After an hour or two of pedaling up the serpentine road, at lowest possible gear, we reach the top of the pass at 1414 meters. A rather dull café is there, as well as kids selling blueberries from the adjacent forests for a euro or two per liter. Good snack for the road!

By day’s end, I and Jean-Luc reach a pub just before Vama, where we once again donate a small five Lei for the unofficial camping instead of the hefty 25 Lei that an ‘official’ campsite asked for in a previous town.

Again with Frenchman Jean-Luc, I end up at a farm only some fifteen kilometers before the top of pass P. Prislop at 1,414 meters.

We pay the vodka-sipping, lone farmer a euro each for the place to camp, complete with a natural water source – a tiny but clear-watered stream – next to his house. It’s a beautiful, scenic mountain slope to camp at.

I meet Parisian Jean-Luc in the morning, and without making any plans, we find eachother good companions for the next three days. He is also on bicycle – from Paris to the Black Sea – but on a more winding path than mine.

We spend the night at one of several hostels/campings that line the road. They are in fact owned by village farmers, thus both personal and cheap. The camping we find in Rona de Jos is less than two Euros a tent.

In the morning, Alex and his wife make me a huge breakfast for me – six fried eggs, two big pieces of ham, bread and vegetables. And they hand me a bag of six sandwiches – ready-made and wrapped in plastic – to eat along the road. Incredible!

The Romanian border is only 40 kilometers away – with a surprising although kind and swift passport control before entering this 1,5-year-old member of the European Union.

Big town Sata Mare is well located just five kilometers further away, giving me a chance to grab some local currency at one of several bank ATM’s. I again find trouble to explain my search for a camping place near peoples’ houses, and am consequently directed to nearby but less safe forests and lakes. I’m glad to finally meet George, who helps me with a free camping space next to the three-star hotel at which he works as a waiter. The pool and shower entrance is hefty eight Euros though, so there is only a bachelor’s shower at the toilet sink for me this time.

My first night camping after three days of invites by people to sleep inside.

Eva gives me some sandwiches for the road – she is kind to be as was I her son.

I soon cross the border to Hungary – another one-night-country as I make the avoiding turn around the southwest corner of Ukraine, in order to reach Romania. Beautiful villages; plenty of flowers by houses as well as public areas. It’s the first day of sunshine since 1-2 weeks back; a lot of clothes are out drying, so it seems they’ve had the same weather here, too.

Again I find it difficult to make myself understood when I ask for a place to camp nearby people – people tell me to go further; in fact to someplace where no people live. So I’m really happy when finally I meet Alex and his wife.

They invite me for a bed inside; soup with bread for dinner. The house is nicely decorated inside with strong colors – orange, lime green and sky blue – the work of Alex’s wife. He himself is also a breath of fresh air in an else traditional, small village. He listens to new wave music from the 80′s and 90′s (Simple Minds, etc.). He whispers to me that the neighbors aren’t as happy about that music as he is, so he keeps the volume low as we sit out on the front porch. His English is not vast, so we use a dictionary most of the time.

Again it’s bottom line not difficult to understand why I ended up staying with Alex and his wife – their open-mindedness and free thinking goes for music and politics as well as strangers I guess.

Tired after many sequent days on the road, I’m glad to find Eva. We meet outside a small grocery shop in roadside village Vel’aty. She speaks French quite well after years in Paris, and guards my bike while I do some shopping. It’s a local problem for me in Slovakia that most grocery stores have covered windows – I can’t keep an eye on my bicycle from inside. Eva also invites me to her home. Wash of clothes, food, afternoon tea, Internet. Wonderful!

The house belongs to her father – a proud man of above 90 years, but with bad hearing and bad eyesight – unable to accept that I can’t speak Slovak. Eva explains it to him.

The afternoon sunshine betrays – a wind follows and then a blowing rain and thunderstorm. I’m fortunate to once again be dry and sleep inside.

After only 40 kilometers – the last bit uphill through a misty and beautifully mysterious forest, I cross the border to Slovakia. A magnificent, wide view of steep hillsides, green grass and cattle; blue mountaintops in the distance. The road winds down to the Laborec River in the valley below and then follows it together with a railway heading south. It’s a great, easy route for cycling. There was no actual border – it’s all the European Union these days – but I’m able to change my Polish money to Slovakian in a small shop in the second town that I pass, although the rate was probably not the best as their was no competition.

Most of the road reminds me of cycling in Gabon – no monkeys of course, but deer and birds. Constant rain. Fog lifting form the dense forests. The road following the railway and the mighty – by rain made dirty brown – river. Its force gives me energy.

I find it difficult in the afternoon when I ask people for a place to camp – nobody seems to understand, or worse maybe it is that nobody cares. I’m relieved when I finally find a family whose daughter Zuzana is fluent in English after having worked in London. She is also the fastest ever to tell me not to pitch my tent, but instead come sleep inside. Five minutes after arriving, my bike is in their garage, my most precious belongings in a room upstairs, I’m newly showered in a borrowed pair of slippers and food is on the kitchen table. We sit there for hours talking about life, work, travel, Slovakia and whatever more comes to our minds. I’ve rarely found such relaxed, open and easy-spoken hosts. The next morning, they give me some of their homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers and paprika for the road. Delicious!

I’m greatly hosted in Tarnawa Dolna, some thirty kilometers from the border of Slovakia, where a family invites me to join them for dinner and use their Internet. I’m camping outside, but it’s been raining madly for the past three days. I’m invited to stay inside; surf the net. They mother gives me a ‘Tropic’ soda drink – a stark contrast to the rain and thunder outside the window, making noise as if heaven was being torn down.

Before I leave the next morning, they give me a jar of homemade honey – ”from the best region” – with their address on the label. Absolutely delicious on a piece of rye bread.

At the border, I’m turned away by the Ukrainian immigration: ”This border is too big for bicycles. Only trucks and buses can pass. No bicycles.” I try with a few loose pages in my – a five, a ten, a twenty – but nothing works. They really think that the border is too small for me. I’m pissed off to be honest, but try to be keep cool. Hide my hand in my pocket before showing them my finger. I turn back; have to go through Slovakia and Hungary instead to reach Romania.
Again, the rain is hailing through-out the day. I’m soaked wet and cold; pay myself a warm stay at a cheap government hostel in Przemyśl.
I can’t stop thinking of how silly we can be as people when we just go by the book and not by reason. When machines – trucks, busses, cars – can pass between two nations, but people can’t.

I pedal the last bit to the Ukrainian border, to try and make an early crossing come next morning. A family allows me to camp between the apple trees on their front yard. The man warns me: ”Ukraine is dangerous,” he says after I’ve explained my intended route. I hope he says it in the same way as people say ”Oh, but Africa is dangerous!” I.e. because they don’t know. Fear of what is unknown, or maybe different. “G. W. Bush-fear”.

Rain, rain, rain. The whole evening yesterday, the night, the morning today, noon and afternoon. Only by three pm, the rain abates and the sun breaks through the dense cloud cover for a minute or two.

I get going from Pokrówka an hour later, and reach 26 kilometers further south to a small village. Friendly Peter and his family give me a place to camp. An hour or so of early evening sunshine before the rain returns. I’m given a little bit of food and a taste of Ukrainian sweet red wine by the kitchen table. I’m warned – not for the first time – of Ukraine: ”Corruption – give them five, ten or maybe twenty.” Extra pages in the passport.

Peter himself will travel there tomorrow morning by car – a lot of goods, especially petrol, is much cheaper there, so they go for shopping and intend to come back that same day.

After a long day on the saddle, I finally find a place to camp in Pokrówka just after Chełm. The owner of a big farm allows me to pitch my tent on some grass behind the main building. His companion – Marcin – soon arrives to make me company and chat. Having worked as a bouncer in London for a while, his English is fluent and a rare opportunity for me to both be understood and understand. The wife of the owner comes by in the late afternoon with both delicious food and a cake.

Marcin himself will soon travel to Cuba or Mexico with his wife and some friends. He shows me his wedding ring: ”We call it GPS. Someone keeps track of me wherever I go.” Seconds later, his cell phone rings – it’s his wife calling.

Again through my mother’s work colleague Anna, I get to stay in Biała Podlaska with her wonderful parents Ela and Jacek. On my second day in town, Anna arrives too after having quickly decided to take a short vacation from work back home in Sweden. It’s good for me to organize a few things in town, and to speak some Swedish with Anna. Her parents are wonderful hosts, too. Before Anna arrived, they drove me to the Belarus border and back on a tour through the neighborhood. It’s an interesting border these days, as it is now also the border between the European Union and Belarus (which in turn is quite close with Russia).

The food that Ela made – almost solely based on vegetables, fruits and herbs from their garden – was amongst the best I’ve ever had.

Through a colleague of my mother, I get to stay with Pawel in Siemiatycze. He and his mom welcome me greatly, and Pawel shows me around town and the vicinity in a car-borne tour. Come evening, we visit the nearby bar for a try-out of the local beers. A few beers later, I’ve met with journalist Marek for a small piece about my journey in the local paper.

Cycling through larger city Bialystok, I pass an old red brick factory and hear through the small, elevated windows the weaving machines as if still mid-19th century. The noise is deafening.

Camp the night behind house of farmers. The son, Jarek, is just a day older than I, and I’m treated as part of the family. Dinner by the small kitchen table with Jarek; his mother my the stove. A hot soup of broth, something green, some pieces of meat and boiled eggs. Bread with margarine, various sausages, and giant tomatoes from their own green houses. Yoghurt with 17% fat with the soup. Boiled coffee. Sugar.

Jareks mom is also cleaning vigorously – her third daughter will wed in just three days. I join them in the car – combining a quick tour of nearby Bielsk Podlaska with fixing this and that for the wedding: collecting a dress at a friend’s house, a dress for the priest at yet another house, baking forms for the cake, flavorings for drinks. One of Jareks sisters who is driving is all stressed-up; his mother in the back seat is laid-back, giving a facial expression of it all being ‘just another wedding’.

I get a small introduction to the family’s religion, too. They belong to the minority 19% Orthodox in Poland – most of whom reside in the east of the country, with its proximity to Belarus and Russia. We visit two of the churches.