The best driving roads: Coimbatore to Kanyakumari via Karur
India is infamous for its shabby roads, but at the same time there are many fantastic driving roads spread through the length and width of our beautiful country. OVERDRIVE has been fortunate enough to experience quite a few of these roads, and we want to share the joy with a weekly feature of a fantastic road that you should aspire to experience someday.
Recently, I was part of a very large convoy of close to 25 cars, travelling from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Considering the size of the convoy, we had to take the route with the least traffic even if it wasn't the shortest one. The last leg of the journey was a dash from Coimbatore to Kanyakumari, and we were aiming to catch the sunset at the land's end.
Now the shortest route, which measured around 440km, was via a town called Dharapuram. The route goes through villages and is a bit narrower than the route we chose. Our route, which took us through a town called Karur, is 60km longer and has a marginally broader single carriageway but also a fair amount of truck traffic. The road is in good shape, and once you hit Karur, it's smooth sailing down a dual carriageway for the remaining 375-odd kilometres.
The drive is quite scenic, especially as the Western Ghats come into sight as you go further south. There isn't much traffic either, and instead of taking the Dindigul bypass, you could make a quick detour into the town and grab a bite of its famous Thalappakatti biriyani. As you approach Karungkulam town, which is roughly 15km from Kanyakumari, you'll be greeted by hundreds of windmills on both sides of the road, with a beautiful view of the Western Ghats on the right.
Once you're in Kanyakumari, the road narrows down and you're greeted by local and tourist traffic. Pretty soon, you'll drive down to a T-junction where a board reads, "road ends" with the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean lying ahead of it.
To know more about the best roads to drive on in India, click here.
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