MP Trip 2011 ( Gwalior-Orcha-Jhansi-Khajuraho-Bandhavgarh-Jabalpur-Bhopal )

Here are my rough notes that I took during our groups MP trip. Our group was Ruby, Claudy, Junior, Mahesh and me.

Day 0
From Mumbai Dadar: Punjab mail to Gwailor

Day 1
Train was hour late. Reached Gwalior at 5.00pm
Tip: just walk outside and you will find rickshaws charging minimal Rs. 10 per rickshaw to take you to hotel of your choice. At this time of year I would recommend AC room. We got double for Rs. 850 (Hotel Surya). We booked taxi through our Hotel to take us for sound and light show at Gwalior Fort. Taxi charged Rs. 500 ( you might get cheaper deal if you search outside ) other option is to take rickshaw that charges around Rs. 50 to the base of the fort and then you can hire taxi that charge Rs. 200. We had nice dinner at Restaurant Volga. Note that food in general is spicy at this place so be careful before ordering any spicy dish.

Day 2
Inspite of planning to leave early we managed to leave hotel at around 7.00 am. We hired previous day taxi driver to take us around few places in Gwalior. Mainly Sun temple, Gwalior Fort, Sas bahu temple, Teli temple and finally musesum at the palace. In between this we managed to have good breakfast at India coffee house. End of the day driver dropped us at bus stop for our travel to Orcha. There are no direct buses to orcha, so we took bus to Jhansi and then hired auto-rickshaw to take us to Orcha. Rickshaw charged us Rs.150. Our trip to Orcha was very interesting. It was suppose to be super hot, but we experienced dust storm which was followed by rain. I loved getting drenched in rain.
Due to rains there was no current in Orcha but in this darkness we managed to find cheaper and clean accommodation. It for Rs. 450 per room, Hotel Heritage. We reached Orcha around 6.00 pm. We went out for dinner and it was disappointing. I would recommend stick to basic Indian food. Thali is a good option.

Day 3
After speaking to locals and with some research we found which are the important places that we should visit. Main Palace, Jhahangir’s Palace, Ramaraja Temple, another temple next to it ( you can skip that ) and walked to Chatris, which was ok. We finshed all this bit early, so again took rick to Jhansi ( Rs. 120 ) and then we got into bus for Khajuroa. I would stop now since right now I am the bus and can’t see future 🙂
We reached Khajuroa at around 6.30pm. After having tea at the bus stop we hired rickshaw to show us hotel options. We agreed on fare of Rs. 20. We saw few hotels and then finally settled for Hotel Surya. Since we were tired after long journey we wanted bit of luxury and decided to take AC room. Since it is off season we got a good deal. Rs.2200 with extra bedding. We had a decent meal at Hotel Raja Cafe.

Day 4
Again we had a late start. We had already hired local guide for Rs. 350 and same rickshaw person for another Rs. 350 to take us around Khajuraho. Hiring guide helped a lot and he explained very well and showed us lot of Sculptures which we would have not noticed. In between we had breakfast at Madras cafe ( it was ok ) We finished all temples by 2.00pm and then had lunch at Agarwal Restaurant which was next to our hotel. Our first veggie meal which IMO was best meal of the trip. After resting for a while in our cool hotel rooms, we went to see light and sound show at Western temples. Show starts at 7.30pm. IMO it was very good or atleast best sound and light show on this trip. We then had dinner at continental place opposite our hotel. ( Food was ordinary ). After food we checked out of hotel and left for Khajuroa railway station. Our next destination was Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve ( Tala gate ). This was again long journey, first train to Mahoba, then Mahaba to Katni another train and then Katni to Umaria and then to Tala gate.

Day 5
Khajuroa to Mahoba train journey was just 1 hour, although train time table showed it as 2 hours. Mahoba station was disaster. Total chaos, very dirty but we managed to find place to seat. Adding to misery our connecting train to Katni was further delayed by an hour or so. There were no announcement etc. but somehow we managed to figure out correct platform to board the train. Train came at around 3.00 am. Thank god we had booked AC compartment. We reached Katni at around 10.00 am. We saw our connecting train to Umaria on another platform. So we had to literally run and catch it. We reached Umaria in the afternoon, since we were hungry we decided to eat. Rickshaw charged us Rs. 50 for main market. We had very good veggie lunch in the market. Then we hired rickshaw to take us to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve ( Tala ). We were charged Rs. 400. Road is very bad at last 11 km, so I would recommend hiring vehicle which can be 600/ 800 (AC).
We had already arranged our stay at forest rest house. Since there were no safari’s on this day we just relaxed in our room. We had decent dinner at rest house.

Day 6
We got up at 4.15am since we had to leave for morning safari at 5.30am. Safari was good. We saw lot of wildlife except Tiger 🙁 We decide to go out for lunch and when to “Al …. something which was decent.
After safari we rested a bit and then went for another safari in the afternoon. Based on our guides recommendation we went to Gate 2 where he thought tiger spotting would be easier. But we didn’t see any tiger nor much wildlife. Due to some confusion we ended up having late dinner. Overall kind of disappointing end to the day.

Day 7
Since we had not spotted tiger, we decided to go very early for our last Safari. We were again disappointed but I was happy with other animals/birds that we spotted. After safari we had to rush for Umaria station, from where we took train for Jabalpur. We hired vehicle ( Rs. 800) for Umaria station. We reached early and again train was 30 min late. Finally our train arrived and as usual our seats were taken by some other passengers. We had to literally fight with them to claim our seats which we had reserved 3 months in advanced. We reached jabalpur at around 3.00pm. We had already booked 11.00pm train to Bhopal. So we decided to check in to a cheap hotel to dump our bags. After that we hired vehicle (Rs. 1000) to take us to Bhedaghat. We took boat ride (Rs. 600 for entire boat). It was interesting and I would recommend it. Then we went to Duadar Waterfalls. Finally we had great dinner at Hotel Clock Towel, chinese restaurant ( highly recommend this restaurant ). Then rented vehicle dropped us to railway station. Train came early at the station and left on time.

Day 8
We reached Bhopal at 6.00am. Again we hired rickshaw (Rs. 10) that showed us few hotels. But at the end we decided to go with Hotel Sonali. It was clean and excellent service. Since it had 24H checkout time, we dropped our bags at the hotel and went for early breakfast. We had excellent Poha at the roadside joint. After we checked in to hotel and informed front desk to arrange a vehicle to take us to Bhimbetka, Sanchi Stupa and Udaigiri ( Rs. 2500 AC vehicle ) We had good veggie lunch at roadside punjabi dabha. For dinner we went out to Hotel Jamil in old bhopal, which was very disappointing.

Day 9
Only highlight was lunch at Bapu ki Kutia. Then we left for Mumbai ( train )

For pics check my previous blog: https://kurund.com/blog/2011/06/29/madhya-pradesh-trip-2011/