Statistics Serbia & Romania

Statistics Serbia:
Days spent in country: 8
Cycling days: 6
Rest days: 2
Distance cycled: 431,64 km
Average km/day: 53,96 km
Money spent: 183,70 €
Average €/day: 22,96 €
Accomodation:
- Couchsurfing: 1 night
- Pension/Hostel: 7 night
Things broke: nothing
Things lost: nothing

Statistics Romania:
Days spent in country: 1,5
Cycling days: 1,5
Distance cycled: 148,26 km
Average km/day: 98,84 km
Money spent: 66,6 € (sic!)
Average €/day: 44,4 €
Accomodation:
- Hotel: 2 nights
Things broke: nothing
Things lost: nothing
Best candy: Cherry-flavoured marzipan, hmmmmmm

Day 041 Calafat - Добри Дол

And yet another country: Bulgaria. Now all this confusing border crossings will become much rarer: From now on I will cross all countries in their full extend and the countries are getting bigger and bigger: Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran,...
There were some Firsts yesterday and today. Yesterday in Romania: the first time really really bad roads and the first time a lot of people cheering for me and children giving me high fives while I was riding along, especially in the evening when everyone in the villages was out on the street. Today after spending most of the day cycling around Vidin trying to find a Bulgarian mobile operator offering a prepaid card that works for internet for a reasonable price (successful at M-Tel) I had my next Firsts. After leaving Vidin I passed my first street side hookers, which is remarkable given the many border towns I crossed so far. After yesterdays experience with the lady of a less sinful profession they could not convince me to make use of their services. Ok, the decision would have been the same without yesterdays sadistic massage. I wonder why they are always dressed up like drag queens: that is pretty much the opposite of appealing to a straight guy - doesn't seem like a very good business model to me.
Later I passed a gypsy village with some really loud music playing from somewhere. While going up a hill I had the first children shouting 'Money Money!' at me. This is another thing I will have to get used to again. Luckily they were not yet of the rock-throwing-if-being-ignored-sort, so I safely arrived at a Motel near Dobry Dol run by a German/Bulgarian guy who just left Germany because in Bulgaria he could live more freely without such unnecessary things as Internet. Here I had dinner with the french couple who I knew from some days ago when we took the same ferry before entering the iron gate.

Day 040 Drobeta Turnu Severin - Calafat

The wind was my friend today - he blew me as far as whopping 133km! I had planned to cover this distance in 2 days. I am still a bit impressed how good cycling went today - given that I only started around noon and that during the first third the Danube zig-zagged a bit and therefore I had some strong headwind sections in the beginning. That was when I realized why cycling was so easy during the last two days - I had a lot of tailwind then and did not even think about it. Somehow it is like that with all good things in life: if something good is happening to us we are so busy being happy that we don't give a thought on the cause of our bliss. Only if the good thing is gone we realize what made us so happy. If then the good thing should come back we enjoy it very consciously - for a very short time - until we forget about it again. So after the zig zag section I really really enjoyed the tailwind for the rest of the day. I however do not give any guarantee that I will think about it the next time.
During the long ride I had a lot of time to think of the really important problems of todays world - like why this blogger application on my mobile always scrambles up the order of the pictures. I think I have found a solution so I hope that from now on the pictures will be shown in the correct order.
In the evening I felt reasonably tired but not completely destroyed. Nevertheless I had to give me a treat and invested in a massage. A good one. An extremely brutal one. By a completely unsuspicious looking romanian lady who giggled strangely whenever she hit a spot where it really hurt. I am still not sure if she really wanted to help me or just enjoyed making me suffer.

Day 039 Malo Golubinje - Drobeta Turnu Severin

Good things can become even better: yesterdays landscape was already magnificent, sublime, really really stunning. But todays was even more so! Yesterday after cycling with Oliver and Christian I had to decide at 5pm if I stop for the day or keep on cycling with them through the rest of the Iron Gate the same day. Though they were great guys and it was big fun to cycle with them it was a good decision to stop: because my hosts in Malo Golubinje were very very welcoming and the price-vs.-great-view-from-the-terrace-ratio was simply unbeatable and because for the first half of today I spent much more time on photo stops and simply starring at the landscape than on cycling. It would have been a shame to hurry along this way because the sun was about to set soon and the next accomodation was still pretty far. I do not know how to describe this wonderful landscape properly - if you have the chance, come and experience it yourself - preferably by cycling or paddling! After I had passed the most dramatic parts of the Iron Gate I just had to roll down to the first of the two huge Iron Gate Dams retaining the Danube for more than 100km - and crossing it I entered: 1. a new timezone, 2. the EU again 3. Romania!