Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/6JB71bU7JmYKTfqC8
After what was almost certainly my last foray into SE Asia during retirement, I went to back to Chennai for a few days. My mom was visiting to see my grandma, so I literally went 3+ months between seeing my mom, from leaving Chennai for KL and then New Zealand back in the start of Dec to now coming back to Chennai from KL in mid-March. Spent a few days with my mom and grandma and saw a few other relatives, before flying off to Madagascar…the cheapest flight from the entire continent of Asia to Madagascar was somehow from Chennai, so this was a convenient excuse to drop in briefly.
One of my closest college friends, Arjun, and his wife, Nirali (whose wedding I attended in upstate NY in July ’21), had just finished a sort of rural medicine program in southern Madagascar for the NGO that Arjun does sidework for, Health in Harmony. Arjun’s finishing up his ER residency and Nirali is a practicing pediatric hospitalist, and they both had an extra week to travel in Madagascar after this program so had invited me (since, as I always tell my friends, let me know if you are *anywhere* in the world and let’s see if I can make it happen). They gave me plenty of advance notice so it was easy to meet them for cheap.
After one night in the capital city, Antananarivo (known as Tana), which is more or less centrally located, we first spent a few days in the eastern part of the country. Our base was about a day’s drive from Tana in a town called Andasibe. Some great wildlife spotting here. The main attraction on Madagascar is obviously the lemurs. There are over 100 species of lemurs, and they are only found on this island. Lemurs are a primate species, so related to monkeys/apes/humans/etc. In terms of closeness to humans, you have chimps (and bonobos), then gorillas, then orangutans, then gibbons, then monkeys, and then lemurs. Lemurs can vary incredibly, from small rodent-like creatures to ones that look like squirrels to ones that look like weird monkey-oid creatures to ones that look eerily humanoid. All lemurs, however, have a fur that looks SO comfy and fuzzy, and giant, wide eyes. My favorite lemur by far was one that is only found in the Andasibe area, called the Indri lemur. It is the largest lemur, and probably the 2nd loudest animal I have ever heard, after howler monkeys. They also look ridiculous. They are very humanoid when they move within a tree, but once you see them bouncing from tree to tree (all lemurs have this sort of side-hop bounce as they jump around trees, it looks like a cool version of parkour) you really appreciate that their clumsy appearance is just a facade. Their buggy wide-eyed look makes them look perpetually coked out, and they have a funky ear-shape that makes them look like an animal version of a coked out Marv, the not Joe Pesci villain from Home Alone. And when they yell, their lips look smothered in lipstick. They are constantly yelling, and they honestly sound like a bunch of drunk people whooping around at a sports bar, it’s hilarious. Just such a funky and unique animal, really enjoyed getting up close with them. Like all lemurs, they just stare at you with their massive eyes as you approach their trees…it is a little disconcerting with the Indri given their size and their manic look. Another wildlife highlight here was the golden sifaka lemur, which looked a lot more monkey-like but had strikingly beautiful golden limbs. And on one of our night walks, we saw a handful of tiiiiiiny frogs, and were even able to see that bubble-sac in their jowls expand as they croaked. Super cool stuff. The jungle hikes in Andasibe where whatever…inherently just OK, and it was the wildlife that made the trip. Nothing insane like Sumatra, or not even on like Uganda’s level or Guatemala’s level. The parks we visited near Andasibe were Mitsinjo Reserve, Mantadia National Park, and Analamazaotra National Park.
After Andasibe, we drove back to Tana for a night, before taking a flight up north to the city of Antsiranana, which is still known by its’ old name, Diego Suarez. From here we drove a few hours southwest to Ankarana National Park. On the way, we stopped at this cool natural formation called the Red Tsingy, which was a bunch of sandstone that was growing exposed due to the soil making way. The flowing water and winds then carved these into fairy pillar shapes. It was like a lesser version of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, but still obviously a cool detour trip to see.
Ankarana itself is a pretty nifty park. There were also lemurs here but nothing that approached what we saw in Andasibe in terms of how cool I found them. The main thing to see at Ankarana were the tsingy. These were “real” tsingly unlike the red tsingy from the previous day…a tsingy is basically a tall limestone pillar structure that was once a coral reef. After getting exposed to wind and the elements above water for god knows how many millions of years, they are now these massive pillars that sit in the middle of a lush green jungle. The hikes themselves were easy but it was hot as balls so we were sweating bullets, and it was cool to hop around the tops of these pillars (some over 50 meters tall! But it’s not possible to walk in the “ground” here) while getting baked by the sun. We also went caving in a cave filled with bats…not as extreme as the one I did in Bolivia where we had helmets and were scrambling the entire time in the pitch black, but still a cool experience.
After Ankarana, we drove back to Diego Suarez, and stopped at Amber Mountain National Park on the way. Again, cool lemurs, but nothing as cool as in Andasibe. We spent a night in the really nice and pleasant seaside town of Diego Suarez before flying back to Tana. Just very nice laid-back vibes, and a cool colonial style to the city. Got a fantastic lunch as a last supper with Arjun and Nirali, before they flew back to New York. I then had a couple of days to kill in Tana until my little sister flew in for two weeks to see the west and south…between Arjun+Nirali and my sister, I basically had Madagascar fully covered. Was obviously good to catch up with them, and I should hopefully see them again in NYC in July before they head to Guam for a year of working out there.
Tana itself is probably the most impoverished city I have ever seen, and it’s not particularly close. Madagascar as a whole is I think visibly the poorest country I have ever been to, but Tana really takes the cake. It is very colorful from a distance you approach the city, but it’s honestly kind of depressing. I do hope that our tourist money (we are using all locally owned and run tour agencies) at least somewhat helps. And if you know about the cliche of “Africa” getting boxes of donated clothes…I have never actually seen this before Madagascar. Literally everyone you see is wearing some sort of shirt that was donated from the west, mostly the US. Tons of random sports clothing, from Hugh Douglas Eagles jerseys to various NFL teams and so on, to spring break and college greek life philanthropy shirts and so on. My favorite shirt that I saw a dude in Tana wear was a “Dalton Makes Me Drink” tshirt, which is referencing the poor play of then-Bengals QB Andy Dalton.
In general, the impression I get is that some of the worst-off countries in the world right now are ex-French colonies. Especially when you compare how ex-French colonies are doing comared to ex-English ones, it’s sort of interesting to me how the English get so much more flak. The two most well-off ex-French colonies, Rwanda and Vietnam, went through devastating genocides/civil wars that effectively acted as a “reset” for society to rebound from (sort of like for western Europe and Japan after WW2, or even China after the Cultural Revolution…that’s not to say that every devastating reset will actually lead to a rebound, but it is a pet theory of mine). But besides those two exceptions, you have western Africa and Madagascar as being noticeably poorer and more politically unstable than any other part of the region (with the one exception being ex-Belgian colony DRC), and Haiti being noticeably poorer than the rest of that region (the NYT had a GREAT piece on how specifically the French royally screwed Haiti, even after Haitian independence. That whole expose is a big reason why I am very anti World Bank or any of those imperial/colonial financial types of NGO jobs). I don’t know, I just feel like the French deserve A LOT more flak than they get for their historic crimes, compared to the English. I actually met an American girl who was doing Red Cross fieldwork (she has an MPP and MPH from Sciences Po in Paris, I am just going to get an MPP) while in Tana at the hotel my sister and I were staying at her first night here, and she was saying a big reason that the Francophile world is screwed is because the French often had direct military rule, so they would come in, destroy existing institutions, and rule directly, but once they left it created a massive power vacuum. As opposed to the British who co-opted local elites so that at least when they left, there was some semblance of a ruling structure in place. Her other two pieces of advice for me, because we got to talking about careers/etc., was to pick Hertie over Columbia because a free ride is infinitely better than ~60k in loans, especially for humanitarian field work, and to learn French (which I was already leaning towards, but it is slightly amusing that I will most likely be learning French on Duolingo while studying in Berlin).
But yea, after a couple of days chilling on my own (like most of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, I was strictly enforcing my “no walking after dark” rule to avoid being mugged at gun/knife point), my sister flew in. Hadn’t seen her since September, so this is actually the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other since I quit my job, as she usually flies out to meet me, either alone or as a part of a family trip, quite frequently. We were planning on December in Japan but then I decided to go to NZ and she got a new job at Chanel so kind of had to wait until Madagascar.
After her first night in Tana, we began our trip and started the two day drive out west to the Morondava area. This drive made the drives I had done with Arjun and Nirali look like a piece of cake. The first day was like 12 hours of driving to a town halfway to Kirinidy National Park (our destination), and the second day was 6 hours to the coastal city of Morondova, where we switched vehicles to a suuuuuper sturdy 4×4 (the one we had was just a “regular” 4×4). From there it was about 3 hours to Kirindiy on a beyond-awful bumpy and puddle-filled (honestly lake is a more accurate word) road. The only road I have ever been on that was worse was driving from Spiti&Lahual back to Manali in India when I went with my dad and aunt back in October. In general, Madagascar roads are OK…everyone is like “oh the roads suck” but I think that I have traveled enough where the roads were whatever for me. But the Morondova to Kirindiy road was absolutely special.
On the way to Kirinidy, we drove by all those baobab trees that are probably Madagascar’s single most famous feature. Honestly, they looked fake. Very, very cool, and because the locals view them as spiritual/holy, they were spared while the entire area was deforested for agriculture, which has led to it becoming a tourist destination now. I think the fake tree forest in Singapore is modeled off of these baobabs actually. But yea, definitely the most photogenic thing I saw in Madagascar by far. Kirindiy itself was a decent enough park, saw some lemurs up close including a cool bright white one, the white sifaka.
We then drove two more days to the city of Antsirabe (switched cars back to our original and spent a night in Morondova, for sunset/sunrise views of the baobab trees). While almost every city in Madagascar gave me strong Wes Anderson vibes with the classical French style and pretty colorful buildings and French text everywhere, Antsirabe was probably the strongest for this. I didn’t take any urban photos because the visible poverty would have made me uncomfortable if I was clicking away at the architecture and signs, with everything else around me and out of frame. We went to a few cool craft shops in Antsirabe, including one really cool one where they made minatures out of fully recycled materials…minature bicycles, taxi cars, planes, etc. Really really cool stuff. It was a one day drive from Antsirabe to Ranomafana National Park – on the way, we stopped at this cool wood-carving workshop where we picked up this really cool Tintin in Tibet (Tintin Au Tibet as it was in French) book cover that looks like a painting but is entirely made of different pieces of wood that have been pieced together like a puzzle. Really impressive to be honest. Also, as someone who loves Tintin, it was cool to see Tintin stuff everywhere (random tourist shops, hotels, restaurants, etc.).
We spent a full day for Ranomafana National Park (this is like south-central Madagascar, basically directly south of Tana). Probably the coolest park in terms of the actual nature – we were going up and down jungly hills and getting all muddy and dirty so I loved it. Lemur-wise it was below Andasibe and Kirindiy, so I guess like decent-but-whatever. And the night walk here was probably the best one of Madagascar for me – tons of cool chameleons, and we even saw one change its color from green to a darker blue/grey over the course of 30 seconds or so (this was in reaction to our guide’s flashlight). After the day at Ranomafana, we took a day to drive to Isalo National Park, which is southwest of Ranomafana.
On the way there, we stopped for a few hours at the Anja reserve, which was opened and run by the local town – so zero government presence here. Super cool to see a local operation like that, and it’s been running for like 20+ years. It’s the country’s biggest habitat for the most famous lemur, the ring-tailed lemur (the main species in the movie Madagascar).To be honest, I liked the white sifaka in Kirindiy and the indri and golden sifaka in Andasibe a bit more than these ones…they were the laziest lemurs I have seen yet (ironic given the “I like to move it move it” song), and looked a bit like coked out raccoons. There was also a cool hike that we did in Anja to a lookout point on top of some boulders, which gave a pretty cool view of the mini-valley in which Anja was in.
We spent three nights at Isalo National Park, in what was easily the bougiest hotel of the entire country. Decadent three course meals for dinner (including foie gras!), and the hotel also offered horse riding and via ferrata. The horse riding was eh, but it was my sister’s first time so she enjoyed it. But we weren’t allowed to gallop and it was just a flat walk around the cool landscapes, so it was too easy for me to enjoy. The via ferrata was awesome…basically some steeeeeeep scrambling up and down cliffsides, and then hiking alongside cliff walls while attached to ropes with carbiners for safety. Very fun and unique experience. It was interesting because it was the sort of hike/climb that you would never do unassisted because it looks incredibly dangerous. Yet the psychological backstop of being attached by rope meant you could hike and climb worry-free, so for 90% of the time we didn’t even hold on to anything and just walked normally, even though the footholds were maybe an inch+ wide. And obviously got a couple of decent photos of us precariously on a cliff edge – it looks a lot crazier than it actually was to be honest.
Isalo is basically like a less cool version of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Less red and more of a brown/yellow, slightly smaller cliffs and rock structures, and a lot more greenery (so therefore less cool…the more arid and lifeless, the more I like landscapes). Still, it was obviously a very enjoyable place that did give very strong southwest US vibes. We spent a couple of days hiking around here. There are also ring tailed lemurs here but they are very hard to see given the arid conditions (it’s greener than the southwest US here but not green by Madagascar standards). Nice and easy hiking, including one where we went into a canyon and were scrambling over boulders. Decent enough for me, but my sister’s first time scrambling properly (I take a lot for granted while traveling and really need to get better on that). The hikes were easy enough physically (no more than 400m in elevation gain for the big hike we did), but the overbearing sunlight and heat made it mildly challenging. And both dayhikes also had a natural pool that we were able to swim in which was fun. Overall, Isalo was a nice change of pace from the forest lemur sightseeing that I had been doing for most of Madagascar, and it was cool to see a poor man’s version of the southwest US as that’s my favorite part of the US.
After Isalo, we drove over to the beach town of Ifaty. On the way, we stopped by for one last wildlife forest trip, to Zombitse National Park. Zombitse was a bit like Kirindiy – more of a dry forest than a jungle. Not much luck with wildlife but we did see a few cool birds and a nocturnal lemur that was sleeping – its’ eyes looked totally zonked out as the pupils were fully shrunk while the eyes were open. We ended the trip just chilling for a day in Ifaty, and my sister did her first ever scuba dive. The diving here was OK – pretty cool coral reefs, but in terms of recent dives I think it paled in comparison to Fiji or especially Komodo. But my sister really enjoyed it and said she would look into full certification in the future so that was good.
We had a domestic flight back to Tana where my sister had one night before flying back to NYC, while I had an extra night after before my loooong free flight to Israel (Tana>Addis>Cairo for 16 hours>Tel Aviv). This was my final trip to Africa of my retirement (so my last time listening to my banger of an Africa playlist…Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon heavily feature), and also contained my final wildlife trip of my retirement as well as most likely my last dives and my last jungle trekking of my retirement. Pretty crazy that I’ll be returning back to the real world where these super cool things aren’t just going to be routine anymore.
This was definitely a driving intensive trip, and got a good sense of the country while schleping around. Probably up there with Uganda and Sri Lanka as the greenest country I’ve seen, though the landscapes are quite diverse and the area around Isalo to the south is a bit like the western US with a vast expanse of flat fields with towering cliff structures here and there. While the west is wild and hilly (honestly lowkey like the Scottish highlands), the north and south were more like “stereotypical” Africa with the red clay roads and villages, and the east was like a less photogenic west with smaller hills. Madagascar was also interesting because roughly 1/3 of the population is ethnically Indonesian/Malaysian, as they are the OG inhabitants of Madagascar. They mostly live in the central area near Tana, and the Malagasy language is related to Indonesian/Malaysian…the locals around Tana conquerored the rest of the island and spread their language to the Bantu peoples that make up the remaining 2/3 of Madagascar. Interesting that this cultural destruction doesn’t matter because it was not done by white people. Overall, Madagascar was great. Tons of “good-but-not-great” in terms of wildlife, landscapes, diving, etc., but the sheer diversity of options available to do on this trip made it very much a trip that is greater than the sum of its’ parts for me.
But yea, got a couple of weeks in Israel, then a trek in the Tibetan part of Nepal, and then hopefully a month+ in China before the Bruce concert in London to wrap things up before I most likely wind up in Berlin for grad school.