In Donaudorf I stopped for a very bad coffee and observed the happenings in the village. Only the second horse-drawn cart seen on this journey pulled into town. In Hungary these seem to be rare. In other eastern-European countries I know they are a much more common element. Two months ago while hitchhiking in Maramures, which lies on the Ukrainian-Romanian border, I was actually picked up by a family in a horse cart – best hitchhiking experience I have ever had.
The weather changed back to ugly and wet and the wind shifted and I felt as if I were making no forward progress. My calculation was to be at the border within two hours and now it was four hours later and I still did not see it. Finally I arrived at the checkpoint and was a bit nervous about entering Serbia for the first time.
My country has taken many Serbians since the wars in the 1990s and they don’t enjoy the best reputation, though my personal experiences with them have always been very good. The border guard did not show any expression about someone turning up in the car lane of the checkpoint in the rain. She stamped my passport and I was in. immediately after the border there was a big sign showing the course of the cycling route and explaining the various indications to be found along the route. 
There are two bike options in Serbia, one being paths solely for bikes but not all paved and the other being along less-travelled roads. Because of the constant rain in the last days and the subsequent muddy paths, I chose to stay on the roads. The quality of the road surface was fine to good and with exception of about one hour in which I was riding near the Croatian border, the towns I passed did not look any less well-off than the towns I had seen throughout Hungary. In that portion near the Croatian border the standard of living dropped tremendously and I was very surprised by the difference between that corner and the rest of what I had seen of Serbia.
One difference can be seen in the cars. In Serbia there are many Ladas, Renault 4s, Yugos of various models and I even saw three VW Beetles in the first day. In Hungary I did see quite a few old East-bloc cars, especially Trabants, a huge number of Trabants, but many more new cars than in Serbia.
In the afternoon I arrived in Sombor, about 35 kms over the border. While working on my bike Gordan and his daughter Milena came over to talk to me. He could speak some English and made a really hard effort to converse with me. Milena, 10 years old, found it all quite funny and made funny faces behind his back as he spoke. He told me of the big festival in the town that day behind held in conjunction with the fish-soup cooking competition. 300 cooks were competing for the best fish-paprika soup cooked over open fires in the town square. They left and I went looking for a currency exchange to get some Dinars. In Serbia currency exchange offices can be found about every 50 metres, which is surely a result of the huge number of Serbs living and working abroad and sending hard currencies home. As I was looking at the exchange course a man approached and asked in German if he could help me. Since I wanted to enjoy the festival and the sky was again a threatening grey, I had decided that I would stay there if I could find shelter. I told him that I needed a protected place to put my tent. He said “ich habe Hause, kannst dort bleiben. Möchte nur helfen”. He had to go to do some work and said that we should meet back at that same spot at 20.00. It was then 17.30, which would give me time to look around the town, drink a beer, check out the festival and then meet him. I told him I would be there. 
Walking around the town I met a couple from Frankfurt – he a Frankfurter, she a Hungarian from Sombor, which is actually a Serb/Hungarian/German town by tradition – who had come down on holiday and to visit the fish soup festival. We talked for a while and since the town is small, bumped into each other again soon after. I went off to drink a beer near the square, sit outside under an umbrella and watch some of the activities from there. As I sat there again the rain came down again and I had to run out and cover the bike.
Soon after, Dishan, the Serb man who had offered the house turned up. It was well before our planned 20.00 meeting but he had had to stop working because of the rain and actually went around the town, in the rain, looking for me, which I thought was extraordinarily kind. He lives in an apartment on the other side of town but has a house near the center that he uses only occasionally. I followed him on his bike to the house in the pouring rain. He opened a few beers for us, gave me the keys and said he would come around in the morning to drink a coffee and left. The festival still sounded good and I hoped the rain would let up so that I could walk back into the town center. After an hour it was still coming down, I was exhausted and so I made a picnic in the living room, spread out my sleeping bag on the couch and finally, finally slept through the night. 
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