I'm up and dressed at seven o'clock and while passing through the hostel reception, there are two men with big suit-cases checking in. A little later I'm sat in the common-room drinking coffee while writing an email, when the younger of the two, a big thickset man about thirty with baby face and mop of side-parted hair, catches my raised gaze from the keyboard in passing, greets me in Serb-Croat; though in a way, the faintness of voice or the lack of native expression tells me it isn't his mother tongue. Moments pass and he return and introduces himself in a soft Australian ascent. Sandra. He tells me how proud he is having a Serbian name. His grandfather immigrated from Serbia to Australia. He's come to see the country grandfather left.

"I worked two years solid for this trip. Then, near the time, I decided to take dad along" The older man has just entered and he introduces him, David; who takes over "We'r from Seed-ney" and we shake hands. "So you'r from Ireland?"

"You look like a local" Sandra says. "My disguise is working then."

Daniela the receptionist has latterly taken a seat, bursts into laugher and exclaims "Sean has been in Serbia for almost a month and is almost Serbian."

Though not for much longer. I have a second cup of strong turkish coffee, then a third while pondering over leaving at long last. I'll miss Hostel Bongo. Two and a half weeks I stayed here. A ridiculously long break to have on a cycle-tour.

I'm anxious to make a move on with this tour, anyway. I calculate that I want to fly to Argentina at the end of September: the perfect time to hit the southern hemisphere Spring; but first, according to plan, I want to reach Spain. And revisiting Portugal would be nice. So a lot less time off the bike and more riding in the next three months is called for in order to make the goal of what I originally set out to ride.

I say goodbye to the two Australians and Daniela hugs me three times, saying this is the Serbian way, "um, um and um as we press cheeks together."

Having been around the city a few times by bike, I've a fair idea of the lay of the land. I head downhill from Republic Square, east; intending to ride to "The Iron Gate Gorge" on the Danube. John Grant wrote in the Guestbook "The Smederovo road (east) out of Belgrade is Shocking." I assume it is no more shocking than all the other main arteries in and out of the city. Though I've not quite found the Smederovo road yet as I follow a small road around through an industrial riverfront part of town. I pass underneath the bridge I came over when returning from Novi Sad last Sunday and ahead the road narrows and the only vehicles are a few passing artic-trucks. There's a stink in the warm air. First it seems like the salty fishing-harbour smell of a coastal town, but it's not. Then it's obviously raw sewage and around the next bend the way narrows still into a shantytown. Like a rubbish dump in which rough shacks have been put together out of tin and cardboard and children in rags, perhaps Romany, are playing in the squally.

I double back, back to the aforementioned bridge and find another small road east, which after a bit follows near the south bank of the Danube through residential neighbourhoods on the edge of the city and although the road narrows to a vehicle width once beyond the suburbs, it looks like it may continue as a riverside path and take me eventually onto some other road east. But it isn't to be as soon it reverts to packed gravel, then to a definite dead-end by the riverbank.

I haven't looked at the map, but if I had, I would've remembered that the Danube east of Belgrade curves north, then east and back south, so it is futile following the river on this side. To reach the Smederovo road I've to head south inland.

I return to a turn off I passed and turn left up a steep hill toward high-rise blocks, climbing in sweltering midday sun. Beyond the blocks on the hilltop the road descends and passes out into more or less continuous village with fields in between covered in plastic tunnels for vegetable cultivation, but this road swings round north toward the crescent of the river and eventually meets a hill and come to another dead-end. So I've to ride the whole way back.

I'm sick of this and decide to return into Belgrade. I ride by Republic Square again, then down to the waterfront and follow the wide thoroughfare west along the river Sava.

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I am at that moment for continuing west towards Bosnia, but further on the road become a motorway, even though it isn't shown in the map as such, whereupon for want of an alternative, I take road 22 south, signposted "Cacak" it is the same road I rode north into Belgrade a few weeks earlier.

It's a hot afternoon, the road a seemingly endless gradual uphill grade about five per cent. I take refuse in an acclimatized petrol station cafeteria, having a cheese and ham sandwich lunch and a can of cold beer; then a cola later to get me in the mood to get going again.

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As well as persistently slightly uphill, the traffic is constant and the road surface the ridged up furrow rut of heavy truck-wheels, so I've to remain on the ball at all times.

I'm also not feeling great after not having eaten much because of having been sick a few days ago. The heat feels too much. I soon enter a roadside town and stop when I see a hotel sign advertising rooms at ten euros. I could have a cooling shower and spent the rest of the day in an air-conditioned room. The hotel is a modern glass and steel affair, but unfortunately when I ask, they are full. Well it is Saturday.

I come to another hotel a few hundred metres on. The car park is full and a wedding is going on in the function room. Here the woman confirm they're full too, but recommends another place a kilometre on.

When I get there, they do indeed have a free room; ten euros a night. It is nice to get showered, but for a couple of euros more I's hoping to eat dinner in the restaurant, but when I go down at eight, I'm informed the kitchen is closed, being refurbished and so do with a beer and a big bowl of crisps. I'd already drank a lot of yogurt and orange-juice, so I'm not that overtly hungry.