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Friday 30 September 2011

Day 60: Friday 30th September 2011. A Forest Novi Hen to Semchinovo


When morning comes around it's light and cold again, a disadvantage of being hidden by the trees. Wearing every item of clothing I have except my trunks and cycling shorts I make breakfast with my legs poking out the bottom of the sleeping bag. For a change I put some music on and wait for the coffee and food to work its magic. As the sun peeps over the top of the trees I feel able to remove the sleeping bag and spend the next hour writing up the blog and gradually defrosting. It's not that the temperature ever gets that low, just that my sleeping bag is the equivalent of sleeping under a newspaper. I head off out of the forest back the way I came and back onto the road.
Ten km later I find out why Bulgaria has a reputation bandied about by people who have experinced its roads as the worst roads in Europe. Your writer finds no reason to disagree with this. Some countries have dirt tracks and a dirt track should be viewed as such. I don't think they can be compared to a road. Bulgaria however, seems to have a knack of taking a macadamised road and then digging parts of it up and leaving it like that. I think the thought process behind this is two fold. A pothole will form and get deeper and deeper then larger and larger. By scraping off a few levels of tarmac to about the width and length of a lorry it turns a small annoying pothole into a sort of kerb which you can go down and then come back up again a bit later. You could of course also argue that they dig the road up to make you go on the new motorway that you have to pay for. This 10km stretch of road, although fine for bicycling because you can find a strip of road most of the time, is by far the worst road I have ever seen or been on. Therefore making the road outside of my house the 2nd worst. Are you listening Mike Penning, MP for my constituency and also Roads Minister!!!!!!!!!! A letter is on its way.
The roads are also noticed by Stevens, and if I look carefully in some of the deeper holes, which reveal 6 or 7 previous layers of road before it, I'm sure I can see his wheel tracks in there from 1885. At Ihitiman I have what could be considered my most unpleasant experience yet. Two gypsy kids aged about 13 consistantly badger me for about five minutes about the bike, the shop keeper comes out and shoos them off. Yes this is the worst experience I have had so far. I'm either lucky or the rumours you hear about these parts are grossly exaggerated.  I know what I think. Out of Ihtiman the road gets better as I edge ever closer to Pazardzhik. It's too big a place for me to try and camp near so I start going about camping spot hunting duties. I find a little shelf of grass just off the road and overlooking the plains towards the hills. It's perfect; near the road but out of sight. Living on a main road myself the traffic doesn't worry me too much. Trouble is I have neither water nor beer. One or the other is just about bearable but not both. I head off East and come across a overpriced bar come club and although not much in £'s I decide it doesn't need my money and carry on. I see a village perched up towards the Balkans with an even better view than I had before and climb the 2km of 5% hill towards it. As I get closer various loads of horse and carts filled with gypsies pass me by. It looks like they have a little enclave here attatched to the village. I keep going into the main part of town and find a neat square with a couple of bars around it. I bounce up the kerb and cycle straight across the square to much pointing waving and staring from the outside tables occupied by the men drinking at them. The hill has worn me out a bit and I've got a sweat and a pant on. I motion to the nearest table that I'm out of breath and they laugh. I ask if I can get a beer here and before I've sat down, an old boy has jumped up and gone and got me one. He wont except any money or a round in return and says in German/Bulgarian that this is Bulgaria not London. I ask if this is a pub to which one of the other two guys drinking at the table makes an imaginary twirl of his imaginary moustache. I find this most intriguing, what he is trying to say is that this is an old mans club, not really a pub, but I am most welcome. I'm then offered what I think is a chicken leg, being told its homemade. It's pieces of pork mashed up with spices and breadcrumbs but cold. It's delicious. I ask what it's called and this causes quite a stir. Eventually the owner of said food just says “schwine” I ask about camping and they decide it will be alright to camp up on the green behind us. But it's better to wait until everybody has left the club, which wont be long. I do this and set up tent in the now half light. What I hadn't realised, sat with the old gents was that music was playing from behind the building. It transpires at Midnight that there must be some sort of club behind there. When this finishes another load of music starts up somewhere else continuosly until about 5am, then dogs bark until it's light. I get no sleep whatsoever. I also don't get my view in the morning.




Thursday 29 September 2011

Day 59: Thursday 29th September 2011. A Field to A Forest, BULGARIA

As I watch the sun come up far across the plain and behind the hills, I realise it's still bloody cold as I've got all my clothes on still. Whilst packing up a few tractors come past and wave and then a bus full of people all happy to see something new on their way to work. I pop into the petrol station I visited the night before and fill up with water. It's the same woman, still on her own. Destination today Bulgaristan's capital: Sofia. With 15km to go I stop off at yet another petrol station and get myself the best map they have. I also garner a few words of Bulgarian off the cashier. My world phrasebook I downloaded does not see fit to have Bulgarian and I feel very rude/lost without at least a few words. Merci is thank you so at least I can remember that. As I reach the outskirts of Sofia I see a hill of rubbish and perched on top some shacks made out of waste material. This time the gypsy camp is much bigger than those I have seen in Serbia and a few of its occupants are sitting around chatting at the entrance. In a Stevens style I have notice that the Gypsy woman has a tendency to wear her cleavage to its maximum unveiling, sometimes I'm sure even more than maximum. Whilst this could be seen to be part of the uniform requirements for certain occupations, this level of chest exposure can be seen in the streets and around camp on a regular basis. As poor off as the poor Gypsy folk are I find it difficult to believe that the elastic has gone in ALL of their tops! I am most surprised when I arrive in Sofia central as in the space of less than 60km I have gone from gathering water out of a well from a hole in the ground with a plastic bottle to being sat in a modern city. The street I have chosen to rest on is a tram way and closed to cars, making it a favourite cafe hangout. Whilst I jump on some free wifi on a bench and eat some bread and cheese I suddenly feel very aware of how civilised and glamorous everybody is and I feel quite out of place. I have a mooch around the sights and nearly get roped into appearing on Bulgarian TV. Four or five large outside broadcast vans are parked in a square all adorned with the face of the presenter. He is sat at a chat show style bench being filmed. The crew see my cycle past with my headcam on and beckon me over. Any other time I would have jumped at the chance but other urgent matters need to be attended to a la urban trowel. Later on I stop at a small cafe for some food. I order what I think to be a sweet pastry of some sort but it turns out to be a savory goats cheese and spinach kind of affair, dripping in oil, delicious. In for a penny, in for a pound I see three different drink bottles of the same liquid on the counter and get a small one, having no idea what it is. How can I describe this drink called Basu. Ummm. Cold, Milky, Yoghurty a bit like cold tea yoghurt, with a hint of meat and plants??
I ask the lady if it's Yoghurt. She replies naturlich, meaning its natural rather than of course. It makes me feel a bit queezy. I cant finish it, try as I might. This Bulgarian delight will have to be passed on on this trip. I decide to take the motorway out of Sofia towards my next destination. Just as the road out of town turns into three lanes of motorway proper a string of bars appear on the side of the road, just so you can have a quick pint to get you in the mood for some serious driving. A police car is staioned at one of the bars with 2 cops sat leaning on the car. They wave as I pass, presumably bicycles are not a problem on the motorway here. The hard shoulder is nice and wide and free of too much debris so it actually makes for quite a nice ride. What happens next is probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Typically I don't have the camera on and my mouth is left planted on the floor for the longest time since open mouthed records of disbelief began. A full size truck goes past on the inside lane doing approx 60mph/100kmh less than 2 feet behind it is a road cyclist in its slipstream. Every few seconds he pedals like crazy to stay locked in behind the truck. My mouth is planted on the tarmac as he disappears into the distance. I have seen this done on the tour de france with the team cars, but this is behind a lorry so he can't see anything except the back of the damn thing.
Then to bring me down to earth I see a small puppy in the grass at the side of the motorway. As I get nearer he tries to bark at me, but he's so tiny and timid it makes for a very pitiful sight. I stop and have a look at the little fella and he's all skin and bones. I pull off the hard shoulder and get out some bread and give it to him. He devours it, clearly very hungry. I give him half a loaf and all my cooked sausage. I'm really tempted to pick him up and put him in my pannier and take him with me, he would at least keep me warm at night. I guess the little chap wont last long living on the side of the motorway, but hopefully he can at least have a good feed in the mean time.
Twenty km later I pull off the motorway feeling I'm missing out on real life going on in the villages and follow an unmarked road towards some houses off in the distance. Straight away I come to a tap with a woman of at least a hundred years old filling up some water bottles. She acknowledges me but that's it. She clearly has no time for fancy pants cyclists and their foreign ways. After filling up I ask three lads the way to my next place on the map and they point me back to the motorway. I say I want to keep off it and point to the road running parallel with it. They laugh and shrug their shoulders. The road takes me through a forest for quite a while and I decide to disappear up a track and make camp there. Another cold night looms and I decide that trees will keep me warmer?

Wednesday 28 September 2011

Day 58: Wednesday 28th September 2011. Dimitrovgrad to A Field past Dragoman., BULGARIA. Pocket Shower.


The night before has not been kind to me and I reach for the Nurofen for only the second time on the adventure, the other time too was for similar purposes. It's still cold but light outside. I look at the time and find it's 10:30. I crawl outside and the sunshine breathes new life into me. I shake an apple off the tree for breakfast and lay down on my matress on my silver foil blanket basking in the sun like a cat. During my sunbathing session, the first since I've been away really, if you don't count drying off after a swim, various people and animals use the garden as a thoroughfare. They all give me a cheery hello or handshake as they pass the half white Engleski half dead on the floor. Dian appears from nowhere, he has been to Sofia this morning to sort out his residency. He says he will be back later with some friends. It's been a while since I have had a proper wash, Belgrade to be precise, and the sun bathing, cycling, hangover and lack of a shower do not make very good bedfellows. I make the most of having access to a tap and try out one of the only things I brought with me that I haven't used yet: my pocket shower. It's a black waterproof bag with a tap come shower attachment on the bottom with some thin rope attatched. Fill it with water, let it warm in the sun hang it up and you have seven minutes of shower. I do all this and change into my trunks so as not scare any through walkers too much and have a well deserved wash. Drying off in the sun I feel alive again, and slowly pack up. I wait until 13:30 for Dian, in the mean time I'm entertained by a gang of 8 year olds who have come to the garden to get apples from the tree. They shimmy up, shake a branch and the others catch. They have high standards though and discard everything that comes down. No sign of D Man and I enquire at both sets of shops, but my pronouciation of his name isn't good enough and they think I'm a jibbering idiot. I head off for the border. It's pretty dead and I sail through, even with my bottle of schnapps that Dian has somehow secreted on my person. Bulgaristan is not very inviting as far looks go in this part of the world but a whole coach load of Bulgaristanis wave at me as I go through the border. 10kms up the road I stop at a super retro roadside cafe and have the worst cup of coffee in a very long time. The clocks have gone forward an hour as I cross the border and the sun does not set until 7.30pm, but it starts to get a bit chilly at 6ish so I stop at petrol station and fill up with water. A track leads into a field over the road and I head down it. Making sure to pitch the tent in direct view of the sun in the morning, the reasoning being that it will dry out and warm up quicker. The view is beautiful looking across the plain towards the mountains. It's also bloody freezing and this time I make a concious effort to wear my clothes in the most effective way to stay warm. I also put my blanket under my matress and up over the sides. In my summer sleeping bag with a massive hole in I feel like a hotdog in a bun. I know I know a sausage in a bun. You know what I mean. Hotdog style yeah. Still freezing cold though. I made the decision when leaving that I could manage with my summer sleeping bag rather than my warm one. This would save room and weight. I dont think I appreciated how good my thermal underwear is though, which I did not bring. Brrrrrrr. Good stars though.


Tuesday 27 September 2011

Day 57: Tuesday 27th September 2011. Pirot to Zatibrod, Trouble at the Bulgarian border.


The bodge on the tent has not aided the morning wakeup. The inside of the tent is dripping and the pole is protruding through the canvas, or whatever crazy hitech stuff they use on tents these days. Apart from the gentle sound of the Serbian orthodox top 100 Iv'e hardly heard another sound all night which is a first. My relative seclusion on the edge of town makes for a peaceful, slow packing and then I venture into the delights of Pirot in the daylight. I spend the remainder of my Serbian dinars on a coffee but the owner refuses to take the coins, but insists I have a large one anyway. I sit here a while genereally taking in the scene agog at the damage the falling conkers are doing to a car parked underneath a tree. One coffee is not enough and like a junkie I go looking for a cashpoint to get just one more hit. Fate decrees I leave town cold turkey as the ATM spits out my card, it not likee. Pirot is interesting,but not enough to contain me. I have a squizz at the fort on the way out and had there not been a large gathering of yute I would have liked to camp in it. Dimitrovgrad or some close spelling is the last Serbian town mentioned in the book and the last before heading into what the Turks like to call Bulgaristan. It's hard work on the autoput and the head wind and lorries battle against me to see who will be first to make me give up. I seek shelter from both and the sun in a small square shelter with a tiled roof, open sides and three benches set inside it. A traveller's rest if ever I saw one. There is a hole in the ground finished square with cement and a plastic bottle tied to one of the supports with a pice of shrink wrap doubling as a rope. The hole is a well. The bottle has been cut through at the top but left attatched by about an inch of plastic to give the rope something to tie on to. I deliver the bottle into the watery depths and pull up sparkling clear cold water. I have a well deserved wash and sit down for some lunch. Whilst getting out my tuck various thoughts go through my head about leaving heavy things here for others to collect when they come by. As if Derren Brown has worked his magic on me, I look into one corner and find a pile of money. I check it aginst the coins left in my purse and come to the conclusion it's not Serbian or Hungarian, therefore it must be Bulgarian. I consider this for a while. Has someone left it here? If so when and would they come back? Has it been left on purpose after crossing from Bulgaristan and the owner has thought exactly the same as me and just lightened the load? In amongst the cash is a Bulgarian Mcdonalds receipt. I decide the money was meant for one such as I and in return at this good fortune I leave a small bottle of homemade whiskey I have aquired on the way and have no need to drink as I keep getting supplied at every available opportunity. I leave a note explaining what it is and the date I left it just in case it is discarded as water or night time tent juice.
Just off the road at Dimtrovgrad I stop at a small shop to spend my last 17 dinars hoping it will be enough for a small pot of yoghurt. I'm one dinar short but the woman waves this away as a matter of course. Outside the shop two burly women are chopping wood. Autumn has sprung and with it all through Serbia I have seen a frenzied need to chop as much wood as possible by all and sundry, age and sex make no difference for this job. Small children with axes bigger than them and old ladies with axes heavier than them, all chopping away getting in the supplies before winter. The outsides of peoples plots are brimming with woodpiles, either cut to shape or big piles of logs freshly delivered or brought down from the forest. I wave at the burly woman and take a few snaps for which they are more than happy to pose. When I walk back to the bike a voice shouts out from behind a fence, come in here. Naturally I go. Two lads are sat round a table drinking beer. It's about 3.30pm. One of the lads; Sasha, has cut his leg open recently with a chainsaw. His mate Dian is sitting round with him, shooting the breeze. They ask me if I want a beer, they both speak good English. Naturlich I say. Three more beers arrive out of the shop I've just bought the Yoghurt from. The lads reel off complete sketches from Only Fools and Horses, it's hilarious. I've seen them all Dian says. The complete box set, I love it. An old man walks in, apparently its his yard we are sitting in. The boys and the man have a conversation and although I'm hardly fluent in Serbian, it sounds a bit odd. The lads see me straining to listen and laugh. They are talking Shopski, Shopski is a mix of Serbain, Bulgarian Macedonian and bit of whatever takes your fancy. This being a border town it's the norm. Apparently someone from Belgrade wouldn't be able to understand them. Another beer is suggested and I say no thanks as I have to be on my way and negotiate the border. I'm not quite sure what happened next but I've invented a word for it none the less. I was beernapped. Without a seconds loss of memory I now have a second beer in my hand. We chat about all sorts and have a good laugh. Dian has applied to work on the cruise ships and is off to Sofia tomorrow to try and get a permanent Bulgarian passport. The benefits of belonging to an EU country are enormous. When you see guys like this you can see that coming to work in another country is a big deal, its not a free ride they are looking for, just some work that actually pays them something to do something different to just sitting here drinking beer. Another guy turns up, Bobin. Another round of beers are produced without them even asking if I'd like one. How rude! I realise the way this is going and give in for the time being but have to explain I have no Serbian money but I do have a pile of what I think is Bulgarian cash. We count it out and they discard some of the coins explaining they are no longer valid. It's worth about 4 euros. Dian who is definitely the ring leader in this beernapping says I can get a room up the road for 6 euros. I mull this over and then offer to get the next round if they take Bulgarian levs. They do but they won't hear of it. By about the 10th beer we all head off to Bobin's house and have a bbq and another case of beer is bought. I'm truly treated as one of them. Big long sausages, bread and homemade iver and pepper sauce are the order of the day. Earlier the lads had shown me “the machine” the place they distill the homemade whiskey. A bottle of this apppears and fortunately I'm not the only one to refuse but a small one goes down just to be polite. Again Dian is the supplier. Bobin's girlfriend arrives and speaks fantastic English as if she has lived there for years. Amazingly I am the first English person she has ever spoken to. Brass Band music comes on and I show my appreciation for the art. Night has well and truly descended and it's freezing, everyone is wearing big coats and I'm running out of clothes and worrying about what the night has in store for me. I had already put the tent up in Bobins garden but when it's time to go to bed around midnight I'm ushered into the potato shed being told it will be much warmer. It is indeed warmer than outside and I gratefully accept the offer. Bobin is most apologetic he doesn't have room in the house but he is renting out to a few lads. I tell him that I've been treated like a prince and am very happy with the spud garage. At somepoint in the night I go take a leak and this time I'm positive I see the bull constellation in all its glory.


Monday 26 September 2011

Day 56: Monday 26th September 2011. Movorac to Kunovica. Heavy Hospitality.


No water is the first thing I realise this morning so I have my breakfast which is getting tastier by the day. Oats, Yoghurt, Banana and fruits of the day all soaked in tonnes of med (honey). Perhaps I may have misunderstood the meaning of med on the 40 or so stalls selling honey in Nova Sad. I head over the road to see if anybody is about to get some water to wash my dirty dishes and get the bottles full for the morning. I find the owner in the driveway of his garage bent over a stove cooking red peppers. He comes over and lets me in through the front gate. Water no problem, he says in English. I ask him what he is doing with the peppers. He is preparing them to make "Ajvar". Burn the peppers on the stove and then peel off the skins and clean the pips and pith and mash up and probably add some magic ingredients and bottle it. He asks if I would like a tea. I have just had my first coffee on my new coffee pot but tea sounds great. His wife comes out to say hello. Nina is a retired architect and Dani (short for Slobodan) is a retired structural engineer. They moved out here about 10 years ago and now run a small farm. They are both lovely and before long a tray arrives with a cup of serbian mountain tea and a pot of honey. The honey is produced on the farm and tastes and looks different to the honey I bought a week or so ago. It may be even nicer. I try some off the spoon and then add some to my tea, delightful. No sooner have I started on my tea then a gift of homemade damson jam is presented to me. It's a big pot and weighs a tonne. Then we talk about my book and how Stevens went to the Hofbrauhaus in Munchen and Dani decides this is the perfect opportunity to break out some of the 2008 home made raki. It has labels on it with its name and year, very professional. No point arguing so I sip slowly on the fire water. Mental note, don't mention alcohol in any way, shape or form at breakfast or lunchtime. I mention that I like the honey and how it is different to the other stuff I have and Nina zips off into the house and retuns with a pot to add to my collection, and about half a hundred weight of damsons and a pack of mountain tea! Fearing what might appear next I keep my mouth well and truly closed until I'm invited to have breakfast with them. This of course I can't refuse and very soon a plate of eggs, chorizo type sausage and bread, tomatoes, hams, salami and cheeses fills the table. Everyone tucks in and it doesn't take long to realise the lion's share is aimed at me. Maddy claims to have a pudding stomach, which is why she can find room for a pudding even if she can't eat all that is before it. I believe I have grown a hospitality stomach, as I can now regualarly eat two meals straight after each other. I know if I start to rely on hospitality it will not be forthcoming, but if I make myself a breakfast or a coffee, I'll probably end up getting offered it 5 minutes later. Whilst a hungry cyclist on a budget can always use the extra food, it's the genuine warmth that you feel when being fed or watered that makes it rude and hard to refuse. Dani 's English doesn't quite allow him to say something to me and we both come up with the idea of google translate at the same time. He whips inside and gets the laptop out and off we go. When I was riding up the road last night I was definitely not expecting to find a house with a laptop and broadband. But out here the internet comes in via the satellite TV dish, so can be had anywhere. When I leave them and pack up its about 1.30 and the next 5km I've been warned is quite steep. Unfortunately this is true and I climb at a gradient of between 8 and 10% for the next 5km. I am at least rewarded with stunning views and a gentle descent for the next 10km or so. I then join the main route to Istanbul and trucks aplenty are twoing and fro-ing between Europe and Turkey. There is not much of a hard shoulder and the trucks go by pretty close and at quite a speed. It's a bit hair-raising for a while but hanging on for dear life and a general attitude of gay abandon seems to help. My goal is to visit Bela Palanka and then get as close to Pirot tonight. Stevens does Bela Pelanka no favours with his review after staying over night because of bad rain, unfortunately it doesn't do much for me either. A one road town, a bus station with miserable looking people constantly looking at their watches does nothing to change it's review from 130 years ago. I stop and eat some lunch at the Bus Station and find an internet cafe. This is the first time I've used one on the trip, but I have to make sure my plane date is changed with enough notice so have no choice but to spend the 25p for half an hour. Although this isn't a tourist town, the cafe still has that seedy air to it that I think all internet cafes posess. I don't like them, and even if they were free I would still probably choose a McD intstead! I have now changed my flight date to 10th October. This decision was made in Belgrade but I've only just got round to changing it with OrangeJet. This has really taken the pressure off and is probably the reason why I have had such a good time in Serbia. I leave Bela Pelanka happy that the flight has been changed and I feel very relaxed and positive. Although I don't want to reach Pirot tonight I have no choice as I have no cash nor what I think is enough food for dinner. So when I reach there in the dark it's a bit annoying. I find a supermarket and get some grub. I then go back looking for a camp spot and bump into an old man on a bike who shakes me warmly by the hand and I ask his advice. He points to the wood and shakes his head and says nicht to my suggestion of down by the river. I investigate the road up to the woods but its too much hassle in the dark. I've played this game before. No thank you. I head for the river. There is a small dyke running the length of it. A factory and industrial units lay on the other side of the stream, rather than river and a few small farmsteads back onto it my side. Still in the light of the street I just pick a spot and start to set up camp. As I descend the dyke all of 2 metres the temperature plummits. On the good side I appear to have chosen a field of mint to camp in and a lovely smell comes up at me every time I move about in it, on the bad side I somehow manage to snap a tent pole. My brain is telling me the quick solution to this problem is to mend it properly. My body wants to eat and go to bed so I do a bodge job, eat less than what I would have eaten if I hadn't come to town and climb inside the broken tent. Music is playing in one of the units on the other side of the stream. Not loud, quite soothing. Some kind of classical Serbian orthodox. If there is such a thing. It sounds quite serious but it's nice in the background. Strangely the dog barking is hardly noticeable tonight. Another day nearer my destination, another night in tent land. I've gone to sleep quite early and I wake up shivering about midnight. I put some extra clothes on half asleep and curl up in a ball. At 3am I wake again freezing, it's easily the coldest night of the trip so far. I'm hungry and decide to start on the Nob Lice, just one I tell myself and before long I've consumed the whole box. Nob Lice for the uninitiated is a brand of chocolate biscuit, I had to buy it with a name like that:)



Sunday 25 September 2011

Day 55 pt 2: Movarac to Kunovica, SERBIA. Tower of Skulls!!!


….The road to Nis is that way says Mika. Within 3km I'm lost again. I had a choice of thee roads a while back: left, definitely wrong, straight on, the cryllic signpost had three letters so probably was Nis pointed this way but the road looked like a dead end or turn right on the big road. This is where I am now, asking a guy in a super customised Yugo car directions. It was the dead end after all. Back on track on very bumpy road the mountains start to come into view ahead. It must be 28/30 degrees today and I decide to stop off in the shade and have some lunch before tackling Nis. Sometimes cities are kind to cyclists, sometimes they are a pain in the arse. With clothes hanging off all corners of the bike drying in the sun I start to enter the city of Nis. Before reaching the centre I see various signs pointing the way to the fortress, the monastry and most interesting of all “skull tower”. If I had seen this sign in England I would have imagined it to be something to do with Pirates of the Caribbean but here I'm not so sure. I pull off to visit the market in search of figs, but 100 plus stalls selling local produce have either no fig trees on the farm or sold them all this morning because they are hard to come by. Seeing the effort the locals go to to produce harvest and to my eyes the hardest part, sell their produce for such a cheap price I can perhaps see why the thought of selling your crops to a supermarket for a ridiculously low price, but without the faff might be appealing. Supermarkets like those at home and in countries from France to Hugary are very few and far between in the Serbia. From my point of view buying fruit and vegetables as you need it from outside someone's house or the market is the only way to go. It's interestng to compare the prices when I do have to visit a supermarket in Pirot later because of having no cash, that the cost is about three times what the small farmers sell for. Shame it's not like that at home. I would gladly cycle to a local farm if the price was any cheaper. It really opens your eyes on the route I have taken and the countries I have visited to how packed with people, shops, roads and money our little island is.
Whilst visiting the grounds of the Fortess I read up on my Thomas Stevens about the city of Pirot. Visited and figs totalling zero I head out of town towards Bela Pelanka: my next stop. I must have been falling asleep through this chapter because he mentions the tower of skulls. An imposing monument built by the Turks after defeating the Serbs, the tower originally stood twenty feet high with four rough mortar walls with the skulls of the defeated stuck into the mortar, 952 in all. Reading the book Stevens remarks that most of the skulls have been removed but it is still a very imposing sight to greet you from the roadside. The imprints from the skulls being pressed into the wet mortar still remain clearly visible. Obviuosly I have to see what remains for myself, not expecting much I follow the signs to a small ticket booth. 120 dinar/£1.20 buys me a ticket. This gets me my own guide who has the key. I'm most intrigued. She tells me the story in English and I tell her mine as we approach she point to a chapel which now contains what remains of the tower. This was built 7 years after Stevens came through so he may not have known of it if had he been a decade later. Probably for suspense (which works by the way) my guide continues the story but with the key in the door but not turning it. I'm dying to get in, but the facts keep coming. Then she opens the door to the chapel and before me, the lower half behind glass, is a rough built wall and amazingly still some skulls remain embedded in it. As I'm the only person there it's extra powerful, each side of the tower still has skulls embedded in it and its enough to imagine what 900 of the poor buggers must have been like. The guide points out a single skull in a glass case, which is believed to belong to Sinđelić the Serb leader. She then points out a few other skuls that have bullet holes in, entry and exit and one that has been cleaved with a sword or axe. WOW! Super scary, super powerful, amazing story, all to myself, personal guide, £1.20. Outside on the road a cyclist stops to chat, he is from Slovenia but lives here with his wife. He is going in my direction and we ride together. He tells me the other road is far too dangerous with too many big trucks. We chat about a foreigners view on Serbia, he still goes to work in Slovenia because it pays better. He also agrees with my viewpoint on Serbian driving: bicycles just don't seem too exists. They might as well be dogs. As we part he gives me a banana, apologising that it is all he can give me. I take the road into the foot of the mountains and start to look for a camp. I see a man in a farm and ask for water. There is something interesting about this man, his clothes are what you would expect someone to wear on a farm: a bit dirty, a few holes but his general appearance is rather glamorous. You could imagine him changing into a tuxedo round the back and not think he had been working the soil 5 minutes previously. He lets me pump myself some water and I ask if I can camp there. He says its not up to him as he is just looking after it for someone. I thank him for the voda and off I go. A little further up the road, which is mountains to both sides now and not many properties, I find another house with some people outside. The garden does not have much grass in it so I just ask if I can camp in the field opposite. I disturb the owner who is having his haircut and the hairdresser translates for me and they say fine no problem. This is the perfect solution: say hello, permission from the owner and the chance to get up early and get off. It's a great little spot looking back down the valley and after eating my pasta dinner I sit in my blow up chair looking at the stars for what seems hours. I'm not very up on my astronomy and only ever seem to be able to see the saucepan. Tonight it must be in the dishwasher as I cant find it but I do see the bull, although it could equally be a chicken or perhaps a frog?

Saturday 24 September 2011

Day 54 pt 2 Day 55 pt 1: Sat/Sun 24th 25th September 2011 The Day I met Mika


...Then an old man walks in, he's tall, sports a fantastic moustache, he's wearing a jacket that looks a bit big on him, dust covered black trousers and a baseball cap. The owner tells him my story and he starts talking back to me in French. He explains he can talk Yugoslavian, Macedonian, French, Italian, German, Polish and a host of other languages I don't recognise. His only English phrase is “ Very Good, Very Very Good”. He starts to tell me the best way to my next destination. He catches me admiring a Zevesteva 750 car over the road. My new favourite Yugoslavian car. A bit like an old Fiat 500 but a bit bigger. This particular one has racing stripes painted on it and some numbers just to complete the racing look. It's seen better days but it still makes me smile. It just so happens to be the old man's. I ask him how much he wants for it. £150 he says. A Yugoslavian souvenir. The keys are in the ignition and he turns it over. Yugoslavian he says, very very good. It does sound ok actually. The numbers on the car are something to do with an aeroflot plane that came down but I can't quite make sense of that story. We go back into the shop and I apologise to the owner for taking his hospitality and then disappearing with the old man. The owner explains that the old man is his Father and I then notice the facial resemblance. The old man beckons me outside to talk about more Yugoslavian based hilarity and asks me if I would like to stay for dinner with him and Mika, pointing to the house over the road. Kafe, essen, schlaffen he says, Mika, pointing. Although it's a few hours away from finding camp I accept his offer and we disappear behind a garage into his garden. We climb some roughly finished concrete steps that lead to a platform above a flooded basement. We then have to descend into the garden by means of a rude wooden ladder made out of old pallets. The old man skirts down it like he's younger than me. I soon realise that Mika is his name. He lives here alone and I'm not sure if the wife is somewhere else or dead. I say alone but he does have some companions. Three mongrel dogs: Donna, the eldest and biggest, Bonnie, champion hunting & sniffing dog who will be my personal Policzja for the night and Zsuki the smallest. The garden hums a bit of dogs and cats. I didn't mention the cats did I? Later on, at one of the many feeding times I count 10! Kittens, old ones, young ones, mainly pure white but a ginger tom and a few smokey ones in there for good measure. Both dogs and cats seem to get treated with equal parts of harshness and love. One minute he is doting on them, the next he is clipping them round the ear. We sit down at a table outside and drink our beers and he disappears into a garage and returns with a briefcase. From the briefcase he produces various colour photos of him with some “glamourous” Yugoslavian lady or gent. Some of them are former Miss Yugoslavias, some of them singers, TV celebritys etc. He looks a lot younger, but still with grey hair. He says he's 39 in one, but I think he looks older. He certainly looks quite the Lothario though. Always with a brown leather briefcase in his hand and the celebrity usually looks more like the person who wants to be photographed, he just acts cool in all of them. Mika explains he was a TV producer when times were good back in the former Yugoslavian days. Some of the photos of the woman are verging on porn. There is just too much showing! I'm guessing this is 80s/90s period. He then goes on to show me his business cards and his metal stamp that used to accomapany his invoices. Then he gets out various flyers and ticket stubs of concerts and events he put on. Obviously for me and my background this is fascinating. He says he is retired now, but still helps out with the odd thing if it comes along. He has two mobile phones which he immediatley gives me the numbers to. Also rather hilariously he gives me his landline number, which in Serbian is called the Fiksu (Fixsee). Then he shows me some flyers and something to do with him and the church. Perhaps he arranged events at the church. He beckons me inside the garage to look at something on the wall and I see that this is actually his house. He has a single bed in the corner, a small wardrobe without many clothes, from which he offers me a suit jacket to keep warm at night, and a cooker, a fridge and a TV. The other room in the building houses a rude toilet made of concrete (not porcelain) and a large collection of cardborad boxes. Outside in the garden there are a few rotting apple trees, a pump where he pumps his water and an old Mercedes open back truck full of rubbsh with two of its what! That is if his way of life is anything to go by. Who knows, he could be loaded and choose to live like this. Either way, he seems very happy. Inside his room the cat and dog smell is quite overwhelming and when he suggests I sleep on a camp bed in here with him, I kindly decline and say I will be quite alright in my tent in the garden. My adventure level clearly has a long way to go. After a few more beers and crisps supplied by Mika making regular visits over the road to his son's shop, skirting up the ladder and holding onto a fence - which I fear will give way any minute - to help him up. It starts to get dark and some ingenious light bulb repairs are carried out by the old man. Although I can't know the full story as to why the son has a thrieving builders merchant and corner shop business over the road and his dad lives like this, I suspect that Mika thinks anything fancy is not worth it. I come to this conclusion after the story of the fridge. He has a fridge in his room but another outside. On top of said fridge are two cardboardboxes joined together with a small hole in them, with some bits of wood on top to hold the box down in the wind. The fridge broke, it turns out, and his son said he should just throw it away. Mika said rubbish it's got another 30 years in it yet and said he would repair it and get it working. He bet his son 200 euros he could do it. The bet was made and you guessed it, he got it working. I dont know if Beka, his son honoured the bet, but the fridge now works, not very well and that is why he uses it for the cats' and dogs' food. But most important are the boxes on top. When it gets dark he picks up all the kittens by the scruff of the neck and plops them in the box. The fridge gives off a bit of heat so it keeps the kittens warm at night. I hope you're smiling, I am. (I'm writing this sat in a field half way up a mountain and for the first time in nearly two months I have not heard a dog bark in over 8 hours...err where was I?) Oh Yeah...so the kittens go in in one box, the cats in another Bonnie gets put on a chain and pole outside my tent and Donna and Zsuki put in the toilet room behind a pallet. This in case bandits try to sneak in in the night and tempt the dogs with pieces of meat to keep them quiet. From inside the little room the dogs will sniff and hear the intruders first before they get in and wake Mika up if he has fallen asleep. He does not go to sleep when I do though. Every night he stays up hidden behind the garage until 4'oclock in the morning. He has a loaded gun, to which he shows me a bullet that he produces from his jacket pocket. His son's builders merchant has been raided by bandits, (Serbian mafia he reckons) and so now he keeps guard. When I ask him if he has had to shoot anybody he says just in the leg and then he calls the Police. So here I am taking in these incredible tales from this utterly compelling old man wondering quite what to maker of it all, I'm just about to go to bed and a voice calls out from the top of the ladder and Mika goes over to him in the dark. Then in English the voice says come here. I go over and try not to shine my head torch in the guys face. I meet Mika's grandson. He is 20 and off out clubbing tonight and invites me along. I decide, however, that this is probably not a good idea as I'm falling asleep already. Jovan the grandson then asks me if I'm hungry. Unfortunately I am as the promised dinner of crisps and bread has left my cycling person with room for more. He goes off and picks us up a Serbian burger of some description from a shop and delivers it back. When I ask him about grandad sitting out here with a gun, he replies oh yeah, every night. We were robbed. He asks If I'll be around in the morning to have breakfast with and says he will be back around 10. I say I shall try to stay. I wish Mika good night and thank him for all his hospitality and disappear into my tent, not quite able to comprehend all the stuff whirring around in my head. I hardly notice the rancid smell of cat piss.
I rustle around in my tent when I wake up, delibrately trying to sleep in so I can catch Jovan in the morning. He speaks good English so it would be nice to ask some more questions. From outside the tent comes a voice. Mein Feund. Meine Freund, I reply, very very good, and pop my head out of the tent see a cat half suspend from each of Mika's hands. Kafe? He asks, Ja Ja Zehr Gut, I reply. He beckons me into his room which is toasty warm, which is nice as the temperature outside is remarkably chilly. He closes the garage door and gets the coffee on. The TV is on the news channel and Mika gives an account of each politican that appears; Mafia, Money Money rubbing his hands, or good man, very good man. The weather forcast is for 25-28 degrees all over the Serbia to which he points and says sonny in a German twang. In front of the 2 bar fire keeping the us warm lay 5 big cats and a kittern hides behind it as it doesn't seem high enough up the pecking order to get a place in front. Another sits in an old jumper on top of the wardrobe. Coffee is Turkish style which I have now got used to. I have decided that my quality Italian mocha pot is now too small for my caffeine addiction and must try to find myself a long handled coffee saucepan on my travels. As I am a fairly recent convert to coffee I was interested to see how he made it. The water goes on the boil in a small long handled high saucepan, then when the water boils he takes it off the heat and adds a big spoon full of coffee. Then the pan goes on the heat again and when it's come to the boil he almost instantly takes it off, done. He then spoons out half of the froth from the top into each of our cups and pours the coffee in. I add an absurd amount of sugar to mine and 10 minutes later I feel high as a kite. It's the perfect solution to packing up the tent, and it takes the edge off the rancid piss smell outside. I likewise “pisch” in the corner of the garden as instructed, as the dogs are still in the toilet room, and all is well. Mika appaers as if by magic, shimmying down the ladder with four loaves of bread. One is for breakfast to go with the hot dogs and tomato ketchup, which happens to be a little guilty pleasure of mine back home, so I'm most delighted with this. Another loaf is for me to take with me for lunch along with a tin of sardines and ¾ of a big bottle of lemonade that we didn't finish earlier.
Although it looks like he lives in quite squalid conditions I have no problem accepting his offerings as he just goes over to the shop and gets whatever he wants when he wants.
When I pitched my tent the night before he was worried about the dirty ground or the cold night or both and disappeared into the cab of the old truck, reappearing with a smile under his big tash and a piece of silver backed something or other, I think you put it behind radiators to reflect the heat into the room. We put this on the ground under the tent. In the morning when I m packing up I pick this up and tell him zehr gut zehr gut. This was always going to be a mistake. Off he goes up the ladder and over to the builders merchants and comes back with a big sheet of a similar material only like bubble warp with a silver side. Insulation, he says in German or Serbain, I know what he means anyway. He cuts it to size for the tent and I roll it up with my tent. His son had told me yesterday that when I get to the mountains in Bulgaria it will be a lot colder, so this may well prove to come in very handy indeed. I have packed up as slow as I can but no show from Jovan. Mika has texted him a couple of times and keeps getting the reply of twenty minutes, but we both know what that means from a 20 year old who has been out clubbing the night before. At 11:30 I decide it's time to go and we go and take some photos outside the shop. Some of his friends are outside the shop having a beer or two and try to get me to join them, but I know where that will lead and with mountains ahead I decide to try get in proper shape for the climbs ahead. Sporting a new baseball cap, trousers and shirt today, the amazing crazy old man Mika waves me off telling me to come and stay whenever I want. Moustache twizzled to perfection and a big grin on his face. I hope I've entertained him a fraction of what he has entertained me.

Day 54: Saturday 24th September 2011. Ratare to Movarac SERBIA

My camp is not the most delightful place I've stayed on the trip so I just get up and out pretty sharpish and decide to have breakfast down the road. I don't know if it was the setting amongst derelict barns and houses or the tuna cat food but I had a great sleep and some crazy dreams. A cafe is proving hard to come by and before I know it the sun is beating me into submission after 15km. I stop in a field to have breakfast and decide the small beer I have left over from last night will have to do as a substitute for a coffee. The sun hasn't quite burnt off all the haze surrounding the mountains yet and it makes for a most picturesque breakfast setting. Back on the bike I can still notice the effort required to get up the hills and decide that any amount of faffing about with the stove is worth it for the caffeine fuelled buzz that gets the legs whirring in the morning. Around 11 o'clock I descend into Radnaj and find myself a modern bar with 3 out of 4 wants for the morning. Coffee, Toilet, Power. Again the Kafa Turska is served with a square of Turkish delight and surprisingly is cheaper at 40p than anywhere else I've been so far. Whilst catching up on writing the day's events I hear music out in the square. I go take a look and it being Saturday it has to be a wedding. A Serbian Brass band are giving it some whilst the lovely couple and their guests gyrate outside the registry office. To anybody who was dancing in clubs and fields between 1991 and 1994 the Serbian Brass Band is basically hardcore played on brass instruments, Turbo Folk to some. The Groom particularly is dancing away like he is in a club. I absolutely love it and want one for my own. Another Turkish coffee later and I'm super charged, there really is no substitute for a caffeine crazed ride down the side of a mountain. The view has been quite beautiful all day as I ride into Alexsinatz for lunch. A bit short of cash, I stop at a little shop in search of bread. It's quite normal to ask for just half a loaf and the lady obliges and charges me accordingly. More tomatoes, honey and bread for lunch and after a sit in the shade I head out of what I think is the town, only to find it's quite big when you actually reach it and a cash dispenser is battled with for another 1000 dinars. I catch up on a bit of Thomas Stevens whilst having a coke in the pedestrianised centre with its cafes and market stalls. I've not managed to get very far out of town when a sudden hunger comes over me and so I decide to stop at a small shop for a snack. As I go outside munching on my crisps the owner comes out and asks me where I'm from etc. He is most impressed and offers me a pepsi which I accept. We chat a bit more and we get onto the subject of the cost of cigarettes; between £1 and £2 here for 20 and the cost of beer; usually less than a 80p for a bottle or tin. I tell him I've tried all the beers in the fridge except for one. He gets it out ,whips the top off and before you know it I've got a pepsi and a beer on the go.... tbc

Friday 23 September 2011

Day 53: Friday 23rd September 2011. Orasje to Ratare

An interesting night's sleep with the usual chorus of dogs. I'm sure I can speak their language now. To add to this an extra special cockerel decided that 3am was the time it was going to get up and let everyone know, perhaps he had been on holiday and not changed his watch back?
I decide that 50p for a coffee is well worth it with the petrol stove not being fully trained yet, so set off into town at 8 leaving all my stuff on the farm. This proves to be a wise decision as the town is teaming with people. The gathering seems to be split into 3 lots, people waiting for the bus, people buying stuff on tractors and people standing around the public water taps and the market. This is a small gathering of folks who've come to sell the local produce at crazy cheap prices; 20p tomatoes, 40p peppers, 50p figs. These prices are per kilo, per kilo I tell you! If someone finds a fruit or vegetable that's not top notch the stall owner puts it on a different pile and these are sold at an even cheaper price. I buy up some figs and other bits and head back to the tent to get the laptop to take back to the cafe and write some blog, have a charge and enjoy a Turkish coffee. When I get back to the tent I notice that the UK/European plug adapter has broken. Well that's the final straw. I can't believe I'm going to get one of those anytime soon. The blog will finally come to an end and with it my search for power sockets. Hay Ho, all good lessons in travelling with technology. I go back into the town which consists of a cabin selling newspapers, magazines, cigarettes and beer, a convenience shop, a shop selling tractor bits and farm supplies and unbelievably one more shop, in this tiny village in this part of Serbia... a chinese tat shop. Incredibly it has not one, but two solutions to my adapter problem, costing 100 or 80 dinar. A dinar is approx a UK penny. So my mximum cost is £1. What a ridiculous stroke of luck. That could have taken hours to find in Belgrade, Vienna, Munich or Paris.
So off I go for a fine Turkish coffee which is now starting to be served with a piece of Turkish delight. When I arrive back at the tent Miko the farmer is back from his rounds and his brother has come to visit. He invites me in for another coffee and of course the obligatory schnapps. Being 9.30 this is now late in the day for schanpps and I think nothing of it. Miko's brother is a welder and has to go off and do some work. We chat about his wife being away in Austria for 3 mths and about various things about the trip. I ask him if I can buy some of his honey but he explains that all of his honey goes to the big processing plant I saw yesterday. I wash some clothes in a metal pail outside, pack up and tie the clothes on the back of the bike to dry.
Next stop Jagodina about 50k away.
Charged up with lots of coffee and schnapps I zoom off on pretty much the only road heading South except for the motorway (auto put) which runs parrellel. I try and keep an eye out for a fig tree as I have devoured all the ones I bought at breakfast, but no joy, not in 40km. So when I wheel into Jagodina and stop at a grocers I'm delighted to find they have some and buy up a big load. The road to Jagodina starts to get hillier than has been the case in the last 100km or so. The old legs have to be reminded how to work and I have to stop for lunch in a field and devour what seems to be a favourite lunch of bread and tomateos and bread and honey. A quick nap and then off to Chakademus which is what I have started to call Jagodina. (???) The road to Jagodina is up in the hills, looking down on the town. Various plots of land are being turned into houses and there are still a few that haven't, so get in quick for your chance to get a big, cheap house in Europe. I notice a few German and Swiss cars around here, parked in the driveways. I don't know if it is a good tourist spot or holiday area, but they obviously know something. As I come down the hill and into the town I nearly fall off my bike laughing as a big red sign saying "Hemel" sits outside a company building. I think its a German company, I could be wrong, but it's not a word you see everyday, if in fact ever, outside of Hemel Hempstead where I am from. In Jagodina I sit at a particularly violent fountain that looks like it might spill out of its pool at any second. I check my emails and see that I have forgotten to contact a warmshowers host in the next village about 10km away. I decide to text him when I arrive and see what happens. On the way to his village and another place mentioned in the book; Cuprija, a guy on a bicycle comes along side and we have a chat. He is a bicycle mesenger of sorts and is planning his own tour down to Greece soon. He reckons on completing 250km a day for 2 days to get there. He stays with me for about 5kms past where he was meant to turn off and then heads back. I reach Cuprija at about 5 o'clock, after crossing an iron bridge over the river Morava, whose valley I have been following since Smederevo. I text my warmshowers contact Judo Dave (for that is what I have called him as I can't access his real name), and tell him I'm in town but not to worry if he can't host me as I said I would give him a day's notice. I go in search of beer to present to my host as a gift, just in case, and after a small search up the wrong street I park up outside a diskount alkohol shop. A bit like a cross between an off licence and a Majestic wine warehouse. Since Germany I've seen these places where people buy their beer by the crate, but unlike a wholesaler you can buy just one can or a bottle of something stronger if you want. I'm just about to go in when two guys pull up on bikes I'm more likely to see at home and say hello. "Judo Dave!" I exclaim. "Yes thats me, but Judo is not my real name" :) He is very sorry that he can't host me tonight but it's not because of short notice, it is because he works with the Serbain Mountain Rescue team and he trains new recruits on weekends and has to go off tonight. Tis nice to have met him and have a chat all the same. He and his friends are hoping to cycle to the opening of the Olympics in 2012 so I might see him then.
I head out of Cuprija which seems rather devoid of the colour and menagarie of people that Stevens recalls. Unfortunately his time saw a marked difference in people's outfits; back then they told you where somebody came from. Nowadays it's not so easy. I'm sure the Greek Orthodox priests would still stand out though but none of these appear for my deligfht. 20km down the road to Nis I stop at a small village and look for camp. I ask various people with farms but my signing and Deutsch are not as useful here. People either say no and can't quite believe I've asked or point me to the motel near the auto put. I head out of the village on a different road to that which I came in on, ready to find a field, but I come up to the railway line. It is just a bit too big for my fully loaded bike and I decide to cycle back the way I came, rather than try to haul it over the tracks. As I go back into the village a lady I had said hello to earlier appears. She looks about 50/55 years old and is wearing a very glamourous black dress. She walks bent over with a very pronunced limp. She beckons me to follow her down a track and points to a patch of land out of the way where a derlict housae can be seen. She points around the corner and says you can camp there, no one lives there. So I do. I prepare a pasta dinner with a tin of tuna that is like no over tuna I have tried before. More like the consistency of mince or cat food. A car goes past whilst I'm cooking and he reverses to take a look at me, but then goes on again. I retire to the safety of 2mm of tent material and dream fishy dreams.


Thursday 22 September 2011

Day 52: Thursday 22nd September 2011.Bolec to Osajec

As I'm having breakfast I hear a car approaching from out of the long grass, it sputters and spurts and stalls and eventually creeps past with lots of fumes coming out of the back. I look into the car and it's the gypsy man I met last night with his wife. They drive past. Ten minutes later they come back and with the man driving he is on the right side of the car to speak to me. He winds down the window and he has another one of his very intense conversations with me, getting very frustrated every third sentence that I can't speak German. Again he goes away laughing, I'm not sure at what. He reverses his car back up the track from whence he came and disappears into a small derelict house which I presume is is home. He must have thought I was encroaching on his patch last night when he asked if I would be gone in the morning. 10K down the road I stop at a roadside cafe for a coffee. I decided the petrol stove needs closer examination before using it again as I don't want to burn off any of my nessecary limbs. A cup of strong Turkish style coffee is brought out to me, cooked in a small pan and then reboiled to the hosts individual method. Two pigs are roasting on a spit in a rude metal oven in the car park outside. I then take on the climb of the day which gives fabulous view of the Danube to my right and to vineyards and rolling fields to my left. On the descent I see a touring cyclist's bike parked outside a shop. I go in to find the owner to see what the roads are like coming from the other way. His name is Francois, he's French and he's on the most convoluted trip to India imaginable. Now a yoga teacher by trade, he has been stopping of for places for 4 weeks at a time on his route east. We have good old joke at the Germans (and Dutch) people's expense..sorry Germans, you are lovely though. The joke is that to Germans the thought of cycling on the road when there is a perfectly good cycle path is just outside their comprehension. Likewise the thought of leaving the cycle path and the euro velo 6 when “the Blue Book” (the guide book for the cycle path that everybody has) has not suggested it is beyond sensible opinion. We have a shared love of riding on roads and getting off the main path and both love the joys that getting lost can bring. And we agree as well on preferring to meet locals rather than other cyclists. We have a coke together around the only table outside a shop, sharing with two old guys who've had a few beers and are very ready for a chat, but only in Serbski-Deutsch.
Another climb in the sun takes me to lunch with not many kms done. I enjoy half a crusty brown loaf and some sort of meat paste/pate thing for a change, topped off with more bread and honey which I have nearly finished. The thought of getting through a big jar of honey in a week would have made me wretch a few months ago. The cycling body demands sugar, carbs and a bit of protein if you're lucky. I 'm getting through mountains of sugar in my coffee and bottle of coke just tastes like water now. My dentist will have a field day when I get back. The road to Smederevo sees me overtaken by a tractor pulling a trailer, as we both descend another hill I get upto about 60kmph and ring my bell as I sail past him, scrunched down into the flattest position I can for maximum speed. Smederevo has an old fort that has definitely seen better days and is now just the boundary to an open park. I cross the train tracks coming back from this into the new town and decide an ice cream is in order, so I join the locals on a bench under a tree watching kids play on the slides and swings. The rain on the way to Belgrade is long forgotten and I catch a glimpse of myself in a window. I decide it's time for a shave, although this one is not in the book. I find a friski with two ladies having their tea break. I mime the internationally recognised sign for a shave but no haircut and another lady is called out from a smoky back room. She holds up a cut throat razor but I make the interrnationally recognised sound of the electric clippers and she says "ah! Machino", machino indeed. And out come the clippers from a drawer with hair in it. I'm powder puffed at the end with talc and the smell of 70's cologne is somewhat easier on the nose when you don't have the luxuries of home. I bid farewell to another town in the book and head South now towards Jagodina some 100k away. After the climb out of town the roads are flat and a good opportunity to finally get some miles done. When the clock strikes 6 I start looking for camp, as this seems to be a good time of day to start thinking about bedding down for the night. I pass through a few small villages and look around for likely hosts to let me sleep in the garden or farm. I still don't feel comfortable just going to knock on someone's door, so I have to wait to see someone sat outside or working in the garden. Lady luck is not with me this evening and I'm resigning myself to sleeping in a field when I spot a nice patch of grass outside someone's house down a dirt track. I head for this and as I approach the owner appears. I ask if I can camp there and he gestures you can camp anywhere. He does not invite me in though. As I look for a level patch of ground I see a gate open at the farm opposite and a car drive out. I seize my chance and wave hello to the farmer inside. I explain my plight and he beams and says of course come in. It's the perfect place, not dirty with chicken poo, no goats roaming around and no dogs, but when I go to put my tent up he suggests the other side of the drive away from the bees. He has around fifty drawers, numbered and coloured and in these drawers or cupboards are bee hives. I noticed on the way down earlier there was a big honey company with lots of lorries parked outside, carrying containers of various shapes and sizes from farms and locals. Perhaps this is where his goes. I move accordingly, have a chat and he goes inside. I now learn how to use the petrol stove properly and I have much more of success than the night before, now that the proper sized nozzle is fitted. I still manage a small inferno at the start and a fuel leak at the end, but considering there are wood shavings spread all over the farm I've done well not to burn the place down. But it now feels like I'm in control of the chaos so no problems really. It helps that next to my tent there is a tree stump the perfect size for my stove and fuel bottle and a small plastic orange chair, the kind that looks a bit like an hour glass made out of two matching pieces. Very 70s. Very handy. I've also managed to find a new beer, which is getting hard as I've had most of Serbia's offerings now. It's a dark one, a rare treat! 

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Day 51: Wednesday 21st September 2011. Belgrade to Bolec, SERBIA


A floting club moored up the river keeps me awake for a bit, but the magical wax ear plugs drown out most of it. If you have never tried wax earplugs they are really fantastic for noisy neighbours. They are hard wax until you roll them around in your hand like plasticine for a minute or two. When they become mallable they push into the ear blocking out 95% of noise. Quite disturbing when you first try them, they make you feel like you're floating. I indulge myself with the included breakfast and pack my bags and leave them with reception. Unbeknownst to me because of the rain the hostel has extra parts to it, other floating modules that are all tied to the main unit. A bit like groovy looking floating portakabins two storeys high. On one of these at the top is a roof garden of sorts. I dry out the tent here until I return. It's such a nice feeling to go exploring the city without the trappngs of all the luggage needed to survive and the bike feels so light. First stop on the itinerary of such an interesting city bathed in modern history is of course....the flea market. I've been told this is my best chance for a battery charger for the camera. I really can't believe the bad luck Iv'e had with that bloody thing. The rain has stopped and I head out into Novi Beograd. On the approach I see something similar to Brick Lane on a Sunday. People selling bits of stolen, found and unwanted tat out of old briefcases and carrier bags. I don't hold out much hope here but head into the centre of the hubbub and find more normal market fair, selling the usual knock off clothes, fancy goods, tools and cheap electricals. A chat with a woman trader sets me on a possible course but she doesn't hold out much hope. I find three or four of the type of stalls I'm after but I draw a blank on all of them, not surprisingly. I'm also in the market for some cycling leg warmers as I don't have anything good for my legs when it's cold and rainy. I try to convince a stall selling ladies leggings that they will be perfect, she is having none of it and refuses to let me offer them up to my waist, thinking I'm taking the mickey. A tour round the vast market turns up nothing useful and I'm resigned to heading to Old Belgrade to check out the sights. I'm particularly keen to see the Tito museum and to find out about the former Yugoslavia that I grew up with, with headlines on the news but don't know enough about. I ask one more stall about something or other and go through the motions of the camera charger in pure desperation. YES he says and picks up a small universal chinese ebay style charger that I had with me when I left. How much I ask getting ready for a shock, 600 dinar he replies. About £6, I demand to see it working and shake him fierecly by the hand beaming with joy. I'm now writing this having my 3rd turkish coffee of the day in a cafe in the market whilst I get the camera battery charged and then I'm off to take some photos. Bloody technology has really used up a lot of my time, caused me grief and I really have been considering going on my next trip with nothing but a pen and notebook.
Looking back at my route, my photos, my video and my blog however, wins me round every time. It's an addiction I can't kick. Any psychologists reading this should do a study into the effect of being addicted to electronic devices and what this entails. I will be a guinea pig, as long as expenses are covered:) As I look around the market from my vantage point on the cafe balcony it could be anywhere in England on a weekend. Surprisingly the clothes I looked at seem quite dear compared with the prices of other goods in Serbia, compared to Europe. A good beer for 50p, a good coffee for 70p. Fruit and veg seems about 1/3 of the price. But a pair of cheapo cotton leggings £7!! They obviously haven't got a Primark here. By the way I'm a Primark hater and not really a leggings wearer but I know someone who is ;) The central aisle to the entrance of the market has various dogs lying right in the middle which no one seems to be bothered about. Talking of dogs, whilst traversing the park from the hostel I saw a pack of about half a dozen wild mutts, stupidly and showing off I had the bike camera switched on and decided to cycle right through the middle of them to see what would happen. Lets just say I won't be doing it again, homeless dogs just like homeless people tend not to be in the best of shape and most don't have it in them to give chase. Two fit ones had other ideas and I really did get the closest to being attatcked so far. I would gladly take on two medium size dogs with a stick or similar weapon but when its a pack I'm out of there. The others get up the confidence to join in when they would normally be passive. I must remember this. Silly boy. Market done I head back to the hostel to whack the other camera battery on charge and go do some sight seeing. As ususal this goes tits up, as by the time I decide to leave, the Tito museum that I wanted to go and see has closed. I get chatting to the Tanya over a beer. She is running the hostel this morning. It's not just because she is young, pretty and funny that I am side tracked, or even because she has an identical twin... (When I ask if she ever dresses the same as her twin she says the idea is “sick” in a Serbian-English accent which is so cool)...it's that she has a lot of interesting things to say. We talk about the Romany gypsies/people and how they are perceived. A lot of them don't have papers and if picked up by the police will go to jail because of this, thus the vicious circle begins. When they get out they have no where to live and no money. Apparently a lot of them left a decade or so ago but a treaty with other countries to take them back was signed, unfortunately Serbia has little money as it is and nowhere to house them and you find them begging and  up to no good or doing the really lowly paid jobs that no one else will do. Same old story. Of course some of them are workshy layabout vagabonds and others are hard working and looking for a break.
My tent has dried on the roof garden and the camera battery has charged. Although it's 3pm I decide I might get sucked into a chillaxed easy going hostel life so I hotfoot it out of town via the Old part of town and the Fortress that dominates that part of the Dunav. Apologies for me constantly changing what countries spelling of Danube I use. It gets very confusing for somebody who can barely speak English, let alone French, German, Hungarian or Serbian. I say goodbye to my fabulous hosts and wish them my favourite Serbian greeting: dobber dan. Good afternoon. I take the cycle path along the river and wind into the city. A steep hill takes you up to the top of the fortress and rather than battle with pedestrians or cars I cycle up the middle of the tram way, half expecting a policeman to wave me down with his little lollipop. Instead they they wave hello with it. The fortress has impressive views right across the Danube and the Sava and across the smog filled sky of new and old Belgrade. The fumes are definitely the most noticeable I've ever experienced. Everything gets burnt, leaded petrol and other fuel I've never heard of still gets pumped out at the filling stations and various contraptions take to the road utilising every type of fuel imaginable. For me the smell of the fumes and food being cooked and rotting rubbish and rotting dogs is quite romantic as it reminds me of time I spent in India. The aroma may not be bottled and sold at an airport duty free any time soon though. The fortress is vast as I explore the cobbled roads inside and move between one old gated archway to another. The signs are in cryllic and English and explain about an old gunpowder magazine and the date, or war machines of former Yugoslavia and a large collection of small tanks and rockets.
I have a chat to some lads from Belgrade who tell me the road to Smederevo is pretty bad and don't envy my journey. I leave the old people playing chess on granite tables and young lovers entwined on park benches and head out of Belgrade in rush hour. Luckily I pick the right road and I stay on it for over an hour, racing with a tram, stopping at lights and catching up with it again as it has to stop for cars parked in its way. We go our seperate ways at the same time. Train 1 – 1 Bicycle. The fumes sit heavy on my chest as I reach the summit out of Belgrade and peel off towards Smederevo. I do some shopping. A red pepper and two small nectarines cost me 6 1/2p. Add a 500ml bottle of dark beer, a pot of yoghurt, half a large brown crusty loaf and a tomato or two and the whole lot comes to less than £1.50. I stop at a filling station to get petrol for my stove as the gas I bought in Austria has finally run out. They don't do screw type gas in Serbia so I have to resort to using petrol for the first time. I'm expecting the petrol pump attendant to laugh as I pull up at the pump on my bicycle and ask him to fill it up. But my metal canister is super professional compared to the moped who turns up and fills his old plastic water bottle. No one bats an eyelid. It's 6pm and I go looking for a camp. I peel off up a side road and as I reach its crest 5 or 6 little Romany kids come running up smiling. I entertain them with my bell and silly noises as they chase me. The ones on bikes eventually tail off and I reach a dead end, with two dogs coming at me. I do a quick u-turn and get the hell out. I ask someone in a house if I can camp in their drive but I think the answer is no. Then the neigbour comes out and tells me in German it's ok to camp in the field opposite. I ask for some water from him and settle down for the night. Incredibly I don't blow myself up with the petrol stove, but I will definitely be testing it out in daylight properly tomorrow. It's now dark and I have my head torch on and a guy comes walking up to me whilst I'm sat outside the tent cooking. He is dark skinned, dirty and has a wild gypsy look in his eyes. I explain I can't speak Serbski and he starts talking Deutsch. He's very intense but harmless. I think this is the closest I have come to a Thomas Stevens experience so far. The look of bewilderment on this guys face as to why I am here, on a bicycle, in my tent, here, where he lives, why??? I am really sleeping in that he says pointing to the opening in the tent, looking confused. He sees my dinner cooking and the stove is making all sort of noises because its not set up properly for petrol and gives me a big grin and a zehr gut. We shake hands he puffs on his cigarette and disappears into the night. My instinct is that I should not worry too much about him and the other family up the road wirth the kids who live in little more than a cobbled together shack made from wood, signs, and other discarded bits of timber and metal, but my brain says if you've got a padlock, use it you idiot. So I pull the bike half in the tent and attatch the long cable to my sandal and zip it inside the tent so it can't be pulled out without me knowing. I definitely wouldn't have been this relaxed about things at the beginning of the trip and all through Serbia I've generally not bothered locking my bike up if I'm not gone too long. Its dirty, smelly and a bit behind what we might consider modern. The people I've met in the street are not as outwardly friendly to me as other countries but I've never felt threatened, scared or worried. I'm sure if you leave anything anywhere long enough it will disappear. But I stiil feel London is the most dangerous and likeliest place to have anything stolen, out of the places I've visted so far.

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Day 50: Tuesday 20th September 2011. Novi Banovci to Belgrade, SERBIA. Miserable.


It has rained hard all night, inside the tent the only damp patch is where some rubbish blew underneath the tent earlier yesterday, so all is well. Tiny tents are fine for just spending the night in, but you've really got to get in the zone when your held hostage by the weather. Best let the legs go numb and forget about them for a bit. Nature calls and a beer can comes to the rescue. I don't mind going outside and getting wet, but it means bringing the wet back into the tent. I hear someone outside as the rain dies down slightly, its Dimitri. He is looking well miserable, as due to the weather he can't work because his workshop is outside and he went to the dentist yesterday and had a tooth pulled. We huddle under the tiny lean-to porch and curse the weather. I ask if the rain will damage the house foundations any more but he doesn't seem too bothered. Just the river is the worry.
The rain turns to a slight drizzle and I decide to make a go at packing up. Then it starts up again but I've retrieved the food bag and sit down to breakfast. I ask Dimitri if he wants any of my oats yoghut and fruit and he pulls a painful face as if to say are you having a laugh. Then I offer him orange juice and the reaction is worse. I'm nearly packed when the rain starts to get heavier and the tent and matress have to be done in the rain. I give my host a hearty handshake and thank him for letting me stay, and jokingly say I will be back next year in a kayak.
Belgrade the Serbian capital is my next stop. The ride there is miserable; it's 30km of wet horrid weather, roads with lumps instead of pot holes and I get chased by a few dogs. The first attack I see in advance as two black medium sized mutts are chasing a car down the main road. Ready for them spying me, I get pedalling and speed it up. When they see me they are far back on the pavement and hurtle into the road after me, I'm ahead of them and just starting to make ground when an old Soviet army truck turns right against me from the opposite direction and I have to chuck on the brakes. To add to the fun a huge lorry is coming up fast behind. Adrenaline gets me through this time as this is the first proper chasing I've had. I have had a few others but they didn't have "that look" in the eye and it was always at the boundary of a house. They usually seem to stop chasing when you've got past the property they guard. The two black mangy mutts disappear into the distance and for about a minute I forget the rain and try to laugh and get my breath back at the same time. The cycle path signs seem to be a bit more regular now as I follow them off the main road and into Zentum. This takes me down a hill with a cobbled road so bad I have trouble stopping because the wheels are bouncing in the air most of the time. This road is not cobbled, more random sized rocks stuck in the ground, super slippery from cars driving over them and polished to a deadly shine with the rain,. What fun! My survival is rewarded by coming out on the Danau again and I can follow this path into the centre of Belgrade. But do I want to? I'm soaked to the skin, a bit cold, I've got no where to stay and the thought of either camping in the bushes in Belgrade or walking around the city this wet does not appeal to me. Along the river floating bars and clubs bob gently in the water. I watch a new one being erected . A floating platform moored to the bank supports a metal frame over which is laid a wooden shell. As I clear my eyes of rain I see a small wooden sign that says “Floating Hostel”. I slip down the god awful rain and slime slippery splattered walkway towards a modern wooden building and enquire within. Although this is more for the night for a private room with a shared bathroom than I have spent in the entire trip so far, the promise of a very hot shower, a free welcome drink of my choice, superfast wifi and a base for Belgrade are just too appealing and I book in. I have travelled 26km and it's not even 11'oclock. Not the longest of days travelling. The guys in the hostel tell me weather is forecast to clear up tomorrow afternoon. Stay as long as you want, you only have to pay when you leave, if you never leave, you never pay. Hostels eh. Chillaxing music plays, the massive Turkish coffee is greatly received and I tie my bike up on the terrace outside. I'm dripping wet in my sandals and waterproof socks. The woman in the hostel says they are very popular with the cyclists when it's raining, being the only hostel on the river. I bet they are. The rain is furious until 7 in the evening and I just cuddle up in my room, dry things out, decide what I'm going to do tomorrow and generally faff about. I could be at home. I have no food that I can eat without cooking and there are no cooking facilties and they don't do food. The nearest shops are a ten minute walk away but I still can't face the rain. I try to get the woman on duty to order me a takeaway. She is hungry too so we decide to go halves on a chinese. I can't read what it says, and she doesn't know what the food is anyway. We randomly pick some things out and give it a go. They don't deliver to this part of town. AHH! Then the receptionist informs me I could use a POTRCKO. These guys, for a fee of about 3 to 4 euros will go out and do your errands for you on a motorbike. Just like a taxi service or a courier service you give them a shopping list or tell them where to go to buy your favourite takeaway and they will deliver it to you. You can use them for collecting you and your car as well, when you have a few too many pivos and they put the little bike in the boot and drive you home. I've heard of this in England but I get the impression you can just have them running around all day for you for all sort of odd jobs. Portcko translates as : a man who runs around helping you. In the end I decide I need cash as well as food and I haven't spent this long in doors for nearly 2 months so I get my swimming shorts on and borrow an umbrella and get amongst the miserable Serbian rain. As I leave the rain stops! I'm directed to a shopping mall. I haven't been in one of these for a long time either and my senses are overloaded. It's horrible. Bright lights, shiny shiny and lots of people chasing the dream of labels, brands, the latest trends and celebrity lifestyle.
Whilst it is not my place to tell people what to spend their money on, its very interesting to see in Serbia particularly, the amount of places you can buy alloy wheels for your car. The selection is staggering. I havent seen a horse and cart with alloys yet but I won't be surprised if I do.

Monday 19 September 2011

Day 49: Monday 19th September 2011. Novi Banovci to Novi Banovci. Seduced Again.


Wake up with the sun coming up over the Dunav. Lots of noises in the night, cats dogs humans, I get down the steep river bank to the river on the steps made out of tyres . When I come back a man appears, I ask if he is the bruder, Yes he replies. He speaks a tiny bit of English but more importantly he has common sense which makes communicating a whole lot easier and gestures and body language help the situation along. He doesn't look like a master criminal (sound familiar?) and he offers me coffee. We sit and have another one of those super strong coffees that give me the jitters for an hour or so. Since meeting Dusko the Bosnian refugee I have managed to download some basic dictionaries for the laptop. With the aid of this I manage to have a conversation with Dimitri the owner. All becomes clear. We are sitting on a concrete patio jutting out over the edge of the cliff, he beckons me over when I ask why he doesn't sleep here and shows me various props and scaffold poles holding up the patio. A small car jack and one half brick seems to be all we are resting on. Tonnes of builder's rubbish has been poured over the edge of the garden in order to support it and stop it crumbling into the river. It appears that the Donau rose very high and the house subsided in 2006 and the local government doesn't have the 20,000 euros to put it right. It's not safe to live in, but for some reason this doesn't stop me spending most of the morning here typing up the blog. When I ask if I'm keeping him from getting to work he takes me round the back of the house and I work out that his job is rewpairing outboard motors and generators. He now lives somewhere else with his family. The view from here in the morning is spectacular, it's such a shame that with this type of view comes these kind of risks. He goes off to work after setting me up with an extension lead on the patio so I can use the laptop. He is keen to show me a youtube clip of what I gather to be the subsidence, but he has no internet. An hour later he pops out to get a part and jokes about me still being here when I get back. I explain I'd rather be catching up on my writing with this amazing view than sat in a mcwifi in Belgrade. He understands and says I can stay as long as I want. At this point the thought of staying is very appealing, beautiful view, great weather, a tap, power, what more can I want? But things take a turn for the worse when I get back from the town after lunch. The wind is blowing a gail and the dust is getting everywhere, Dimitri say it will probably last a few months (I think). My laptop, tent clothes, everything have a covering of dust over them and litter and plastic bags are blown everywhere. When I have a tidy up and produce my bag of rubbish asking him what to do with it. He just points to the cliff and all the other rubbish and shrugs, what's the point, he seems to say, what difference will it make? I can't work out if he cares about the state of the rubbish in the country or not. I change the tyres over on the bike as the back one has now got a small bald patch and fix a slow puncture I've had for a while. That will be 1 ½ punctures so far. I have to spend the rest of the afternoon hiding in the tent out of the wind and dust, not what I had planned for my paradise garden view. Hopefully it will die down in the evening, it wasn't like this when I arrived. Evening comes and so do the kids, getting more bosterious by the minute. That will teach me for being friendly. Dimitri's brother arrives and they run off, scared of him. He is a bit scary. Just as this happens the wind dies down just in time for dinner. No sooner have I got the grub out and it starts to rain. I disappear in the tent and stay there. It hammers down til morning. I at least have an extension lead to keep the laptop fired up and entertain me. The mighty Danube has supplied Dimitri with work and his hobby (fishing) yet taken away his home. It's supplied me with a laundrette, a bath and a fantastic view but now kept me here hostage in the rain.





Sunday 18 September 2011

Day 48: Sunday 18th September 2011. Sremski Karlovci, Brickworks to Novi Bahovci. (Dunav 1190km) Sign on Cat Map.

The train trundles back and forth most of the night but it doesn't keep me awake much. I do my usual trick in the morning and try to discover a new route back to the main road. This ends up in me pushing the bike up a steep track, only to be told by someone at the top that Belgrade is back the other way. Laughing to myself at my own stupidity I go back the way I came the night before and onto the main road. I hit a hill instantly and although not that steep it's 5% for the next 6km. It doesn't help with getting some kms done. At the top I'm rewarded with fantastic views across hilly vineyards and farms and three small stalls are selling produce from the farm and garden. I stop at the first one and sit in the shade with the owner who gives me some water. I buy some fruit; a pounds worth of damsons and figs that weigh a tonne. I decide to try some honey, I've never sucked honey from a comb so decide to give it a try. After a few minutes I decide to spit the wax out :)
I descend down the hill but my route to Indija is scuppered because the road is closed. I'm in no mood for dead ends in this heat and follow the euro velo 6 sign to Belgrade. At a fork there is no sign and I of course take the wrong way, ending up on yet another track in the middle of nowhere. It does not look very different to a scene from Borat. I plod on through the tumble-down farms and piles of hay and sweetcorn. I pedal back and ask a small boy for the way to Baska. I decide a six year old's advice is as good advice as any and head off. At the crossroads a fat man pushing a wheelbarrow full of sweetcorn nearly drops it all to say hello. I pick up the signs again and carry on. I peel off for a water stop and two guys go cycling past. They look like locals because they dont have enough luggage for tourists. I bump into them further up the road where they have stop to mend a puncture. They are two young guys from Belgrade and they speak English. When they say they are only weekend warriors I fall about laughing. They ask how I can afford to take a trip so long, and I'm yet again reminded that whatever my personal situation is, the odds are definitely stacked in my favour. They fix the puncture and head off, warning of the bad road coming up. Whilst attending to a call of nature they pass on the other side of the hedge and yet again I meet them coming the other way, this time because they have just realised they have forgotten their sunglasses at the puncture site. They are both quite tall as is the way in Serbia, but one must be 6ft 5! He says he has long legs to kick out at the wild dogs. The other one produces a can of pepper spray. He seemes to be more worried by the dog threat. I ask where I can get some in Belgrade, just in case.
Further down the road I have to stop; the sun and heat are annihilating me and apart from sweetcorn there is very little shade. I come across a bush and get in it and go to sleep in the dirt. Or try to. A noise and a rustle come from the bush and a beak and pair of eyes are staring at me. I think I've encroached on a wild chicken's home. Nap done, chicken befriended I try and do some more miles. Just when I'm ready to call it a day, I round a bend and there the Danube lays, calling me in. I cycle down to its refreshing water and find people on a beach. As I look around an old man under the shade of the awning from an old disused caravan beckons me over. We have a chat in my best German, which does not last long. Then I'm off into the water with my dirty clothes. Various people have said the Danube is a bit dirty for a swim but I'll take what I find. I dry my clothes on the remains of an old pub umbrella and chat some more with the man. I sit here for about an hour drying off and wasting valuable sunlight. Is this going to be another night putting the tent up in the dark? Back on the main road I hunt for possible farms to camp in. I ask a couple outside a house but they are from Belrade and suggest heading into the centre. Further into Novi Bahovci I see a lane to the river and head down it, but it's not a pretty sight at this part of the river and I carry on down the track and into a back street. Just as I'm thinking of going back to the beach and camping there I see a bench looking out on a fantastic view over a huge stretch of the river, taking in three bends. Next to the bench is a garden with a big man standing in it. I go through the tent mime and he says just a minute I'll phone my bruder. He tries a couple of times but can't get through, he makes me wait though and tries again. Yes is the answer. Phew! That's a relief and in I go to set up camp. What a view! It's amazing even in the semi dark, perched up high looking out along the Danube as far as Belgrade which is 20km away at least. The brother of the owner is a big man and has a bit of a menacing look about him. Whilst I'm setting up the tent a few people come and go. I notice binoculars on the table. Bruder says he doesn't live here, no one does. Alarm bells start to ring. Why doesn't anybody live here in such an amazing position? Is it a holiday home? Why is his brother here? Why do people come and go round the back? Why do they have binoculars? The bruder looks like someone from “Ross Kemp on Gangs”, perhaps its a drug house. I notice three boats moored at the bottom of a rude staircase constructed out of tyres full of mud. Perhaps they smuggle drugs??? When the bruder goes home he tells me to lock up my bike. The fence has two lots of barbed wire going round the top. I feel bizarrely safe, but am very curious of the setup. Left alone, I cook up dinner with the remains of the gas and still it doesn't run out. A good helping of figs and damsons for pudding and I go to bed with the tent flaps open, looking out acrosss the moonlit Danube, wondering what might happen to me in the night.

Saturday 17 September 2011

Day 47: Saturday 17th September 2011: Bela Palenska to Crovonivh SERBIA

When I awake and look at the big house I realise it's still a building site. I hadn't seen this in the dark.
Dusko arrives in the car with two sachets of Nescafe and gets the coffee on whilst I pack up. Dad comes out to join us at the table. It's 8am and they have got me drinking home made whiskey. I only say yes to a tiny one so as not too offend. The kindle starts to work so we can have a very very slow conversation via google translate. It turns out that the family are Bosnian Refugees who moved to Serbia during the conflicts in 2006. This comes about as I say I am very grateful for their hospitality and I think what Dusko tries to say is that he understands what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land. The big house is being built by Momiras (Dusko's wife's boss) who is something big to do with Heidleburg press in Germany. Dusko works in a sock factory/shop and insists on giving me a pair of B-twin socks to match my cycling top. They have been well used already when it gets cold at night as my sleeping bag now has a hole in the foot dept. Milka, Dusko's mum comes out and asks me to have breakfast and a fine plate of chorizo, eggs and tomatoes arrives.
I'm loaded up with more fruit and a bottle of home made hooch. I'm truly touched by this family's kindness. They have no running water here and the toilet is an outside affair that looks like it's about to fall down. Whilst using said WC it's interesting that as a composting type of toilet there is very little smell. It's actually very nice with the shafts of sunlight coming in, and no worries of trowel disturbance. I leave the family very moved and have a bit of a wobble on my way to Novi Sad. I go in search of gas for the stove but everyone tells me the same thing; only piercable type here in Serbia, not screw on that my stove needs. This means I will have to use petrol or something similar for the first time. This should be interesting on the bone dry grass. I will make a point of testing it on concrete first. As I head towards Novi Sad concrete looms large in the landscape and I'm not really in the mood for a city. When I get there I am rewarded with a 12ft high penny farthing. I ask a girl on a market stall to take a photo of me. She is selling organice fruit and honey and asks me to try a small orange fruit in a paper like shell/leaf. I think its a physallis. I didn't like them when I tried them at home but here the cold juice inside is so refreshing, like little bullets of energy on this very hot day,so I buy a punnet. I have a small lunch in a bar with wifi and then go into the old town. A traditional folk dance is taking place, put on by people of all ages and the music is delightfully haunting as I watch in the shade, hiding from the ever present orange heat. The mood is rather spoilt when the CD starts to jump so I go into the market. A few sovenir stalls at the start of the long parade of stalls gives way to honey, honey and yet more honey. I stop counting at 40 stalls. They each proclaim life giving and medicinal qualities and some people proudly display cups and trophies for their prize winning nectar. I'm not a big honey man so I leave empty handed. I hear music of the Serbian brass band variety, which I particularly like. The band is gathered outside a church and are waiting for the bride and groom to arrive. Then two accordian players turn up, rivals to the brass entertainment and when the betrothed arrive they choose the latter for their wedding entertainment. When the newly married couple leave to get in the car Romany types hassle them for money and cigarettes. No one seems to be bothered by it except the bride and groom. No one steps in to usher them off, perhaps it's accepted practice. No one gives them anything either. I leave Novi Sad and cross the water to Petravaradin, have a quick look around and head off on the euro velo 6 to Belgrade which is 95km away. As soon as I get on the path the signs disappear. I follow my nose and end up in a sand pit where excess water is being expelled from some works going on in the river. I heave the bike back through the sand and take a different turning. This takes me through a small collection of tiny huts and shacks, each has a portion of land joined to the next and each has about three dogs in. (If this is incoherent bare with me, I have a 5 year old girl talking in my ear in Serbski whilst I'm typing).
I decide not to stay here. I follow the track and at last it turns into road and I join the main drag to Belgrade. I stop at a shop for water and beer and the young lad tells me they had two strangers in about an hour ago:)
I search without luck for a camp, asking a few people, but no one is biting. I go down another track and past a brickworks, here I find a scrub field with wild flowers growing in it. It's behind some 10ft tall pamperass grass and seems to fit the bill for the night. Bread and cheese for dinner and I hope that the train 30ft behind me stops running a bit later on.