I haven't read that book, but had a mild version of this happen as well. This was the first day riding from Kazan out towards the Urals. This was a farming region with not a lot of cover. I'd put my (bright orange) tent behind a row of trees, ~100m from the road. I wasn't trying to be extremely stealthy and I wanted to watch the road to see if I could see my touring partner since we'd gotten separated from each other that day (in what turned out to be 10 days of riding separately). What I hadn't realised as well, was that there were folks living over the hill and behind the fields. Some of the local kids out to play were definitely intrigued by me and my tent. They decided to come up and stalk me and see how close they could get. I saw them for a while, but eventually worked to shoo them away. A little later they were back but they also didn't have much cover and so I was also able to keep track of them. Eventually they tired and went home.