Sunday, and as I had not been able to get a flight home and now of course the cost had gone up, I decided to suck it up, get on my bike and pedal as far out of Serbia as I could. As it was Sunday, I was praying that there wouldn't be as much traffic on the roads. Fortunately, I was right, plus the fact that I was up early helped. So I cycled out of Belgrade quite relaxed thankfully. Sundays seem to be market day however, and as I rode out of the city I rode into market upon market in each town I passed. Watermelons seemed to be the main excitement, lorries filled to the brim with them and many also squashed along the sides of the road. Watermelons weren't the only thing squashed on the side of the road. The amount of hedgehogs and dogs I passed was saddening really. There are so many stray dogs in Romania, on the whole they are treated well and are very friendly. I could have taken many home with me when they looked at me with those loving brown eyes.

Anyway, my day never seemed to end. Fortunately there were drink stalls all along the route. It was another hot & windy day which just made my thirst unbearable. I haven't drunk so much coke and fanta for years but it's what I crave. On the whole the last leg through Serbia was bearable compared to what I had experienced on previous days. I had two options for crossing into Romania, the first option coming up was to cross the Danube by ferry at a place called Ram, after that there would beat other 24km to the Romanian border. The other option was to stay another 150km on the Serbian side, passing through 21 unlit tunnels with HGVs hugging me. I chose the second option - just kiddin'! I couldn't wait to get out of Serbia so I was planning on crossing the Danube at Ram.

Ram never seemed to appear and to make matters worse the wind picked up which meant that I might as well have been on a stationary bike going nowhere fast. According to my route book the last ferry was at 19.00hrs so I was doing okay as far as time was concerned, it's just that I was running out of juice and options to lay my head for the night. I finally made it to Ram at 17.30 with the last ferry leaving at 18.15. I sat and ate something as I thought it would be my last chance to find somewhere but immediately regretted it when I saw how rough the Danube was. It actually resembled the English Channel more than it did the gentle river I had been cycling with all the way along. I boarded the ferry with my bike and managed to keep my food down on the crossing. The Danube is pretty wide at this point, no idea how wide, but it's wide.

When I got to the other side I was greeted by the sign 'sobe' which means 'rooms'. I looked no further I was done for the day. The place was a dive and the owner was a pain in the arse pervert. He showed me to my room and when he found out that I ha biked 130km he told me to sit on the bed and then attempted to massage my shoulders. I passed, gracefully of course. But then when I went to take some photos he kept blowin kisses at me. Then when I went to bed, again faced with see through curtains, I thought I'm gonna turn the light out before I start changing, I just had a feeling. And I was right too cos when I tried to open the window to let some air in all of a sudden there was a knock at the day and the pervert was there to open the window for me, well actually he couldn't cos he was too short but that's not the point, the point is how did he know I was trying to open the window if he wasn't watching my window, gross!

Anyway, once ensconced in a 'light' darkness I fell asleep and woke up cold during the night. Guess I shouldn't have opened the window :-).