The Great Gwalior and Sarafa night market of Indore

MP was long time pending and finally the time came where we planned for a 4 day trip to MP and we wanted to cover both the Architecture wonders of Madhya Pradesh and also most famous its known for " The tigers"...

We did loads of research and made an Itinerary which covered places like Indore, Gwalior, Orchha, Khajuraho, Bhopal and also a days safari in Panna Tiger reserve. We started from Bangalore on a Wednesday night and reached Indore around 9pm and wanted to spend at-least quality 3 hrs in the famous Sarafa night market of Indore where the food street goes for 2 kms and has 300+ shops famous for it Savouries and Sweets.

On Day 1 we visited Gwalior and we Enjoyed the absolutely stunning Gwalior fort area which has one of the biggest fort of India with 6 to 7 levels of underground and has very old temples as Sas Bahu, Teli ka Mandir and the most stunning place is the 4th century Jain monuments called Gopachal rock cut Jain monuments which were so so huge and amazing..

The Gwalior fort has existed at least since the 10th century, and the inscriptions and monuments found within what is now the fort campus indicate that it may have existed as early as the beginning of the 6th century. The fort has been controlled by a number of different rulers in its history.

The present-day fort consists of a defensive structure and two main palaces, Gujari Mahal and Man Mandir, built by Man Singh Tomar (reigned 1486–1516 CE). The Gujari Mahal palace was built for Queen Mrignayani. It is now an archaeological museum. The second oldest record of "zero" in the world was found in a small temple (the stone inscription has the oldest record of the numeric zero symbol having a place value as in the modern decimal notation), which is located on the way to the top. The inscription is around 1500 years old.

The inside Levels of Gwalior fort

The Sas Bahu Temple, It was built in 1093 by King Mahipala of the Kachchhapaghata dynasty, according to an inscription found in the larger of the twin temple. The twin temples are situated in the Gwalior Fort.

The Majestic Interiors of Sas Bahu Temple

Teli ka Mandir, also known as Telika Temple, is a Hindu temple located within the Gwalior Fort in Madhya Pradesh, India. Dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu and Matrikas, it has been variously dated between the early 8th and early 9th century CE.

It is an atypical design for a Hindu temple, as it has a rectangular sanctum instead of the typical square. It integrates the architectural elements of the Nagara style and the Valabhi prasada that looks like the Dravidian wagon-vault topped gopuram superstructure. The temple is based on a Pratihara-Gopagiri style North Indian architecture.

The temple is a classic example of a design based on "musical harmonics" in architecture,one that Hermann Goetz called as a masterpiece of late Gupta era Indian art.

Gopachal rock-cut Jain monuments, also called Gopachal Parvat Jaina monuments, are a group of Jain carvings dated to between 7th and 15th century. They are located around the walls of the Gwalior Fort, Madhya Pradesh. They depict Tirthankaras in seated Padmasana posture as well as standing Kayotsarga posture, in the typical naked form of Jain iconography.

The number of Jain rock shrines at Gwalior, with numerous monumental statues, is unmatched anywhere else. James Burgess writes: "In the 15th century, during the reign of the Tomara Rajas, the Jains seem to have been seized with an uncontrollable impulse to convert the cliff that sustains the fort into a great shrine in honour of their religion, and in a few years excavated the most extensive series of Jaina caves known to exist anywhere.

To be frank I haven't seen something this Majestic and Stunning in India as of now in form of Tall Statues built in ancient times..

The Sun temple near Gwalior

Some foods from the Sarafa night market of Indore