Scrolling down the search results, I discovered another place. Reading the few blogs that mentioned this place, Panchapalli Dam, located in Dharmapuri, seemed to be the perfect destination for me.
The planning and calculations were made, and I started from my place at 5 AM, planning to reach the dam by 7. The roads were surprisingly empty - maybe because of the Sankranthi weekend - and I reached Attibele junction in no time. I turned right on the road that would take me to Denkanikottai, and from there I'd follow the Denkanikottai-Palakadu road. It seemed that I would reach the dam much before the sunrise time of 6:45 AM.
But a surprise was waiting for me. As soon as I crossed the TVS factory, fog started to build up suddenly. In 10 minutes, visibility came down to a couple of meters. Luckily, the road seemed to be good, broken only in few places that I could make out in time. The only bother was the headlights of the trucks coming from the opposite direction.
But that was just the beginning. A couple of kilometres passed, and the fog engulfed us. The headlights could not pierce even a couple of feet ahead. Speed came down to the 30s. I switched to the high beam once to see if that would help, but the road completely vanished! That was a magical experience - I felt like floating amongst the clouds! I switched to low beams again, but the only things faintly visible were the road markings. The thought of waiting out the fog, or even turning back, came to me once. But I didn't come so far to miss the sunrise, I convinced myself.
After covering most of the remaining distance at slow speeds, finally the fog started to lift. But it was 7 already, I could see the sun peeping from behind the trees. In few more minutes, I entered forest limits.
Suddenly, I spotted water. The dam would be a couple of kilometres from here, but the scenery looked tempting. I parked my bike on the side of the road, and got down.
The view from the road was mesmerizing! On my left was this huge expanse of water, glittering in the morning sunshine. Dark hills rose behind it, and the light breeze blew fog and clouds across their tops. The sun shone faintly - it looked more like the moon. Few birds could be seen flying across the lake. It was very quiet - the only sounds that broke the silence were the calls of few birds, and the howl of wild dogs (probably). There were very few vehicles, and I sat on the roadside just taking in the peaceful surroundings. It felt unreal that such a serene place could exist within 100kms of the city, and so few people knew about it!
In 20 minutes, the fog started to get denser again. The sun disappeared. The lake vanished too!
