So you think you can tell heaven from hell?

Peter and Gaspar told me to expect a different Serbia on the other side of the Danube. The river marked the border of the former Austria-Hungary Empire and the people and their mentality are different on the other side, they told me. Over 90 years have passed since the change from Austria-Hungary to Yugoslavia and depending how one looks at it, that is either a long time or a short time. When it comes to people and how they generally change and adapt, it is a blink in time. 

As I crossed the long bridge to Smederevo I did experience change. The streets were much more chaotic, the people instantly seemed less friendly and there were many more gypsies to be seen. The atmosphere is also what I would call ‘ziganata’, or being influenced by gypsy mentality. I know that in this time in which we are all expected to be so correct and proper that such wording will be frowned upon by some, but correctness has its limits. In Smederevo I visited the old town and would normally have laid down for a sleep, but the town did not seem too welcoming, so I pushed on. I was riding along major thoroughfares and some unattractive towns and also riding through stinking areas in which the locals had created the fields into rubbish dumps. I started to wonder if all the prejudices that exist in my country against these people could indeed be true.

Mid-afternoon I am stopped behind three cars waiting for a bridge to open. The bridge serves both rail and automobile traffic and we are waiting for a train to cross and allow us passage. In the BMW 3-series before me are three guys who look like local mafia – ugly, fat and wearing shirts that are far too small for their disgusting bodies. The music booming out of their car is of a Turkish or Albanian genre and I am really not feeling that I want to stay in this part of the country. Weighing my options I start off behind the cars as soon as the bridge clears. Just before crossing I see that there is a foot path on the side of the bridge and dismount to use it. Had I not done that I would not have seen Dietmar at the riverbank below the bridge. He had taken a late lunch break there and was just about to set out. It was nice to see him again and we compared notes on how the country had changed. That afternoon we rode together and went through areas that can best be described as disgusting. For hours we were passing through towns fully of gypsies living in stinking dilapidated houses that looked as if they had been abandoned at the end of the last world war and then taken over by these people. In the mud and rubbish filled gardens little children were playing in the putrid stink, filthy and unkempt. Not even photos could portray it completely. Dietmar took it all in stride, not being too terribly bothered by this or by the change in environment. I have developed a strong distaste for these people over the last years and this was as close to them as I have ever come and closer than I ever wanted to come. Village after village, they all proved to be zigani towns. It was becoming late in the afternoon and we had to think about overnighting somewhere. The prospects looked slim as in each village we entered we would scan the people and then discuss whether it was ok to stop or whether to push on, despite the setting sun. Each time we unanimously agreed to push on.

About 20.30 we were still riding and within minutes we would no longer be able to see enough to ride safely. At the edge of a town that we were leaving we say one farmhouse that looked quite normal and we circled back to ask if we could sleep on the grounds. We had already entered the grounds and were near the door when we say gypsy clothing hanging on the clothes line. Dietmar said quickly, that we should move on but by then a young boy had come out of the house and I asked anyway. He did not understand and ran to get his father. It was apparent that they were also gypsies but the father seemed accommodating enough and pointed to a corner of the garden in which we could sleep. It was dark so we set up quickly.  Using our forehead-lights we had a quick picnic dinner and gave scraps to the 5 or 6 kittens that were playing around us. While we were eating one of the gypsy women from the farm came out, completely drunk and intent on giving us Serbian-language lessons. I thought, “this is going to be a long fucking night” but eventually some kids came out and convinced her to go back inside the house.

Without a tent and the weather holding out but questionable, I laid out my large plastic tarp on the ground between two pieces of farm equipment, put the air mattress on top and then the sleeping bag. The idea was that if it would rain I could fold the tarp double over me, like an omelet and at least stay dry. The rain started a few hours later and I did just that, which seemed to work quite well for a while. It was just a bit loud under the plastic tarp as the big rain drops slapped against it. I was also concerned that the lightning might strike one of the pieces of farm equipment located on either side of me. There was nothing to do however, but to try to sleep. Holding the omelet closed with my right arm I grew tired of that position and rolled over on my other side to see one of the kittens that had crawled under the tarp behind my head. When I looked at her in surprise she gave me a ‘meow’ as if to ask if she could stay in there, protected from the rain. I slept again with a little black and white kitchen just in front of my face. She stayed there the entire night.

Dietmar woke me at 8.00 and it was still raining. Everything was soaked, including my air mattress and my sleeping bag. Completely soaked, not just damp. I don’t know how I managed to sleep so deeply, but I did. We packed in haste, stuffing wet gear into bags, feet into wet shoes and arms into wet jackets. It was unpleasant, to say the least. We headed back to the center of town to visit a café and warm ourselves. I had my first flat tire of the journey and resolved to repair it when the rain stopped. The café was ugly and unwelcoming and the coffee terrible. Soon some of what looked like the local mafia showed up and it became even more unpleasant. It was still raining and soon the streets were flooded, so we had no choice but to stay there and put a good face on it. An hour later we said let’s get the hell out of here, I sprayed a quick-fix repair solution into my tire, and we headed down the road in the rain. A few villages later, this one directly on the river front, we stopped in another café. This one was also unwelcoming and cold and with equally bad coffee. Again, we had little choice because we were completely soaked. A large barge was tied up nearby and I went searching for the captain with the intention to ask for passage for us and our bikes downriver. I try to find him by talked to some locals about it but they did not understand me and directed me to the ferry boat that has service every few hours to the other side of the river.My shoes had permanent puddles in them.

From this café we could see down the river and the coming weather and every time a patch of less-dark clouds appeared we assured each other that the weather was improving, even though we did not believe it. I guess we stayed there for 2 or three hours and eventually the weather let up a little and we decided to leave. My tire had gone flat again, so we entered the porch of an abandoned house and repaired the flat.

We rode all day in the rain. We were already as wet as we could possibly be and when riding at least we were not cold. Sleeping in the wet sleeping bag was not an option for that night so I said to Dietmar that we should find a room and that I would pay for it with my last francs. In the town of Golubac we found a mini-apartment for 2200 dinars and moved in. We both commented on how funny it was to be so content with something so simple. Two single beds, a tiny kitchen and about 20 square meters, but it was warm and inviting, had a hot shower and was like a palace to us. We managed to half-dry the equipment by the morning but my shoes were still miserably wet and the next morning it was raining just as much as the previous day. 

The mini-apartment was located directly at the river and in the morning we are awoken by the horrible sound of screaming pigs and looked outside to see a farmer moving his pigs from his truck into a boat, which they were clearly not too keen on doing. My midday the sun was starting to return to life and showing itself on occasion, giving us a lot of hope. The route was rough going because at this point the Danube is very narrow and the road cannot pass alongside the river but climbs along the cliffs running alongside the river. It meant a lot of pushing the bikes up the hills. Early morning we stopped in a very simple restaurant at the edge of the river. The idea had been to buy food and make a picnic, but a restaurant would cost just a little more and at least it would be dry for a while. The lunch was amazing, accompanied by local wine and while we were enjoying it the clouds went away and the sun shone down strong and warm. Within a few hours we were dry relishing in it. 

The rest of the day was beautiful riding, hardly any towns and moderate traffic, very hilly with amazing views over the Danube and some of the narrow canyon-like areas through which it passes.