Hey there, it’s me Jerry Garrett, and today I’m going to be talking about my recent experience of a trip to Noida. We went to Noida for a wedding. My dad’s friend invited us to a wedding a few months ago, and since we knew him well, and since he was not living more than 6 hours away, we decided to drive there and attend his wedding. However, this wedding was going to go on until 2 am, which is fine, but as South Indians, we are not used to that type of wedding that goes on late at night.
In the end, we had planned to leave on the 4th at around 6:30, and then we would attend the wedding, which would start at 8:30 pm, and then we would go to the hotel at around 1 am, and then we would sleep. The next day, by around 11 am or 12 pm, we would leave Noida so that we could drive back to Panchkula.
Then came the day of the actual trip. We woke up at around 5:30 and got ready to leave, but there was so much fog that we couldn’t leave by 6:30, as it was also dark. So we decided that we would wait for a while and then leave. But even after an hour, it didn’t seem to be getting any better, so we left at 7:30. There wasn’t much traffic, so we got to the highways pretty quickly. But then came the problem. There was dense fog, not just a little bit. You couldn’t see more than 50 meters, and that’s really bad, especially when you are on the highway. I thought it was just something that would stay for maybe 30 minutes, but the more distance we covered, it didn’t seem to be ending at all.
Before we knew it, it was already 8:30, and we were all hungry, so I started searching for places where we could eat. Then I found a place to eat. It was Ambala Haveli. It was cold as we got out of the car, and we went inside, and the place looked awesome. I ordered Chana Bhatura, and it tasted good. I liked the chana masala. The bhatura was like a normal bhatura, nothing was unique about it. Overall, we had good food there, and the service was great.
Then we started driving again. It was still foggy, but we continued and kept driving for about 2 hours, or for about 130 km. By that time, we decided that we needed a break. We didn’t need to eat lunch, but we needed a tea break. So we stopped at Mannat Haveli in Sonipat. It seemed nice, and the property itself looked good, but we ordered 2 teas, and it took them almost 30 minutes just to prepare them, which was surprising to me.
We had the tea. It wasn’t too great, to be honest. It was just normal tea that they served in a mud cup, nothing more, and it was expensive as well, not too good in my opinion. We then started to drive again. This time, no more breaks. It was 90 km to Noida. The part that I was most excited about was the Eastern Peripheral Expressway. Yes, it’s just a highway, but it’s one of the few highways in India where you can legally go at the speed of 120, and the roads are also built for it. The highway is a six lane highway. In some places, it is an eight lane highway, and that is really good. My dad managed to keep an average of 100 kmph, which was fun. But as we entered Noida, we started to see the traffic pile up, and then we encountered the big issue.
That was the roads in Noida, not necessarily the traffic, but the roads. Why? Well, because there are two flyovers and service roads, and when Google Maps tells you to make a turn, you always get confused about which service road and which flyover to take. So obviously, as newcomers to Noida, we missed the exit and took the main expressway instead of going into the city, and guess what? We couldn’t take a U turn for another 20 minutes.
We had no other choice, as we also didn’t know these roads, so we followed Google Maps. Then came the place where we could finally take a U turn, so we took it, and we encountered another place just like that, where you had to choose between two flyovers and a service road, and guess what our luck was? We took the expressway again, even though the first time it was wrong. Another 20 minutes was added to our ETA. We continued on that road until we could find a U turn. When we finally took it and got back to the same place where we originally missed the turn, I figured it out, and we were able to go on the correct road. From there, we entered the city of Dadri, and in about 30 minutes, we reached our Airbnb. As soon as we got there, we ordered food on Swiggy. In about 20 minutes, the food arrived. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. We then went to sleep because the wedding we had to attend was at midnight.
We slept until around 6:30, then we got up and got ready. I was going to be wearing a South Indian veshti, or better known as a dhoti. I changed into my clothes and had to take a little bit of help to put it on. It was going to be a little cold, as I was wearing a half sleeve cloth, and outside, especially at midnight, it was cold. So I brought along a cloak so I could cover myself and keep warm, and that worked. We reached by around 8:30. We took a photo, and then we went to the dinner buffet. The spread was great, and the food tasted nice and fresh. Everybody else, however, was too busy dancing. I don’t even know where they got all their energy from, but they were dancing from 8:30 pm all the way until 1 am. I didn’t get bored too much. I took a few photos, and I also had a coffee.
We stayed until about 1:15, and then we left after saying goodbye. It was overall a good experience, but definitely a new experience. We went straight to our room and slept. The next day, we woke up slightly later than usual, around 8:30, because we were tired from the previous day. Then we all got ready, took a shower, and left by around 10:30. We didn’t have anything for breakfast as such. We had brought some bread and some peanut butter, along with jam, so we just put that on some bread and continued to drive. We got on the expressway and drove until Sonipat. There at Sonipat Haveli, we stopped for brunch or lunch. The haveli was great. I had a mixed parantha. The food itself tasted great. I also had an ice cream, or rather a kulfi. It tasted good, but the next day, I got sick, luckily not while on the trip.
Luckily, there was no fog that day, so we were able to drive normally. We kept a good pace and didn’t take any breaks until Ambala. There we took a break at Sagar Ratna. I had a proper filter coffee there. We didn’t have any snacks, just coffee. On the way back, I took many photos. Here are some of them.
And after an hour, we finally reached our home in Panchkula. Thanks for reading this post. That’s all for this week. See you all next week.
