down to the next reliable tyre guy on NH5. Found one, got the tyre replaced. It was important to have that done as the alloy cannot be fastened in the tyre well. (Surprise!!)

Tyreworks at a local tyre dude in Bhubaneswar after Local Ford gave us a shock!!

Next stop was Raurkela (final destination for our first leg) and we were already late by 8 hrs.

Define Bad Road

The roads thereafter did not help much as none had any signage to indicate what road you were on. Probably a GPS would help, but the shortest route is either un-drivable or under Maoist control. I prefer asking for directions at the next local chai shop in such areas.

The roads became bad. Then worse. I was wondering why the regular crowd of Innovas and Indicas were absent from this particular road. The answer came up about a 100 Kms later with no daylight left and 60 more to go. The road was unthinkable. Imagine a gradient of 30 degrees with no surface and only large boulders to drive on. Imagine this with enough width to fit one truck. The Fusion did not complain and crossed all that was thrown at it with ample grace and attitude.

Extent of damage on some sections of the road. This photo was taken on our return path.

Reached Raurkela about an hour later. It’s surprising that the steel city has only that road connecting it to rest of the civilized world, the other road is taken and under rebel-control. Complacency at it’s best. Note: Even if you take a flight, you either have to travel through bad roads from Bhubaneswar, or Good roads that are under rebel-control from Ranchi.

Ved Vyas near Raurkela

Fords do travel far

On reaching Raurkela I parked in front of the house, only to realize the next day that the Ford parked in front of the next house was from Harpreet Ford, Gurgaon and had travelled an equally long distance to be here.

Onward

We start off for Calcutta on saturday, initially the idea was to take NH6 till Kharagpur, but now I would rather travel 120 Km extra via Sambalpur and take NH5 instead. Lets see!

Photographs: Aparajita Ghosh, Shubhodeep Das