Friday 26 January 2024

Christmas 2023

During Christmas of 2023 we did this interesting road trip from Bengaluru to north part of country. This is a travelog detailing that trip.

21-December-2023 I started from Bengaluru. The plan was to reach Hyderabad. The road near Telangana - Maharashtra border generally has potholes so I did not want to drive there in the night. So I decided to stay in Hyderabad and then continue onwards the next day.

22-December-2024 I started from Hyderabad after breakfast and the plan was to reach Bhopal by the end of the day. It was comparatively easy drive since the distance was not really very high. 

24-December-2023 After a day's rest in Bhopal, started towards Noida. It was a even less drive. I reached noida by the end of the day.

25-December-2023 Another day's rest in Noida and then I was ready to drive onwards towards Dehradun. Noida to Dehradun is a very easy drive. Roads are good and distance is not too much.

26-December-2023 It was a local excursion day in Dehradun. We walked up to Shashradhara and enjoyed a bit there.

27-December-2023 Another local excursion day in Dehradun. We visited Forest Research Institute and Guccupani Robbers Cave. Both are interesting places and you should visit them if you are in Dehradun. The purpose of our visit to Dehradun was to visit a friends place.

28-December-2023 Now that we were done with Dehradun, we have to start travelling back. But before we could go towards our home, we had to visit our village near Khajuraho. So we left for Khajuraho the next day.

29-December-2023 We had some official business to attend to in Chhatarpur and Nowgong so the first day was spend there.

30-December-2023 We drove to the village near Harpalpur, spent some time there and were back in Khajuraho by the end of the day. But first we needed a stopover in Chhatarpur.

After taking care of business in Chhatarpur we were on the road to the village.

The village Baindo is comparative a affluent village. Here are some drone shots.

31-December-2023 As the last day of the year arrive, we started our travel back to Bengaluru. The first stop was to reach Bhopal. I spent few days in Bhopal.

05-January-2024 Started early from Bhopal onwards towards Hyderabad. Reached hyderabad by the end of the day.

06-January-2024 Started after breakfast towards Bengaluru.


The total journey was around 6200 kilometer.

Monday 21 August 2023

Summer 2023

 After returning back from Singapore, the very next day I decided to start my summer road trip. 

10-June-2023 We left after lunch with the goal of staying the night in Hyderabad. We stopped at McDonalds near Bengaluru airport to grab a takeaway lunch. After this we continued driving till Cafe Coffee Day 50 kilometers after Ananthpur. We arrive here at 6:05 PM.

After a small coffee and toilet break, we continued driving till Hyderabad. We had booked Hyatt in Gachibowli and stayed there for the night. A very strange incident happened in this hotel. The reception staff saw a camera in my hand and claimed that I cannot take the camera to my room and will have to deposit it with them. Of course, after some shouting, they let me take the camera to my room. But for this reason, I have decided to not book them anymore.

11-June-2023 We checked out from the hotel after our breakfast and continued towards Bhopal. We did pretty much non-stop drive for 5-6 hours and stopped at Vittal Kamath near Hinghanghat. This place is not great, but we had our kind of lunch there.

After this we again continued pretty much non-stop till Bhopal.

Next few days were spent in Bhopal in taking care of some stuff.
15-June-2023 We needed to visit my village which is in Sitapur district in UP. We started from Bhopal around 9 AM. 

We had packed lunch, so we stopped at the roadside and had our lunch and then continued till we crossed Kanpur. We stopped somewhere on Kanpur Lucknow Road for a small tea break and then continued till we reached our hotel in Lucknow.

We retired for the day. 

16-June-2023 The next day, we started after breakfast towards Sitapur. We reached our village around 12:30 PM. We stayed there till 6:20 PM and then returned back to Lucknow.

17-June-2023 Next day, we started back towards Bhopal. rather than going from Kanpur, we decided to drive towards Agra expressway and joined Bundelkhand expressway at Etawah. I found this road to be a better option rather than dealing with the current mess of Lucknow Kanpur Road.


18-June-2023 We left Bhopal to go to Noida. Took the usual road of going towards Guna, Gwalior, Agra. Started from Bhopal at 8:00 AM. Reached K2 Square Highway Treat near Guna at 10:20 AM. Had my breakfast there. It is a pretty good place to stop. 

After that continued towards Noida, After around six hours of drive, stopped at the food street on Yamuna Expressway. Had a small coffee break. Finally arrived in Noida at 7:15 PM.


Stayed in Noida till 22nd. Started on the reverse journey on 22nd June.

22-June-2023 Started at 7:15 AM, stopped at the fuel station on Yamuna Expressway and had a coffee break in Starbucks. After that short coffee break, continued on YEW, crossed Agra and stopped on a dhaba after gwalior. After a lunch break, continued towards guna and stopped at same K2 Square Highway Treat. Finally arrived back in Bhopal around 7:30 PM.


30-June-2023 Started from Bhopal for the final return journey to Bengaluru. Left Bhopal at 6:00 AM. Stopped at Hotel Meghna and Restaurant near Betul around 9:00 AM. This place is very close to where the four lane starts. 

Around 3:20 PM stopped at Sardar Ji Family Dhaba to have some lunch. Finally arrived in Hotel Oakwood at 7:20 PM.

01-July-2023 Checked out the hotel after the lunch and continued towards Bengaluru. Around 4:30 PM near Kurnool stopped at Hyderabad Chefs for a small break. At 6:10 PM, arrived in cafe coffee day and had a small break there. 

After the break in CCD, continued driving and arrived at home at 11:45 PM just before midnight.




Singapore - June 2023

 02-June-2023

We visited Singapore in the month of June 2023. We had been to Singapore almost 10 years ago and we decided to visit again. Our flight was departing from Bengaluru airport around 11 PM and we arrived in airport at 8:30 PM.

We arrived in Changi Airport early morning around 6:45 AM. After completing immigration formalities, we decided to first visit Jewel which is easily accessible from the airport terminal through and monorail. We did take a local SIM card from the terminal before leaving the place.

Jewel doesn't open very early. We walked around the place and around 10 AM some of the shops opened so we decided to have our breakfast here before leaving the place. We had booked Holiday Inn near Clarke Quay. We decided to just take the metro to go to hotel. 
If you are 3-4 people then taking metro is not always the cheapest option. The best approach is to have one of the local ride sharing apps. The only issue we found that these apps did not accept forex card so we had to use our India credit cards or get some cash.
We rested in hotel for few hours since our night was completely spend in flight and we did not get much sleep.
In the night we decided to visit the area around Marina Bay Sands.

After spending time at Gardens by the bay, we took a metro to go to Little India to find some food there. After that we took the metro back to our hotel and retired for the day.

04-June-2023 This day we had planned to visit the areas around Bird Paradise and Night Safari. Bird paradise, even though like a zoo, is pretty well designed and is a good place to visit. I would not confuse it with a proper bird sanctuary where birds come on their own but it still is worth it. There is a pretty good show also which happens every half an hour so one should not miss it.

After bird paradise, we had booked tickets for night safari. This is not that great but since it is close by to Bird Paradise and it is at night when pretty much everything else closes. one can visit it.
The night safari finished around 10:00 PM and we took a cab back to hotel. The cab fares were around 40 SGD either way, but we were six people, and we booked a six-seater cab so it came out pretty much same price as taking metro.

05-June-2023 This was the day to checkout from mainland and check into Hotel Village in Sentosa. The resort check-ins are generally around 1PM, so we decided to checkout from Holiday Inn and leave our luggage with the hotel there and visit Marina Bay Sands again for some of the places that we had missed visiting on the first day.

We visited Merlion, Art Museum and bunch of other places before walking to Nalan restaurant near Singapore city hall. They had good Indian food. After lunch, we went back to Holiday Inn and picked our luggage and left for Sentosa.

We arrived in Hotel Village around 8 PM and checked in. There is a very good Indian Hotel Royal Taj just outside the hotel. The only issue is that they open at lunch and dinner time. So if you are a vegetarian, the breakfast becomes huge problem in Hotel Village. 

We had our dinner in Hotel Royal Taj and retired for the day.

06-June-2023 This was the day for universal studio. We got ready, had our breakfast and were in Universal studio. We spent pretty much whole day in multiple rides. A point to note, if you intend to do Jurrasic Park ride, keep a change of clothes because there is a good chance you would get wet and your shoes will also get wet.

It was evening when we got out but we decided to try to reach the Wings of Time show since we had no other slot available. We reached on time and were able to see the show.


After the show, we came back to the hotel and retired for the day. 

07-June-2023 The next day we got ready and decided to do Skyline Luge the first things in the morning. After skyline luge, we took a round trip in Cable car. It offers a good view of whole Singapore. Then we checked out from Hotel Village and checked into Hotel Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa. For vegetarians like us, this is a much better hotel because there is a full-fledged vegan restaurant and the breakfast spread always has decent south Indian stuff.

08-June-2023 We had couple of more important things to visit on this day. After our breakfast, we went to S.E.A Aquarium. This is probably one of the best aquariums that I have seen. After the aquarium, we went back to our hotel.


09-June-2023 This was the last day in Singapore. Our flight was late in the evening. So as usual, we checked out and left our luggage at hotel. Then we decided to visit Madam Tussads. This place is not that great. I will visit it only if I have time. If you have time to spare, it is a must visit.

After finishing up with Madam Tussads, We went back to hotel, collected our luggage and reached airport. Singapore airport immigration exit is pretty smooth. There is a automated process so you don't even have to talk to a person. 
We arrived in Bengaluru around 10:30 PM. As usual we had our dinner at airport and then left for home.



Trip to Kabini, Connoor, Valparai

02-May-2023

Me and a couple of friends wanted to visit some places in and around Bengaluru, so we decide to start our short trip by driving down to Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Kabini River Lodge. The plan was to stay there for a night, go for couple of safaris and then continue.


We left Bengaluru around 6:00 AM and decided to make a halt at Somanathpura temple before continuing to Kabini.

Somanathpura is a Hoysala style temple and is in pretty good shape. We spent around an hour and half here before continuing on.


We continued on towards Kabini which was our next stop. We arrived in Kabini at around 1PM. We rested for some time and then went for our evening safari.

Jungle Lodges and Resorts Kabini is a pretty good property to stay here. Also if you want to do a jeep safari, they are the agency through which you have to go. If you are staying at other properties in Kabini, you would still have to go there for your Jeep safari.

We had planned on doing two safaris, one was on 2nd evening and the other was on 3rd morning. Our safaris were pretty good. We had a good sighting of leopard and some very good sightings of elephant herds. 


03-May-2023 After finishing the safari in the morning, we checked out and left Jungle Lodges and Resorts towards Coonoor. We stopped at Gundlupete for a quick lunch in a restaurant named Hotel Sri Guruprasad. The place was average.

We arrived in Coonoor around 5:30 PM and had booked our stay at Tea Nest. This was a bungalow in tea estate. It was pretty good accommodation.


We drove back to the town and had our dinner at 180Mciver. The place was horrible and was not worth the money.

04-May-2023 We got up in the morning and our plan was to drive to Sims Park where we spent almost an hour. We returned back to our hotel, got ready, checked out and were on our way to the next destination.

We stopped over in Coimbatore for lunch. We had heard great things about Annapoorna but by mistake we ended up in their outlet in Prozone Mall in Coimbatore. The food was not exception but ok. We had our lunch and then continued on towards Valparai.

The drive to Valparai is exceptional. The 40 odd hair pin bends make this drive great. The only issue was that there is no way one can stop on this segment of the road. In any case, we continued and arrived in Valparai around 4:15 PM. We had booked Sinne Dorai Bungalow for our stay.


We stayed here for two nights. The place is fantastic, and food was great. We also did a night drive through the estate and saw many animals in the estate.

06-May-2023 We checked out from Valparai and started our return journey to Bengaluru. We stopped over at Tiruppur to buy some clothes and then continued towards Bengaluru. We finally arrived in Bengaluru at 8:00 PM.



Thursday 23 February 2023

Bengaluru to Jaipur : Christmas 2022

 22-12-2022

During Christmas 2022 we decided to do a road trip to Jaipur. The plan was to go to Noida and then continue onwards to reach Jaipur and do some sightseeing.

We left Bengaluru around 7:30AM and drove straight to Hyderabad. The plan was to stay night in Hyderabad. For some reason we found hotels in Nagpur too expensive during Christmas so decided against staying there.

We stopped in Cafe Coffee Day near Gooty at 12:15 PM for about an hour and then continued onwards towards Hyderabad. 

We arrived in Hyderabad at 5:30 PM and retired for the day. 


23-12-2022

We decided to take a halt in Bhopal for couple of days. I was not feeling well so decided to stop over in my house in Bhopal and then continue after taking rest.

Since we just had to reach up to Bhopal, we decided to leave after breakfast. We were on the road at 7:00 AM

We stopped at the Highway Nest Mini near Borkhedi toll plaza for a bio break around 1:00 PM

We quickly crossed Nagpur town and got on to four lane highway connecting Nagpur and Betul. Just after four-lane highway finishes, there is a small hotel called Hotel Meghna where we stopped for some food around 4:10 PM

We started from there at 4:45 PM and continued towards Bhopal. Finally arrived in Bhopal at 7:40 PM.

Next day we took rest in Bhopal before continuing.


25-12-2022

We started at 6:30 AM towards Noida. It was early so did not have any breakfast. 

We reached near Guna at around 9:10 AM. Near Guna you will find K2 Squared Highway Treat right on the highway which is a pretty good place for a break and breakfast. We left the place at 9:45 AM.

Finally around 3:00 PM we entered Yamuna Expressway. Drove till the mid point and stopped at The Food Street for some lunch.

Arrived in Noida at 6:40 PM.



27-12-2022

We got ready around 9:00 AM and left for Jaipur. 10:55 AM we stopped at Mcdonalds for some food and bio break. 11:20 AM we started towards Jaipur again.

Impromptu we decided to visit Neemrana Fort-Palace. On reaching there we learnt that you can't just visit the fort. You have to buy a ticket for food or you should be staying with them then only you can visit. So we left that place and joined the Jaipur highway back.

We stopped at the food street at around 1:20 PM. I badly needed a coffee. I had still not fully recovered.

We started from the food street at 2:20 PM and continued towards Jaipur. 

4:45 PM We arrived in The Lalit, Jaipur. The hotel was very crowded and checkin itself took couple of hours. After resting for a while, we decided to drive to the Hawa Mahal area and find some food.


28-12-2022

We started after our breakfast and reached Jal Mahal at 12:15 PM. We spent some time there and after parking our car in Jal Mahal area, took a rickshaw to go back to Albert Museum.

1:30 PM we arrived in Albert Museum and spent around an hour in the museum. It is pretty interesting museum.

We left towards Amber Palace and after parking our car in the parking, tool a Jeep to visit Jaigarh and then Nahargarh.

After visiting these two forts, we arrived back at Amber Fort at around 5:45 PM. We bought the ticket for light and sound show and then went into the Amber Fort for a quick walk around.

Then we went into the light and sound show which got finished at 8:45 PM, We started towards our hotel and stopped midway for some food at a place called The Vegetarian Grill.


29-12-2022

This was the day to leave back to Noida. We stayed at the hotel in the morning and decided to leave around 2:45 PM

This was a simple eventless journey back.

We stopped for a quick break at The Food Street around 6:30 PM. We left the place at 7:20 PM

We arrived back in Noida at around 10:45 PM.

Next few days we spend in Noida to take care of some things.

03-01-2023

We started our journey back to Bengaluru. As usual the first stop was Bhopal.

8:30 AM We left Noida and got on to Yamuna Expressway. We stopped at the food court in the middle of YEW for a quick coffee at around 9:20 AM. We again stopped at the next rest area on YEW at around 11:10 AM

We exited YEW and quickly got on to Gwalior road. We crossed Dholpur and crossed Morena. We stopped at the Subhim Highway Resort for a bio-break.

We couldn't find any decent place for food after that, so we continued driving to the same K2 squared Highway Treat near Guna.

We finally arrived in Bhopal at 9:00 PM.

Next few days we spent in Bhopal

06-01-2023 

We left our home in Bhopal towards Hyderabad at around 6:30 AM. We stopped in Hotel Meghna just before Betul at 8:30 AM for some breakfast and continued onwards towards Hyderabad at 9:20 AM

We stopped at Borkhedi Toll plaza after crossing Nagpur for a bio-break at 12:30 PM

We arrived in Hyderabad around 8:00 PM.

07-01-2023

We decided to take it easy since we just had to drive from Hyderabad to Bengaluru. We got up, had our breakfast and then checked out around 11:30AM

We drove non-stop for next few hours and stopped just before Ananthpur at Cafe Coffee Day for a break at 3:40 PM

We left from Cafe Coffee Day after an hour and crossed Ananthpur. 

We stopped at Shell Petrol Station near Aroor for a top-up and bio-break.

We arrived within Bengaluru city limits around 8:00 PM, had our dinner and reached home.



2022 Diwali Trip to Hyderabad

22-October-2022

We decided to visit Hyderabad and chill out in a hotel during Diwali of 2022. It was relaxed trip and not targeted for any tourism. Following is the complete Vlog of the trip.


Saturday 8 October 2022

Bengaluru to Goa : Dussera 2022

 During Dussera of 2022 we decided to drive down to Goa from Bengaluru.  We had few days vacations and decided to spend them in Goa.

01-October-2022

We started from our Home at 06:00 am. There was lot of traffic probably due to holidays and NICE road had lots of blocks due to multiple truck accidents. We finally reached Sira at 08:45 am and stopped at the Cafe Coffee Day.

09:40 am We started from Sira for our onwards journey. There was not much to eat available in CCD.

10:28 am We reached Shell petrol station near Tumkur and topped up our car. We also had tea there.

We drove into Davangere town and look for Benne Dosa shop. But there are two entries on google maps and we ended up not finding it. So we decided to stop there on our way back.

1:15 PM We stopped at Kamat restaurant near Haveri. Kamat chain of restaurants have definitely lost their past glory and not very nice places to have a stop at.


After Dharwad we turned towards Goa via Anmod Ghat.


We arrived in Goa approximately at 7pm. We straight away drove to our hotel which was ITC Grand.

02-October-2022

We spent the entire day at the hotel. The hotel is a nice property and one can spend time there. It is adjacent to a beach and a nice pool.


03-October-2022

We decided to drive towards the Panaji and look at some places. We went to Basilica De Bom Jesus, Tower of St. Augustine. These are nice places to visit, and one can spend some time there. Basilica does get very crowded while the tower is empty.

After these two places we went to the restaurant Copperleaf and had our lunch there. Then we decided to drive to Fort Aguada. 

Fort Aguada gets very crowded. So, we quickly went around the place and left for our hotel.

We spent rest of the day leisurely at our hotel.

04-October-2022

We had decided to leave the place after our breakfast. We got ready, checked out and left the hotel at 11:20 AM. We had to topup the car which we did before getting out of Goa and then we drove towards Bengaluru. 

3:20 PM We stopped at Shell petrol bunk near Hubbali and topped up our car again and had a small tea break. Shell petrol stations are nice places for a tea break. 

5:25 PM We stopped at Shri Guru Kottureshwara Butter Dosa Hotel in Davangere and had our late lunch there. There are two adjacent shops with identical signage and name and there is really no way for somebody to tell which is the original one. If you want to go to this shop you will find two entries on google map, choose the one that is say opposite medical college.


We continued driving from there to our home and reached around 10:00pm.

Tuesday 7 June 2022

Summer 2022 -- Really Hot

Summer 2022, I decided to drive to Bhopal and then decide if I wanted to go somewhere further. There was a wedding to attend in Sagar, MP.


14-May-2022 I started early morning (4:40 AM) towards Hyderabad. 8:30 am I crossed Ananthpur and stopped at Cafe Coffee Day near Gooty. 12:45 PM I reached Hyderabad Outer Ring road. 2:30 PM I reached the Cafe Coffee Day near Nagulapally. After a brief stopover as a lunch break, I continued on. Finally at 7:50 PM I arrived in Le Meredien, Nagpur which was the stop for the night.

15-May-2022 Next day morning I took it easy. Since my destination was Bhopal, I decided to leave after breakfast. Left the hotel around 8:15 am. Drove pretty much non-stop and arrived in Bhopal at 2:15 PM.
20-May-2022 This was the day I had to attend a wedding in Sagar. Left Bhopal around 4:00 pm and arrived in Sagar at 7:00 pm. The evening was spent at the wedding venue and left from the wedding at 1:00 am

23-May-2022 Finally it was time to leave Bhopal. Earlier I had planned on visiting some of  the fort towns in Rajasthan but it was too hot. The temperature was touching almost 40 degree celsius on some of the days. I decided to head back to Bhopal where the weather had turned pleasant. At 4:20 am I left Bhopal. Crossed Nagpur city around 8:45 am. Drove pretty much non-stop and stopped for Lunch at 2:00 PM  at a restaurant around 1 hour before Hyderabad. After an hour break and lunch, left for Hyderabad and arrived in Hyderabad at 4:15 pm. For a moment I thought I could continue to Bhopal, but decided against it and checked in to Fairfield by Marriot near Gachibowli.
24-May-2022 Checked out of the hotel and started the journey towards Bengaluru. Stopped at Cafe Coffee Day before Ananthpur at 1:00pm. Had a small lunch there and then continued driving towards Bengaluru. I was running low on petrol, so stopped at Shell Petrol Pump near Aroor at 4:30pm. After refuel and a tea, continued towards Bengaluru and arrived home at 6:30pm

The total journey was around 3,500 kilometers.



Friday 4 March 2022

10 Day Trip to Madhya Pradesh from Delhi

 Earlier I wrong a blog on what you should you see if you have 7 days to visit MP starting from Delhi. I felt that 7 days is too little a time to do justice. So I am doing another post assuming you had 10 days. See the earlier post here.

Sanchi Stupa No 1


Bhim Betka


10 Day Itinerary
I am assuming that you have not visited MP at all the if you are the first timer visiting MP and have 7 days at your disposal, your itinerary might look something like below.


  • Day 1 -- Start from Delhi early morning and look out for Mitaoli, Padavali and Bateswar after crossing Morena. Here is a blog from my trip to these places. The first place to visit would be Mitaoli and then other two places are nearby. After finishing these places you can drive on to Gwalior and stay there for the night. If you have time left you can do some local sighseeing in Gwalior. In Gwalior must see places are the museum and Rani Jhansi's samadhi
  • Day 2 -- You can use your mornings to finish off places in Gwalior and then carry on to Orccha. It is not a long drive,  Here is my blog from an earlier trip when I travelled from Gwalior to Orccha. Orccha has good MP Tourism properties for stay and you can use them to stay.
  • Day 3 -- Finish up on any sighseeing in the morning and then leave for Khajuraho. Khajuraho attractions close down at sunset so you might not reach in time to see anything. Here is my earlier trip on travel to Khajuraho.
  • Day 4 -- Temples in Khajuraho open at sunrise, so get up early and visit the western group of temples. It would take probably 2-3 hours there. Once done you can leave for Bhopal. You should reach Bhopal by evening. Since you will be passing through Sanchi, if you can reach Sanchi before sunset, it would be a good use of time to visit Sanchi. There is Udaygiri caves as well closeby. Depending on time availability, you can choose to visit them. Here is one of my trips to Sanchi and Udaigiri. You should reach Bhopal for the night stay.
  • Day 5 -- Stay in Khajuraho and visit nearby places. A visit to Panna national park is a must and Chitrakoot is also an interesting place to visit. You can either keep your base at Khajurao or stay in Panna and visit these places.
  • Day 6 -- Stay in Bhopal and finish local attractions. Some of the must visit places are Bhim Betka, Bhojpur temple, Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Tribal Museum, State Museum and a visit to the lake in the night.
  • Day 7 -- Most people who wish to travel to MP have Ujjain (Mahakaleswar) and Omkareswar in their itinerary. So this day can be used to complete that circuit. The target should be to visit Ujjain and Omkareswar. You can add Maheswar also to the itinerary. Depending on the time you can also visit Hanuwantiya island. Good MP tourism places to stay are available in Ujjain, Omkareswar and Maheswar
  • Day 8 -- Drive to Indore and Do local sighseeing in Indore. If you feel like it, you can also visit Mandu (Mandav)
  • Day 9 -- Stay in Indore for local sighseeing and food circuit. Keep on evening/might for visiting sarafa for night food market.
  • Day 10 -- This day can be used for return journey from Indore to Delhi.

7 Day itinerary for MP from Delhi

In my view, Madhya Pradesh is one of the most underrate states from tourism point of view. It has so much to offer but unfortunately it can't compete with other tourist destinations. Here I am trying to list done some itineraries for travellers from Delhi if they want to visit MP.



7 Day Itinerary
I am assuming that you have not visited MP at all the if you are the first timer visiting MP and have 7 days at your disposal, your itinerary might look something like below.


  • Day 1 -- Start from Delhi early morning and look out for Mitaoli, Padavali and Bateswar after crossing Morena. Here is a blog from my trip to these places. The first place to visit would be Mitaoli and then other two places are nearby. After finishing these places you can drive on to Gwalior and stay there for the night. If you have time left you can do some local sighseeing in Gwalior. In Gwalior must see places are the museum and Rani Jhansi's samadhi
  • Day 2 -- You can use your mornings to finish off places in Gwalior and then carry on to Orccha. It is not a long drive,  Here is my blog from an earlier trip when I travelled from Gwalior to Orccha. Orccha has good MP Tourism properties for stay and you can use them to stay.
  • Day 3 -- Finish up on any sighseeing in the morning and then leave for Khajuraho. Khajuraho attractions close down at sunset so you might not reach in time to see anything. Here is my earlier trip on travel to Khajuraho.
  • Day 4 -- Temples in Khajuraho open at sunrise, so get up early and visit the western group of temples. It would take probably 2-3 hours there. Once done you can leave for Bhopal. You should reach Bhopal by evening. Since you will be passing through Sanchi, if you can reach Sanchi before sunset, it would be a good use of time to visit Sanchi. There is Udaygiri caves as well closeby. Depending on time availability, you can choose to visit them. Here is one of my trips to Sanchi and Udaigiri. You should reach Bhopal for the night stay.
  • Day 5 -- Most people who wish to travel to MP have Ujjain (Mahakaleswar) and Omkareswar in their itinerary. So this day can be used to complete that circuit. The target should be to visit Ujjain and Omkareswar and then stay night in Indore.
  • Day 6 -- Do local sighseeing in Indore. If you feel like it, you can also visit Mandu (Mandav)
  • Day 7 -- This day can be used for return journey from Indore to Delhi.

Saturday 19 February 2022

Jan - Feb - 2022 : Quick round the country trip before everything opens

 We started on a quick impromptu trip on 30-January-2022. We went to Bhopal, Sagar, Chhatarpur, Noida and back to Bengaluru over a period of two weeks.


Following is the detailed travelog of our trip.

  1. Day 1 - Bengaluru to Hyderabad
  2. Day 2 - Hyderabad to Nagpur
  3. Day 3 - Nagpur to Bhopal
  4. Day 4 - Bhopal to Sagar - Day Trip
  5. Day 5 - Bhopal to Noida
  6. Day 6 - Noida to Chhatarpur to Khajuraho
  7. Day 7 - Temples of Khajuraho
  8. Day 8 - Khajuraho to Chhatarpur to Noida
  9. Day 9 - Noida to Jhansi
  10. Day 10 - Jhansi to Hyderabad
  11. Day 11 - Hyderabad to Bengaluru
The total distance covered was around 6000 kilometers. Total petrol consumed was around 620 litres. Minimum rate around Rs. 94 for a liter in UP and around Rs, 110 in Karnataka and MP.