About two months after my last visit to
Kerala, I was itching to go back home and enjoy the typical Kerala monsoons.
The sound of rain that I hear everytime I call up home increased my urge to
visit home. My office gives an off every
third Saturday. I decided to take a day off on Monday and make it a three day
vacation. Since I was returning on a Monday night, I went slowly about booking
my tickets. Made some enquiries around, and found out that Kallada’s
Kodungallur-Bangalore B9R would be the safest bet for reaching Bangalore before
6 AM. Accordingly, booked a ticket on that service, departing on Monday, July
23, 2012 from Kodungallur – and I got seat #D1. The bus was having fairly good
loads by then. My journey from Bangalore to home was by car.
Monday, July 23, 2012. 1730hrs:
I was hurrying from home to reach Kallada’s
agent in Kodungallur in time for my bus. I was a bit shocked on not seeing the
bus at their regular parking place. I reached the agent at around 1740hrs. He
gave me a surprised look when I asked about the Bangalore Volvo. His looks gave
me jitters – would he say that the service is cancelled today? He continued
giving me jitters as he handed back my ticket to me. He said that a pick-up bus
would come since the actual bus was parked at Irinjalakuda that day, and asked
me to wait. Around 1800hrs, he asked me to board a van that was waiting
outside. Two more passengers joined me at around 1810hrs. There were five
bookings from Kodungallur (including mine). Three were now on board – the other
two were to join at Thrissur. The pick-up van driver started from Kodungallur at
1815hrs.
The van went via Mathilakam to
Moonupeedika. Three more passengers got in. Then the bus headed straight to
Irinjalakuda. The van driver drove sedately – no rash driving or honking. While the van approached Irinjalakuda, I
hoped I wouldn’t be getting the red bus – for some reason, I get a red bus every
time I travel by Kallada. The van dropped us at Kallada’s office in Tana,
Irinjalakuda. As luck would have it, it
was the red bus again! KA-01-AB-1361 – the very same bus that I had travelled in
a few months back was waiting there! The
bus was parked some distance away from the office – the drivers were still
relaxing around, while the office people were preparing to load parcels.
 |
| The bus: KA-01-AB-1361. This is an old photo. |
The bus was brought to the office at
1900hrs. Boarding started immediately. They also started loading parcels
quickly. There were some parcels to be unloaded at Thrissur itself, while the
rest were heading to Bangalore. The bus started moving at 1910hrs – total 18
passengers were on board! The driver had to do a bit of circus to get the bus
out of the road. It was a narrow road, exiting onto another narrow road at a
90-deg angle. To add to the misery is the non-stop traffic on the road. After
about 10 minutes of struggling, the bus got moving swiftly on the main road.
There were two drivers and one cleaner – all from Tamil Nadu. Some album songs
sung by Kalabhavan Mani was played on the music system.
We reached outside Sakthan Nagar bus
station in Thrissur at 1950hrs. Some luggage was unloaded quickly, and some
more loaded. Passenger boarding started around 2000hrs – a total of 24
passengers got in here! The bus started moving at 2012hrs – with 42 passengers
on board! Not bad for a working day!! The bus headed straight towards KSRTC bus
station – and picked up one more passenger from Jabbar Travels there. After
KSRTC stand, the bus headed straight to the round. A movie was now played (a
very recent Malayalam flick – I wanted to see this movie since long). The movie
kept me glued to the LCD now. There was no pick-up at Mannuthy, and the bus did
not stop either. The drivers were quick – they picked up pace pretty well and
we were doing fairly decent speeds now. Sometime around 2055hrs, the bus came
to a halt. I thought it was a pick-up, and I remained glued to the TV screen
watching the movie.
The driver got off and walked away – this brought
in some curiosity. I realised that we were stuck in a traffic block on Kuthiran
pass! The bus crawled for some time, and then waited again. This continued
until 2145hrs. I had my dinner in the meantime (I had packed food from home). I
was so engrossed in the movie that I did not realise what was happening
outside. We stopped at a hotel near Alathur for dinner, at 2205hrs. It was more
of a wayside make-shift motel than a proper hotel. I remained outside the bus
for the entire duration of break. A KaSRTC Rajahamsa had parked behind our bus,
and we could not back out. The break continued till the time the Rajahamsa
driver finished his dinner and agreed to move the bus! We started off after the
break at 2238hrs. It was raining heavily at this point – heavy would be an
understatement, though. I am sure the driver was blinded by the rain.
The movie got over a while after the bus
resumed after dinner break. After the movie got over, the cleaner came around
and closed the rear LCD screen, and also closed the curtains. I dozed off soon
after this. I had a fairly good sleep and woke up just when somebody sat on my
adjacent seat – we had reached Palakkad for pickup now (2309hrs). The pick-up break was fairly long, and we got
moving only at 2317hrs. I slept even before the bus crossed Walayar. I vaguely
remember seeing the bus stopped at Walayar due to a traffic block. I remember
the break at a fuel station as well – but was too sleepy to get down or even note
the time! I slept through the journey –
I enjoyed the journey for this very reason.
I woke up around 0520hrs when the cleaner
shouted out Hosur and switched on the lights. I think a couple of passengers got
off at Hosur – not sure. I was half asleep even at this time. There was a mini
traffic block at Attibele Toll gate – this place is a royal pain at any point
of time. The driver ripped after Attibele Toll – he was fast and maintained a
very good pace. A few passengers got off at Electronic City, and the bus then
took the elevated highway. The driver ripped on the flyover as well. I was
dropped off at Silk Board exactly at 0600hrs.
Considering the awful traffic block at
Kuthiran – the driver did a very decent job. The bus took 6:40 hours from
Palakkad to Silk Board – adding the traffic block at Walayar, the timing is
fairly decent. It took close to 12 hours end-to-end, which is not to my liking,
considering the short distance involved. It typically takes me 8-9hrs to cover
the same distance while driving down – and I usually do not driver long
distance at one stretch. The bus took a
lot of stops – and the crew wasted a lot of time everywhere.
About the bus: The bus had clocked about
1.07Lakh kms. It was maintained really well – the bus was in really good shape.
No abnormal noises or dangling/broken parts inside. The engine noise did not
intrude much into the cabin as well. The drivers were decent – no rash driving,
hard braking or excessive use of horn at night. I really liked the way the two
drivers handled the bus. The bus had 47 passengers - on a Monday evening! That certainly implies that they are doing well on the route. The timings need to be tweaked a bit – but otherwise,
the service was very decent. The bus arrived at Bangalore 30 minutes past its
scheduled arrival time – but that might be pardoned considering the traffic
block.
Ratings:
Cleanliness: 5/5
Punctuality: 4/5
Staff Behaviour: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
Will I take this service again: Certainly!
But please tweak the timings a bit. The bus can start an hour later from
Kodungallur, and still make it to Coimbatore at the same timings.
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