Tag Archives: Serbia

Smederevo – Home

Posted on by

29.4.2013

Km counter: 45488 today: 736

Sum: 10.372 km

Days on the road: 29

Petrol consumption: 1,35 m3

N42°15’56” E024°18’31” – Home

I wake up when the sun rises and lose no time to leave. Today I want to cross Romania and Hungary and if I succeed this will be my last day on the road. But yet it is more than 700km to go to my mothers house where I want to spend my first nights in Austria. River Danube is incredibly beautiful here with its big islands in the middle of the stream. Soon I stop at a closed café with a water pipe outside to make some coffee and go to the toilet. I really have a desire to get a shower so I try the pipe but the water is too much cold. No problem I stop again a few kilometers later at a small lake and have a wonderful refreshing bath there. Feeling full power now I believe nothing can stop me. I stop at a small village to get my Serbian flower and when I want to leave the gas wire snaps again.

I smile, fix the rope and drive Suryananda horse riding style again to the next town. I ask a few people but nobody wants to help. They are not really unfriendly but just not interested at all. After some time I find a taxi driver who tells me the way to a mechanic who is close by. By now I can fix it myself, I just need the tools. The mechanic doubts if his wire will fit because he has diameter 1.5mm only an mine is 1.25… I smile at him and put in his wire, no problem. By the time I start talking to another guy who is at the workshop and who seems to be very nice. After fixing the car Danijel invites me to his home to meet his family and have coffee. As he even offers me to take a hot bath I just can’t say no. Of course we have to make a sightseeing tour after coffee and bath. The arrea is amazingly beautiful so it is late afternoon when I arrive at the tiny border station. Romanian customs can’t believe when I tell them where I come from and the official part takes less time then they need for taking pictures. I am back in the European union!

I like what I see from Romania. It is flat and green here. My eyes enjoy the gentle green and the old villages. I stop at a nice restaurant and eat my first wiener schnitzel for a very long time. I enjoy a coffee in the low sun and leave after singing a few songs for a few guys who arrived while I was eating. Its not far to go to the border, sunset is coming and I have no flowers yet. I drive for half an hour seeing no flowers at all but then, as its getting almost dark I see a wonderful garden directly at the road and an old guy watering tulips and roses. Immediately I stop. As he doesn’t understand what I am talking about I show him my dried flowers and point on a map. By now his wife came out of the house and I recognize they are a really cute old couple. Flowers are no problem, they give me some tulips as the roses are not flowering yet. I say thank you and continue as I want to be at the border before its completely dark.

The border is passed before recognized. They laugh at my craziness as usual and I am free to go. After the border I have problems to pay the road toll. System is down until 2 am but will be no problem they say, just go… I follow the navigation system which seems to be a little lost in a tiny village after the border. Soon I am at a small road heading towards Szeged – this can’t be right! But I am curious so I stay on the road. Suddenly the navigation system shows a ferry to come! Its short after dark so I hope the ferry will still be working and go on. I pass a flood dam and when the gps shows 1km to the ferry the road disappears in the black. I hit the brakes and recognize my front wheels are underwater when I stop. Again I regret having no camera for taking a picture of this situation. I nearly drowned together with Suryananda because there is a flood and no whatever warning! (The place is marked with the “C” at the linked map) I turn around and after getting a coffee and a flower I go on the highway. Traffic is ok and I have a target in front of me. I enjoy the road at night, my mind is clear and the kilometers pass quickly now. Still I am little paranoid because of the road toll story so I leave the motorway at 2 am about 50 kilometer before the border to Austria. At about 3.30 am I arrive at my mothers place. After more than 10.000 km I am at a place I call home. But home…. Isn’t that the neverending concrete appearing in the lights of suryananda? The beaches and the mountains? The mechanics work shops and the cafes full of artists?

Thank you for reading my adventures my friends. I will be back on the road soon! Hope to see you there and if you feel like I can help you with any question feel free to contact me on facebook! I also have a little surprise for all of you which will be online soon!

Save journey to all of you!

HariOm!

Pazardzhik – Smederevo

Posted on by

28.4.2013

Km counter: 44752 today: 434 sum: 9636

N42°15’56” E024°18’31” – N44°40’23” E20°58’06”

I wake up only a few hours later. The sun is out, it smells like spring and the birds are singing. I quickly make some instant coffee and leave. Passing some beautiful rivers again the landscape gets more hilly soon. At the last hill petrol becomes tight again but soon I see Sofia when rolling down. At the city entrance I spend my last money for petrol just to stop in the city center without even a coin. It’s a beautiful Sunday and there are people on the streets so I grab my guitar and half an hour later I have enough money to get a nice breakfast. I like Bulgaria! After breakfast I make a little walk. Soon a flower shop appears so I ask the owner for a flower. It takes me only a second to explain even though he doesn’t understand a word. Of course I can have a flower he makes me understand, and gives me one of the most beautiful roses in his shop!

It is lunchtime when I leave Sofia heading to the close by border to Serbia where I expect cheap petrol. At the roadside of the city limits I see an old couple hitchhiking and of course I stop. Even though we don’t understand one word of what each other is saying we love each other immediately. Petrol is very tight so I have to stop only five kilometers before the border to pay in euro for a crazy exchange rate and get just a few litres. When I get petrol on the other side of the border I find out I was empty then. A few meters after the petrol pump I drop my new friends offering them some dried roses from Pakistan. He offers me a wooden lucky charm in exchange and so we take some of each others energy without any name, address or any possibility to contact. It is fine – this is love!

Between the borders a guy and his incredibly beautiful girlfriend (?) have a problem with their car. Battery is finished and it doesn’t start, she has no driving licence, very high high heels and no motivation to do nothing but looking incredibly beautiful… The guy and I get the engine running within a minute and I continue to enter Serbia. The guys ask me for weapons and as I hardly can stop laughing at them they let me go without bothering me. I get petrol and a few kilometers later I stop in a cosy valley at a restaurant to get the local food: cevapcici! I enjoy a lot and when I go on I feel very sad for having no camera again. I pass wonderful canyons and amazing rivers before I reach the flats of river danube a little after sunset. I get a coffee and half an hour later I am at the banks of my home river, only 800km downstream of my house. I stop at an expensive looking place and get some not that expensive but incredibly beautiful arranged and well tasting zander. The internet signal is strong enough to reach the car so I spend the night at their car park. You can find the place, not far from Belgrad at the destination mark of the map link above – its truly recomended!