Tim's Balkan Bike Blast 3

The horse and cart had long disappeared by the time breakfast was over. 

I packed up the remaining clothes that were hanging in the sunshine to dry. With any luck the rain and damp would stay away today. There was a lot of biking to do.

Just how much I had no idea. I just wanted to be somewhere in the Carpathian mountains and fairly close to the Transfagarasan Highway by the end of the day’s ride.

The bike had been carefully guarded by the rubbish bins at the back of the restaurant. It only took a minute to unlock the bike, then load up the rucksack and tank bag. Hardly time for the engine to warm up.

The route planner had 125 km to Novi Sad, which seemed a good point to aim for before refuelling and a morning coffee. The main highway was good. The countryside opened up as I headed north east and everything seemed to be more developed. Bigger settlements, the occasional factory, larger fields, more colourful clothes and more cars. Water melons obviously thrive in this area. Outside people’s houses and seemingly abandoned at road junctions, whole carts were piled high with dozens of water melons for sale. Presumably there was an honesty box, or the seller was somewhere hidden in the shade. A village would have maybe 20 carts, each cart with a few dozen melons, it was a major industry. I have no idea what percentage they sell, but it couldn’t be all of them since everyone seemed to have their own supply.

The route planner didn’t always hook up well with the headset and would go quiet for long periods, which was fine until faced with an either/or junction. So I stopped quite a few times to double check the direction and asked quite a few people, most of whom gave correct directions.

In one town a US Steel plant sat next to a Gazprom petrol station, which sort of summed up Serbian development. Not quite Wild West, but open to multiple influences.

There are no photos for the simple reason I chose not to stop. I was there for the ride, for the experience, not bound to keeping the world up to date. Anyway, they would get even more bored. 

It is depressing seeing people at major events, from pop concerts to sports matches, trying to film everything on their phones, in bad quality. They miss the fun. Let it go.

So I let it went and kept the throttle twisted. Somewhere near the river Sava the land morphed into marshes and wheeling overhead was a solitary stork. A fairly simple thought process led to remembering ... Hello stork, it’s my birthday. The stork took no notice. 

But the road called and it was time to eat up the miles.

Avoiding motorways meant the ride was pretty much in a straight line, so it would take about the same time, but would feel a lot more fun. The strange part about the roads was that base had not been well compacted before the asphalt arrived. So the first heavy loads had rutted the roads. That was a little disconcerting on occasion, but the Tiger wanted to stay upright and moving forward. So we did.

Some big signs advertised the Fruska Gora National Park and the road wound uphill, through thick woodland, with sharp bends and intermittent coaches. I had not seen a single one the day before, now the odd one lumbered past, seemingly heading the other way. I saw some half a dozen bikes on that stretch, maybe they had already migrated to the Carpathians.

I was getting tired by the time the roads into Novi Sad got confusing with multiple signs to the centre pointing in different directions.

Somehow I ended up on the right road which had a wonderful view of the beaches along the wide, wide Danube, which was more grey than blue. Strauss was presumably a pre-industrial composer.

The beaches had industrial rows of umbrellas, like docking stations for sun seekers.  It was a good day for them, close to 30C.

The town is large and not Sad, so choosing a coffee stop was easy and random. Somehow the random choices were working out well. The Baby Blue Café of course had wifi, and good coffee.

I caught up with the facebook birthday wishes and some emails while standing in the shade. Somehow sitting to take a rest didn’t seem so obvious. Different muscles needed a look in now and then.

The roads out of town were confusing and there were no signposts for my next major destination, Timisoara. That should not be so surprising as Timisoara (pronounced Timmy-shwara) is about 150km away and in a different country. So I filled up at a petrol station that was on the wrong road, but they put me right and it was time to cover distance.

The countryside was very similar. Open, few settlements, good roads and little traffic. Chomp, chomp, chomp. And the settlements got sparser, there were fewer water melons and the sun shone on.

I have no idea how they decided where to put the border at this point between Serbia and Romania, it seemed a pretty random location. No major landmark, just a few cabins plonked on the landscape. Leaving Serbia was pretty easy, but coming the other way were a couple of bikes which had Italian plates. A very good excuse for a chat.

‘Boun giorno, siete Italiani’. Good day, you’re Italian - more statement than question, but you never know. 

They were, from somewhere near Rome. Oh, I’m from Marche, (which is some 250 km the other side of the peninsular). They then admitted they were from Fermo, which is about 10 km from my house. Only close to Rome if your map is very small. 

They wanted to know about motorways, which I hadn’t used and anyway there didn’t seem to be any heading directly back to the Adriatic. I left them a business card just in case we could meet up back in Italy and swap stories of Romania, but haven’t heard anything since.

Just as I was about to set off across the no mans land, Michael called, I didn’t answer as Serbian calling charges would be expensive.

The Romanian border guard contingent all got involved in my documentation. Not only the passport, but drivers licence, insurance and bike ownership. They noticed I had a duplicate drivers licence and I confessed the previous one was lost a couple of years ago. They hadn’t noticed that it was my birthday. As the documentation came back Michael called again and I answered. He wished me happy birthday, it was good to catch up and we chatted for 15 minutes. As soon as we finished I got a text from Serbian telecom who had happily relieved me of Eur 15 for the call. Oh well, time to move on.

There were no houses or farms close to the border. It all seemed a bit strange. Still there were no cars either so the biking was easy.

About an hour later I was firmly embedded in a traffic jam in Timisoara. 

It seemed close to the town centre so I just went very slowly the wrong way down a one way street and parked the bike.

It was time for lunch but the big café on the edge of what was probably the main town square didn't take credit cards. Luckily the major banks were close-by. Time for cash. Time for Lei. Western Union would probably cost a fortune so I decided to try my luck (fortune/luck - geddit?) at Unicredit. A big Italian bank. That should help if something went wrong.

Something went wrong...

Tim's Balkan Bike Blast 2

Unloading was an excuse to connect with the bikers of the night before, wishing each other well and safe travels.

I sort of set the GPS, with little faith, then decided to change route before we left the port of Split and holistically headed down the Croatian coast.
After a while it seemed pretty similar, pretty but built up, similar to Italy. So I finally listened to the patient lady giving directions in my headset. I have no idea how she had not already lost her temper. Superhuman these GPS birds.

And the adventure started, winding up from the coast into the the face of a mountain. Curves ending in hairpins, on smooth, German-subsidised, wide tarmac roads.

Then the at top,it all changed.

The highlands of Bosnia seemed empty, with uplands reminiscent of Wales or Scotland, vast tracks of pasture littered with the wreckage of rocks, like debris on an ancient abandoned battlefield.

Rounding a big lake the view faded in and out of a typical Scottish mist, long winding curves to be taken at speed, at an angle. The road was good, there was very little traffic and a bunch of kilometres were eager to be eaten up. Suddenly the road turned into a long straight stretch and the Tiger could open up, but the mist persisted and any more than 160 kph seemed silly. 
The road wound into prefabricated dwellings close to abandoned older houses, the occasional handpainted sign offered the possibility of bikes and coffee, but it was no certainty, so on we roared.
Then at the crest of a hill a large wooden sign proclaimed something important, but I couldn't read the Cryllic script and anyway had to brake as the tarmac stopped abruptly. The rest of the road in this new land disintegrated into steep, downhill, windy, rain rutted gravel. So like the Himalayas, even the continuing persistence of humidity that collected in the folds of the raingear.

Edgy about the high balancing point of the Tiger, plus its weight, but comforted by its handling ability, we set off. And it got easier. The tyres gripped, the power got us over trouble, and sometimes a quick twist of the throttle rushed us through a tricky bit. I was rapidly falling in love with the bike.

Trees started appeared and we wound down the mountain. Perhaps the road was a deliberate barrier to stop invading armies, or tourists, or any form of contact between the communities on either side of the crest. But after a few kilometres the tarmac reappeared, along with a renovated mosque, gleaming new plaster white in the dark green gloom. 
From there the settlements and cemeteries multiplied, Muslim, Orthodox, possible even Catholic, they loomed in the mist with tombstones like tank traps jutting out of the pastures, surrounded by thin metal railings and run down buildings.
The occasional shack had signs of tyre manufacturers and sometimes groups of country clad men clustered, to talk, to look at some mechanical beast of burden, or to watch the strange tourist with his flourescent sleeved, postman flavoured riding gear. Fake tartan shirts, baggy trousers and gumboots the same across religions and countries all over the continent.

But there were no bars, no hotels or B&Bs, or petrol stations or friendly smiles, just the mixed scenery of mountain, forest and rain, interspersed with run down houses. Until we reached a sign that said in English 'Locality under video surveillance'. Was this a local police warning, or some UN sponsored peace initiative? Whichever way, it soon led to the rest of the town of Jablinca where, as I came to expect, every café and every petrol station had free wifi.

I was tired and the long local coffee was most welcome. I only had Euros, but a 5 Euro note got me a coffee and a bunch of local change. The young men in the bar all had shaven heads and were slumped, bear like, over their late morning beers. The barista looked the same, but had a smile and asked the usual question you pose to an alien. What on earth was I doing there? 
But the guys set me on the road to Sarajevo and smiled as I left, maybe because I left, but it never felt threatening. Just different.

The coffee break took a little longer than expected so I was happy to increase speed as the road got bigger and wider. But the traffic increased. So I needed to overtake a fair amount. Training in the Himalayas and a lot of experience on the Tiger gave me confidence about where, when and how to overtake. Sometimes this involved crossing the double white lines, but they are made for normal drivers, in slower cars, so I felt OK. In the zone.
On a gentle left hand open bend over a bridge I skipped a lorry, then a car, only to see the approaching traffic start flashing their lights. I slowed, but it was too late. The police car was hidden behind a hillock at the far end. I was flagged. Dismounting carefully on the far side of the road  I locked up and hopped over to where the policeman started speaking. I tried the litany of English, German, Italian and French. No good. We both smiled and he drew me a picture of illegal overtaking. I said sorry, both verbally and with a mixture of Italian and Indian supplicant gestures. 'Tourist?' - 'Yes, Si, Ja.'
The fine in the book he showed me was translated into Minimum €50 Maximum €150. So I said 'minimum', which seemed to be the same word in both our languages.
Since I did not ask for a receipt I got 'extra minimum' €20 cash. That worked well for me and was a cheap lesson in respecting the laws of the countries I was visiting, which you must always do, especially in front of policemen!

The roads got bigger and busier and by the time I got to Sarajevo it was a bustling multilane mass of motor cars. I stopped for fuel and was directed to a shopping centre which should have a lighter charger with a USB connection. I forgot to pack one and charging the phone while riding was going to be essential. 

Parking a bike is normally easier and traffic police seem to be a lot more lenient as long as you are not blocking anyone's way. So it was simple to park. But unloading the tankbag and carting that, with the helmet, through the shopping centre was a little inconvenient.
The good part was that the panniers had padlocks on and there was no other baggage to carry.

A double USB charger seemed a bargain at the equivalent of €5, until I tried it after lunch and it didn't work.

But lunch was more important and after struggling into the centre of town I took a bridge to almost nowhere and stopped outside a bar. They didn't do lunch but pointed me to a little restaurant a few yards away. Restoran Dalija did a perfect lunch. Spare seats for the bike gear, free wifi, a recharging point for the phone and an excellent local soup with homemade bread. A catch up to publish selfies and see if the world had changed while slurping soup *is there any other way?), a coffee then off we set again. 

As soon as the town of Sarajevo finished there was a sign proclaiming Republika Srbska. Two large red paint bombs had badly wounded the sign and showed what someone thought of that.

It was about 2 pm and I was hoping to make Srebrenica before nightfall.

After stopping voluntarily at a police checkpoint to get directions I was there for a late tea. The policemen had probably recovered from the shock of unusual behaviour by the time I got to Srebrenica though. 

Here was the borderland with Serbia. The cosmopolitan nature of Sarajevo peeled away rapidly after the wounded sign and by the time I got to Srebrenica horses and carts were a regular sight. One old guy even waved. I stopped thinking something was wrong, but this confused him and me enormously, so off we set again.

I had to stop in Bratunac to ask for directions again, signs were as intermittent as they are in Italy. After the town there were a few abandoned buildings with bullet damage, and soon after the Srebrenica memorial hove into view. 

There were four other people visiting, noone on the gate and a damp late afternoon added to the eeriness of the place.


It seems small but gets bigger as you go in. There are lots of Muslim tomb markers in neat rows like war cemeteries all over Europe. Then a big granite rock highlights 8,372.






And a huge semi-circle lists them all, by family name.

And you see generations jumbled up together, 

Mesanovic Arif 1941
Mesanovic Azem 1951
Mesanovic Azmir 1969
Mesanovic Bajro 1929
Mesanovic Benadil 1965    
Mesanovic Bekir 1972

and on, and on, and on... 8,732 times.

It is very powerful and very sad. 
I paid my respects but didn't want to stay there.

Back in Bratunac it looked just as bad with grey, streets draped with telephone wires and plastic backlit shop signs more reminiscent of the middle east than Europe. So I carried on and rather by accident arrived at a checkpoint for Serbia. I was not thinking too well when I asked the Bosnian border guard, who was checking me through, if this was the right road for Belgrade. He said he wouldn't know and let me through. I realised the error at the checkpoint on the far side of the wide Drina river.

The roads were fine on both sides, not great but fine, though on the Serbian side the main road quickly gave way to roadworks, with several kilometres of rough packed gravel holding up the hurtling, heavy-duty trucks. Not much fun on a bike, but the Tiger was superb and we stayed at a steady pace, in the same rut, only using the back brake lightly, and eventually it was over.

On the Bosnian side more renovated mosques mockingly shone through the damp. The wide river got wider. 
Some 20 kilometres further on it was time for a very late afternoon cup of tea.






Although there was a sign for a hotel it was next to the busy road and Kvornik did not seem too much fun. But the big burly guy at the bar was happy to set me up with some hot sweet tea and let me plan the next steps on his password free wifi. He resumed a familiar bear pose at a table with some other guys watching some football match, played on an impossibly bright green pitch. I paid with the Bosnian notes I had, however much that was, and even got some change, however much that was.


Refreshed I set off again, but was looking for accommodation. The next town did not seem to have anything, just large factories. I asked a lady walking along the road who told me in German the restaurants may have beds. 

The next place was a large lorry park, which did not seem the right place for me to try and a few kilometres further on I passed Restoran Basta. Right on the main road.

It was getting dark and I had been going for close to 12 hours, so it was definitely time to stop. 

I asked if they knew anywhere nearby with rooms. They had some. €10 for the night. The room had a double bed, with a newish mattress and a small shower in the room. Perfect. 

Two beers and a huge supper later I forked over €25 (wonderful how cash Euros were easily accepted) to secure what turned out to be a massive cooked breakfast of three fried eggs, half a loaf of bread and a chunk of fried pig slopping in gorgeous grease! Perfect biker brekky.

It was a good nights sleep and the free wifi got me up to date.

I even sent a selfie the next morning as the rush hour started and a lone horse and cart clopped down the main highway.

Tim's Balkan Bike Blast

Like so many people I know so little about the Balkans. Most of that limited knowledge is prejudiced and scarred by the war just before the turn of the century. 

It’s time to find out, in person, on a bike.

It also feels a little daring and certainly off the beaten track. 

I’ve been on two trips to India since learning to ride three years ago. Both of those trips were with Alex Pirie of Nomadic Knights, motto ‘Love Life, Live Adventure’. And adventure they both were. But I did not have enough holiday, or unexpected pension plans to cash in that would finance a return this year. The Balkans beckoned.

Two years ago the kids organised a trip to Montenegro and Albania. They were all three 14 (yes they’re triplets) and they did very well. We saw some wonderful scenery in Bosnia on a day’s drive through there, we had a few days in the Tara River canyon, in Montenegro, which was superb and a week at the seaside. So I knew enough to feel the riding would be good, easy to find petrol and wifi all over the place, what more do you need.

Talking about the trip ahead of time there were a few nerves from people, mainly concerned about whether it would be safe. The only answer was, probably. But hey, life is for living. And I had to do something, with the kids scattering across the globe. Hamish got a scholarship to spend his penultimate school year in Thailand. My daughter, Steedley, got the same for six months in Costa Rica and son George was booked in for three weeks with his mother in Frankfurt where she works.

A lot has been talked about the Transfagarasan highway across the Carpathian Mountains, in Transylvania, Romania, so that seemed a reasonable destination.

Given the vagaries of schedules at work there was no certainty how much time I could take off, or even when. Then stuff slotted into place.

My senior niece, Emily and a friend, Mandy, were happy to come out and dogsit. The dog is a huge Neapolitan mastiff, weighing in at 72 kilos. Soppy, slobbery and in need of company he didn’t deserve to be in a kennel for a couple of weeks.

With work, as usual in Italy, it seems disorganised and unplanned but there is a general idea of what is going to happen and with some flexibility it usually all gets sorted out. It did and I booked a ferry a week in advance.

In Italy most people are off in August and the 15^th is a sacrosanct national holiday for everyone except the restaurants, so holidays are based around that. The previous Wednesday I rode to Ancona and spent the day in the office with last minute mini panics to deliver proposals and reports ahead of the break.

By mid-afternoon torrential rain and thunderstorms set up the trip on a nervy note. I had packed a presumed minimum, hopefully everything would fit in one motorbike pannier, a tank bag and a hydration rucksack. I dehydrate easily, so a backpack with a three litre bag and long tube for a straw makes it easy to keep up the water and sporty mineral intake. The forecast was for temperatures between 30oC leaving Italy and 13oC in Transylvania.

The answer was layers. Riding gear and little else. A pair of bathing shorts, beach sandals, medical kit, travel towel, sleeping bag, just in case, and electronics for selfies.

I also had a small notebook from Cindy Moretti, who is a fellow teacher at ISTAO, a local business school. The notebook was really useful as it is easier than firing up an iPad to make a quick note. And if I tried to put notes on the smartphone I’d never find them again, or forget I’d made them.

Still the whole lot fit in a small rucksack and a tank bag, plus the sleeping bag. So one whole pannier was free for whatever happened on the journey.

Most excellent was the magnificent, trusty steed.
My 2010 Triumph Tiger 1050, No. M002951AN10.

The Tiger close to home, in Central Italy

Full compliments to everyone involved in building this wonderful beast. It starts when you want, stops when you want, has beautiful balance, excellent acceleration and after nine months of getting used to it, feels comfortable and friendly. I had new tyres and a new chain about a month ago, and just before setting off had the coolant completely changed and the oil checked. I even cleaned it! Filling it with petrol and the occasional clean are about the extent of by biking mechanical expertise.

The other excellent riding kit is the Nolan N44 helmet, with big open vision. Not only is that good for viewing the spectacular scenery, it also makes the life saver a little less effort. The lifesaver is a quick glance over the shoulder before moving left or right, in case you missed something in your mirrors and a bike or car is over-, or undertaking. It saves lives. It was a big point at the Advanced Riding Course I was on with my friend Michael when we went back to the UK in May for the Adventure Ashram Rally.

Slotting into special compartments in the helmet is a Nolan B5 communication system, linking with the smartphone for its GPS (which was used intermittently, but more on that later) and radio/music (which wasn’t used). It also connects with Bluetooth intercom for chatting with a pillion passenger (of which there were none) and with another B5 within 500 metres (which Michael wasn’t!).

Some Harley Davidson wrap around shades edged with foam were perfect for riding with the visor up, and no dust or insects got in. The other trick with the helmet was to lower the inbuilt sun visor halfway when the sun was low in the sky, like double shades. That helped visibility a lot.

Mandy had recommended downloading Maps.Me as a GPS app, which was good as it worked offline, which Google maps often does not. I had an on/off relationship with Maps.Me as it would not always connect with the GPS, the maps were good but not perfect and you have to download several. I ended up with four maps for the parts of Romania I went through. But you need wifi to download, which is not always available at every petrol station or café in the mountains. 

So setting off in central Italy, in the torrential rain the guys at work had given me a very good idea of where to go to check in for the overnight ferry across the Adriatic to Split. The ferry terminal was packed and although a bike can skip through a traffic jam the main problem was that there was a major police check of the incoming ferries so boarding was delayed by an hour, in the rain. At least it was a chance to meet fellow bikers.

I learnt from my mother the fun of starting conversations with complete strangers. At least bikes are a shared interest which makes it easy. The few bikers braving the rain were going for short trips down the Croatian coast. Once the kerfuffle had cleared, we set off skipping up the queue again. Of course in the rain with all the bits of paper and getting the passport and the bike documents I ended up dropping the bike at the police check. There was a kerfuffle, they were obviously on edge and I was plain embarrassed, but I’m well practiced at picking up the 250 kg bike as I’ve dropped it a few times, while parked.

Parking the wet bike on the wet steel floor of the boat I dropped it again. By this time, wet and sweaty I was ready for a shower, beers, supper and sleep.

There was no shower with my shared 4 bed couchette. So we had to do with a wash. I gambled on no one else sharing the room and wanting to steal my clothes so I took the passport and electronics to supper, which was very good and very cheap in the Jadrolinia ferry restaurant. A beer and a smoke on the afterdeck and bed was most welcome.