Anyway, some notable events...
- Shortly after leaving Vienna, I bumped into Julien and Tarek on the road. They were both very pleased to see me, and they both had a striking black eye each -a souvenir from a drunken fight in Passau. Can't say I'm too disappointed I missed out on that. Anyway, it was good to see them again and we have ridden together right up to this point, where we are now going to go our separate ways.
- Riding into Bratislava, we got very lost and found ourselves on a tough mountain-bike trail. The path was mainly wet mud, rocks and steep slopes, and the area was infested with mosquitos. My tyres are fat but quite slick, and my bike is about 45 kilos, so I was powersliding round most of the corners and down most of the slopes. Which was pretty fun. Caked in mud at the end of it.
- Got to Budapest after 3 days. Went to the thermal baths, which were amazing, apart from the fact that nearly every pretty girl (and there were many) was laughing openly at my hilarious white torso/nut-brown arm combo. I didn't care. There were whirlpools and everything. It was too fun for looking sexy.
- Rode out of Budapest into a thunderstorm, where I got to try out my brand new expensive waterproof gear (my old jacket was completely un-waterproof, which I considered something of a design flaw). This was the last time I saw rain, so maybe the expensive gear was a total waste of money.
- We camped secretly one night in a private orchard. I didn't sleep very well, as my head was busy concocting crazy scenarios involving angry farmers, guns, dogs and bullet wounds. It didn't help that Tarek and Julien chose to camp under a massive silver tarpaulin that you could easily see from space, so it didn't feel very secret at all. But nothing happened, of course.
- We paid a guy about one pound fifty so we could camp on the grounds of some building. He was ridiculously grateful, and not only gave us beds, but also some disgusting wine from a plastic bottle, and a lengthy and incomprehensible Hungarian history lesson conducted only in Magyar (the local language) and numbers scratched in the dirt. As a result of this, I can now tell you that something very exciting happened in 1560 somewhere in Hungary, but I couldn't tell you what it was.
- I should mention the cycling, I guess. We cycled a lot. A real lot. It was hot, and tiring, and occasionally quite funny, particularly because I managed to crash my bike twice. Once in slow motion down a steep embankment, which wasn't too painful, and once on a gravel track (hit a rock and went straight over the handlebars), which was. My gloves and helmet (which I was wearing for once, luckily) took the brunt of the punishment, but now one of my gloves is worn through to the palm. But hey, I probably won't crash again.
- I got my first puncture just after entering Croatia, and just after boasting how I'd gone almost 3,000kms without one. Bloody thorns lying around on the road. It's criminal. Something should be done.
- We camped in a family's vineyard after asking them politely if we could (while their two dogs growled and barked angrily at us). They gave us some homemade wine, and some homemade raki. As we were enjoying this, we were interrupted by a loud explosion nearby. It was probably a deer stepping on one of the many landmines that litter the countryside. We discussed going out in the dark to look for venison steaks, but decided it was maybe a bad idea.
- And finally, I rolled into Belgrade, which is a very beautiful city. The third hostel we tried had enough beds, and as soon as I got upstairs I was offered a beer by some very friendly travellers. It turns out this hostel has something of a party reputation, so tonight I am going to get SMASHED. 20 days to Istanbul, hopefully. But we will see...
