Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh

We woke up around 4:30am (again) and caught the Shatabdi Express train to Gwalior. The train took 4 hours (scheduled to take only 3 hours and 15 min), and we caught an auto-rickshaw to our hotel, the Usha Kiron Palace. We enjoyed the air-conditioning in our amazing room and took a quick walk around the property before catching another rickshaw up to the Gwalior Fort. The rickshaw took us to the Urbai Gate on the west side where we paid for a guide and a taxi to take us around the Fort (it was 35 degrees and the sites were not well marked so we thought we could use a little help). In the Fort we stopped at Man Singh Palace, Jehangir Mahal, Shah Jahan Mahal, Jauhar Kund, Sasbahu Temples and the Teli Ka Mandir Temple. ( The guide even took us for the dungeon tour and pointed our where the bats hung over our heads. yikes!) We then caught a rickshaw to the Jai Villas Palace and Scindias Museum to take a look at the maharaja's bizarre collections which included; Belgian cut-glass furniture, stuffed tigers, a silver model train made to carry brandy and cigars around the dinner table and two 3.5 ton chandeliers. We walked back to the hotel in time for a swim in the pool, and a historical tour of the hotel. Ian even played a couple of snooker games on the 130 year old billards table!