Setting off in much nicer weather, I soon arrived in the town of Ruma and stopped and tried to pick up free Wi-fi, but without much success. Then a gentleman yelled out to me in English: "I want to fuck your daughter". I laughed and told him that wasn't very nice, and we got talking. Vlado would speak to me in Serbian first and then would give me a translation in his broken English. Then another man joined us and invited us to use the Wi-fi in the cafe where he was working, so I offered to buy Vlado a coffee but whilst I was parking my bike he ordered me a coffee instead. We sat and he told me he was a shaman, interested in medecinal wild plants and also Serbian pioneers like Nikolaj Tesla and Shastanovic. He went looking for a bike to borrow to ride with me a bit, but without success. An eccentric for sure, but in my opinion it is the eccentrics who really make life interesting.
When he left me alone to use the Internet a while later, some men in the cafe laughed, deliberately soon enough so that he heard it and came back. I was annoyed at their mockery of him but not able to respond in Serbian. Then the very young daughter of the cafe manager started talking to me in English and wanted to be Facebook friends, so I said why not.
Leaving Ruma, the most direct route to Belgrade became a pay motorway so I took another busy-ish route but ended up going the wrong direction and having to backtrack. I eventually found a ziggy-zaggy route towards Belgrade, reached Zemun as it got dark and then went and camped in a farmer's field where they'd been hay-baling.
The wind was very strong all night, so I didn't sleep too well. The next morning there was a Lada Niva parked a few hundred metres from me, and the driver bizarrely revved the engine several times as I was packing up. I suspect s/he was making sure I was leaving, or maybe they hadn't even seen me.
At last I was heading for Belgrade proper, and I arrived in the suburbs and picked up a motorway heading to the centre, having some very hairy moments with cars passing with very little clearance, before exiting near the centre. I bought a few things, and mended a flat tyre - twice, as there was a small hole where the rubber around the valve was torn. My first impressions of the city, then were that it was a bit grimy and not very cycle-friendly at all, but I'd not entered by the official cycle route which would have helped.
I found the Danube and cycled that a little way, towards the real centre, which was much nicer, with a park giving a panoramic view over the city whilst old men played chess together (one day that will be me!). I found the large pedestrianised centre, vainly sought an open Wi-Fi, and then met Berty from Munich, who had just cycled from Germany through Poland, Czech Republic, etc to here, doing a circuit clockwise back to Munich.
Berty had a pretty brave approach to wild camping, being happy to camp in the city centre, but waiting until very late and going to a park or monument. He planned to sleep in the Belgrade Fortress that night and I contemplated joining him before deciding to head for Panchevo. Crossing the Danube I quickly managed to lose the cycle route the other side, but ended up on a dirt track behind the polders and found a perfect little camping spot for the night, enjoying a much better night's sleep.
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