There are 3-4 different aiports to enter Madhya Praesh - Indore, Nagpur, Bhopal or Gwalior. Depending on what you want to cover, you can chose the appropriate airport.
I had made 2 plans.
Plan A
night Indore (Dont miss street food)
omkareshwar temple - day trip night halt indore
Ujjain and back to Indore
train to Jabalpur
Kanha/Bandavgarh - 4 hours
2 nights in kanha
drive to bhedghat near jabalpur - 4 hours. Stay in Bhedghat
boat ride and relax and stay Bhedghat
morning drive to chitrakoot and stay there
4 hours drive to khajurao - see the place and stay
4 hours drive to Jhansi. stay - see the place
afternoon start towards gwalior - 3 hours
gwalior sight seeing and evening flight
Skip chitrakoot and just see khajurao to save a day.
Plan B
Morning fligt to gwalior
afternoon/evening -see gwalior
drive to jhansi see the place
start towards khajurao - see the place and night stay
chitrakoot and stay
come to jabalpur and checkin at bhedghat and stay
boat ride and go to kanha by night
2 days in kanha
Feel free to end the trip by going to nagpur for a flight to bangalore
Else, contine to Indore for Ujjain and mahakaleshware visit
I stuck with plan A.
Route map
There are 2 Jyotirlingas in MP. To reach them, it is best to start the trip from Indore. I will capture my trip itinerary
Day2:
For Day 2 travel from Indore, there are several options to book cabs - like Ola, redbus, savari.com etc. But based on my friend's recommendatin, I booked cab from https://www.gozocabs.com/
Visit 2 Jyotirlingas - Omkareshwar and Ujjain Mahakaleshwar. In 2019, the roads were not so a great, so we had start early in the morning and Visit Omkareshwar. The temple closes by 1.00 p.m. and reopens after a couple of hours. You can opt for special Darshan. Try to avoid Pundits. Finish the darshan early and head towards Ujjain.
If you reach Ujjain early, visit Harasiddhi Mata temple. This is more than 1000 years old maha kali temple in Ujjain and it is having two pillars and each one is having 1001 lamps. At the time of evening aarthi, all the 2002 lamps are cleaned everyday and lighted again.
See how this task is done perfectly and quickly.
The main Mahakala temple is open till 11 p.m. So, try to get a darshan either before or after dinner. It takes about 20 min for Darshan.
Day3:
Ujjain Mahakala temple is famous for Bhasma Arati. This Arati starts at 4.00 a.m. People stand in the line from 12.00 a.m. I am told that first 50-100 people who enter the temple will get a chance to go close to god and do Jalabhishek themselves. To get this chance, people stand in line from 12.00 a.m. If you are not particular about Jalabhishek, but want to get a good Darshan of Bhasma Arathi, it is good to get in to the line by 2.30. Any later than this, you might not get a good seat to view the Darshan. Booking can be done from temple website 30 days before the darshan http://dic.mp.nic.in/ujjain/mahakal/default.aspx
For Stay, there are multiple places to stay in Indore, but I chose the Dharmashala attached to the temple. It is not fancy. It is a very basic, but clean accomdation. Advantage is if you want to go to temple for Arati, you can get up and walk 200-300 mts to reach the temaple. Other good hotels are more than a km away. Booking can be done from temple website 30 days before the darshan http://dic.mp.nic.in/ujjain/mahakal/default.aspx
Since the Darshan gets over by 6.30 or 7, you have rest of the day to take rest and visiting near by temples. There are plenty of Auto rickshaws that you can hire for the same
My next destination was visiting National parks in MP. Most famous ones are Kanha Tiger reserve forest and Bandavgarh National Park. These national parks are more than 600 kms from Ujjain. So, instead of wasting an entire day travelling by road, I took AC train to go to Jabalpur. Jabalpur is the closest railway station to any of these National parks.
Day4:
There are a few local attractions in Jabalpur - Marble rocks at BedaGhat, Dhuadhar falls, 64 yogini temple, Jain temple, Madan Mahal fort, Sharada temple, Kachnar temple. Depending on your interest you can visit any of these places.
Enjoy the boar ride in Beda Ghat. Get a glimpse of it from the famous song from Ashoka movie "Raat ka Nasha Abhi"
Unfortunately there was an extended monsoon this year and Narmada river was over flowing. So, we couldn't go no a boat ride.
For traveling in Madhya Pradesh, I booked cabs from http://www.guptatravelsjabalpur.com/
I found them online and they gave me a good service.
Day 5:
For the next segment of my trip which was for 6 days, I booked a Tempo traveller from Gupta travels.
Roads are not great (as of 2019) and it takes long time to reach places.
We started by 8 a.m and reached BandavGarh National park by lunch time. We had booked 2 safaris. People say that tiger sighting is better in BandavGarh National park. But the best time to sight tigers is Dec-March. We had booked an evening safari (3 p.m. to 6 p.m) and a next day 6 a.m. to 10.a.m.)
Day 6:
Get up early and head to Tiger safari. The resort guys generally pack breakfast. After the safari, you can come back to hotel and get ready for next journey.
We started towards Khajurao in the afternoon. Due to bad road conditions in 2019, it took us 8 hours to reach Khajurao.
Day7:
The entire day was dedicated see different temples in Khajurao. We travelled in September and weather was still in 30s and very humid in Madhya Pradesh. So, it is better to start sight seeing as early as 6 a.m. Early morning is also good for photography.
We went to the main khajurao temple (western group of temples) at 6 a.m. It takes 2-3 hours to see the temple (depending on your interest). Return back to hotel, have breakfast, and then head to Rahen falls which is about 30 min drive from khajurao. It is a beatiful falls formed due to volcanic eruption. You can spend about an hour there and head back.
After lunch, you can take some rest. You can resume visiting eastern and southern tempples after the temperature cools down (say after 3 p.m.) Finish all temples by 6 to be back to main Khajurao temple for light and sound show (english show at 6.30 and Hindi show at 7.30)
Day 8:
After breakfast, start journey towards Orchha. Due to road conditions, we reached Orccha by lunch time. After lunch time, we visited Orccha fort. Try to finish the fort visit before sunset to visit Chattris. https://www.windhorsetours.com/sights/india/Chhatris.html
It is a beautiful view at that time.
After sunset, head towards Jhansi.
Day 9:
Start towards Jhansi fort early in the morning. Jhansi fort was not as exciting. It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to see the place. It is even ok to skip Jhansi. Post lunch, we headed towards Gwalior.
On the way to Gwalior, if you have time visit Datia. There is a fort and Pitambar temple (Shakti Peeth). Due to Navarathri festival, the temple was crowded, so we skipped it.
We reached Gwalior by evening.
Day 10:
Start early at 6 a.m. to cover Gwalior fort. It is a beautiful fort. It takes about to cover all the places in and around the fort. In the same premisis, you can visit Gwalior fort, Saash Bahu mandir, Gurudwara and Teli ka mandir.
Return to hotel, have breakfast, take some rest. After lunch, visit Jai Vilas Palace in Gwalior. It is a beautiful palace and you can easily spend about 2 hours.
You can do some shopping in Gwalior
Breakfast - Famous Poha
Lunch/Dinner - kwality restaurant. For chats -(at your own risk), try Phool Bagh chaupti Shopping - Topi bazar, sarafa bazar, subhash market Sweets - Bahadura for Gulab Jamun, Shano-Shaukat for assorted sweets especially Boondi laddu, Daulatram Gupta, Gazak
Day 11:
Return to Bangalore
Other places of interest in MP
I didn't have time to cover it. But if you happen to go to bhopal, visit Bhimbetka rock shelters
Bhimbetka rock shelters are in Bhopal, MP. It is a UNESCO world heritage site that consists of seven hills and over 750 rock shelters distributed over 10 kilometres. At least some of the shelters were inhabited more than 100,000 years ago. Some of the Bhimbetka rock shelters feature prehistoric cave paintings and the earliest are about 10,000 years old (c. 8,000 BCE),
This was my itenirary of my recent Family trip to Gujarat covering about 2300 km
Day1 and Day2 - Ahmedabad sight seeing, shopping and Gujarathi Thalis
Day 3 - travel to Bhuj -Enroute visit Lathol (an arhcealogical site from Harappa and Mohenjadaro times, and HiraLaxmi park, Bhujodia
Day 4 - Local sight seeing in Bhuj followed by a visit to Mandvi Beach. Visit to Vijay Vilas palace (Hum Dil de chuke sanam was shot here)
Day 5 - Local sight seeing in Bhuj (Parag mahal where Lagan was shot), followed by a visit to Rann of kutch, India bridge and Kaladungar (magnetic hill and sunset point)
Day 6 - Travel to Dwarka from Bhuj - Visit Dwarkadeesh temple followed by beach
Day 8 - Sunrise, beach time, Somnath jyothirling temple visit and other local tourist attractions. Continue journey towards Diu. Relax in Diu followed by a good evening stroll at the beach
Day 9 - Visit to Diu fort and continue journey to Gir forest. Relax and go to Safari
Day 10 - travel to Ahmedabad and fly back to Bangalore
Bhuj was a clear winner with too many interesting places to see both in the city and surrounding areas. Also the beaches are clean and can spend good time as the evenings are very pleasant
I saw a guy parking his car in front of the other car. There is no way that the other guy could remove his car unless this guy removes the car. I got wild and approached him
Me: Sir, if you park your car this way, the other guy will not be able to take out his car Him: Is it your car? Me: No Him: (Trying to ignore me)Then, whats your problem Me: I have faced this problem 4 times, when I have not been able to take out my car because someone else parked their bike/car for their convenience Him: That has happened to me also Me: Then why are you doing this. Him: I am not troubling the other guy. I will take out my car early. He will come later and pick up his car Me: How can you be sure Him: I come early by 5 p.m and will take out my car. He will come later and take out his car Me: Do you know him and has he told you that he will come later than you He: (Irritated), no, but I will take out my car early Me: What you are doing is wrong. Since you have been troubled by such incident in the past, you can't be doing it He: (wondering how to get rid of me) I am not doing anything wrong.
And he tried to walk out
Me: Sir, I know you are doing wrong and you know that you are doing wrong. I will leave it to your conscious to do the right thing. If you think you are doing the right thing, you can walk away, else please take out your car
I walked away without waiting for a response. After walking 100m, I turned back to see what was happening. I could still see the guy moving around his car in a dilemma, what to do - whether to leave or not. I think had touched his consciousness ;)
Zoom photo and see how people park vehicles at Nayandhalli Metro Station I have had to leave my car 4 times metro station as I wasn't able to take out my car. I had to return back after 8 pm to take my car out Who should take car of this.
My 3 year old : 'Appa, moon yaake hardhogide' (Dad, why is the moon torn). He was looking at half moon Me: huh ??? - speechless Son: Moon light off maaDidre hoTogatta (Will the moon go off when the light is swithed off) Me: huuuuuu (thinking) ...... Howdu (yes) Son: Aamele light on maaDidre vaapas baratta (will it come back after the light is switched on) Me: hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm(thinking really hard). Howdu (yes)
He was talking about how moon rise during night and disappering in the morning
