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August 27, 2007
The Balkans
LOCATION: Belgrade, Serbia
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:44deg.46'36.
Latitude: E: 020deg.32'21.
Kms from Istanbul: 1,033
The overall impression I have of this particular part of the world we are traveling through at the moment is that if it weren't for the occasional rusty sign in cyrillic one would be hard pressed, at least from the saddle of a bike, to distinguish it from northern France or even England: hedgerows bursting with lush, green vegetation comprised of many plants and trees I haven't seen for many years but recognize from back home - elderflower, oaks etc. And yesterday morning while breaking camp I was stung, for the first time in what seems like forever, by a stinging nettle. A wake up call to being back in Europe proper.
On a people level, crossing into the Balkans is a bit like stumbling onto a set of The Benny Hill Show: short, fat, balding men wearing wife-beater vests surrounded by scantily clad females dressed up like porn stars (the ones that don't look like Benny Hill. And the ones that do look like Benny Hill and dress like porn stars...well, let's not go there). Anyway, I'm amazed at how little care the men take in their appearance compared to the women and I'm fascinated to know why.
Merlin has been particularly influenced by this low maintenance dress strategy as can be seen here -
Merlin modeling the latest in sweat-stained Balkan Wife-Beaters
Anyway, over to Merlin now for more sensitive and sensible impressions of our journey from Edirne to Belgrade -
We are now in Belgrade about two thirds of the way to Vienna from where I joined Jason in Turkey. It now seems likely that I will say my farewells to Jason in Budapest or just short of it. We decided against taking a route up through Romania, although the "unspoilt" nature of Romania would have been appealing. Instead, we chose the more direct way through Bulgaria heading West and then, once over the mountains, South - North through Serbia.
We have been doing 100 km plus a day, trying to get in as much riding as possible at the beginning and end of each day to avoid the high temperatures. In Nis (pronounced Neesh) we were hitting 43 degrees. I have never drunk so much water in my life before - up to 10 litres a day. On the whole, we have been taking the main roads, including motorways. God bless the hard shoulder. We managed to get past the toll booths, rather I suspect in much the same way as Jason and Sher got past the checkpoints in Egypt. One chap tried to stop us on the way off the motorway and I recognised a word similar to "arrest". I stopped to reply "Ne razumen" ("I don't understand" in Serbian) and then carried on, even if we couldn't exactly make a speedy getaway.
There have been some interesting stretches off the motorway, on side roads running nearby. In the more traditional villages, there are beautifully kept yards, barns and stores. Logs have been laid in for the winter. Peppers and maize hang out to dry and goats and chickens pick and munch away at their patch. The towns and cities are in complete contrast. In Bulgaria, we bypassed hideous looking tower block towns with abandoned factories in what appeared to be thinly populated countryside. On the other hand, Sofia has a lovely centre with old buildings. The yellow bricks forming the streets are perhaps a somewhat corny metaphor for the wealth on display in the shops, showrooms and gleaming cars.
The last stretch yesterday afternoon was the hardest of all that I have done. We came off the motorway to join the Danube. We had thought we would then be hugging the river as far as Belgrade, but found that instead we had to go over a series of killer hills in the heat and with a lousy road surface. Never was a mountain bike bottom gear more welcome!
Merlin Lewis
Posted on August 27, 2007 4:49 PM