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!
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