It was a good 3.5 to 4 hours drive to Chanderi, the roads were reasonable except for the last half an hour where the road was under construction.
Our guide here was a youngster named Musulmin Answari. He was soft spoken, knowledgeable, and helpful.
The Chanderi Fort has 7 gates but not all of them are accessible any more. We stopped at the Badal Mahal Gate first, which was built in 1445.
There is much more to see in Chanderi than the fort itself. We started seeing the sights in the sequence that our guide recommended.
Our next stop was at the Jama Masjid, built at the same time and prayers are still held there.
Then came Koushak Mahal, this was a 7 story structure built for a seven day celebration after a major victory, and abandoned since then.
We moved on to Kati Ghati, this was supposedly built in one day by cutting into the rock to get a vantage point on the fort.
Then came Jain temples, Khandargiri, these are also built into the rocks.
Now it was time to see the Fort itself. This Fort is being restored correctly and has been well maintained by the MP government archeological society
Our next stop was Roza, another mausoleum, this time for a women.
She was killed by her father for wanting to marry a soldier in the king's army. There were 3 graves in it, two women and a child but no documentation exists on who the other two are.
It was now time to leave Chanderi, a place definitely worth visiting.
We grabbed a bite to eat at MP government tourist lodge where they made a tasty egg curry fresh for us. Interestingly the egg was boiled and curried as opposed to boiled, fried, and then curried as is the norm in Kolkata.
After lunch we proceeded to Deogarh.
Chanderi and Deogarh are on opposite sides of the Betwa river but since there is no way across, the trip actually takes two hours on a very bumpy road.
At Deogarh we were quite surprised and even somewhat disappointed. There is actually no fort, just walls of carving in solid rock. There were definitely beautiful but we somehow expected them inside a fort.
We left in an hour or so and it was a long drive back to Amar Mahal, where we arrived tired, late, and hungry.
Had a quick dinner and retired for the night shortly after.
Location:Amar Mahal
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