ANYONE with a sense of adventure and a taste for art and history will find some amazing old Hindu temples near Gwalior well worth a small diversion on a trip to the Agra region. It needs just an extra day to visit this cluster of temples near Morena that is now an hour and a half from Agra on a good highway. These ancient temples have been recently excavated and connected by reasonably good black-top roads and are absolutely fascinating. Actually, a motoring trip to the region has now become very easy because the 200-km highway between Delhi and Agra is now so good that it takes barely three hours.
After getting through the traffic at Agra, the drive towards Gwalior on National Highway 3 is very interesting. One soon enters the wild area of the Chambal ravines before descending, past old fortifications, to the beautiful Chambal river soon after Dhaulpur. The Chambal is a wide, deep and refreshingly blue river flowing between steep banks and a pleasing contrast to the muddy rivers of the Gangetic plains. It was not very far from here that Aurangzeb forded the river upstream and defeated his liberal minded but proud brother, Dara Shukoh, in the well-known battle of Samugarh.