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Around the world in 2000,
via Asia and Madagascar.

Tana (Madagascar)

Bec
2004-09-18 18:36:30

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Antananarivo (Tana)
Antananarivo was a short hour and a half flight from Reunion. The first thing I did when I got here, was to confirm my onward reservation to Mahebourg at the airport office of Air Mauritius. Having been bumped off flights a number of times, I am now careful to confirm my reservations more than once whenever I can. This time, I was lucky again as the local Air Mauritius agent, Eric, had just finished his shift and he offered me a lift into town on his way home.

Eric even brought me to the Hôtel Roger which I had chosen in my Lonely Plant guide book as being "a good choice in the upper range of the bottom-end hotels". My room there was not too bad but it soon became evident that the place was renting rooms by the hour. I did not mind, my room was OK and it was not too noisy but my inner alarm system kept ringing when I went out to eat that evening, so I decided to move to another part of town.

I moved to the mid-range Hôtel Jean laborde right in the center of Tana (short for Antananarivo). It was more expensive but the service and the food were excellent. I can recommend it without hesitation.

The laborde was a friendly place full of regular customers. I met an interesting bunch of gem seekers and dealers who stay here when they are in Tana. Dealing in raw gems is a dangerous business here as it is everywhere, Colombia, Brazil, Myanmar, India or Australia.

The Place de l'Indépendence is the heart of Tana, banks and fancy shops are here. There are even two cybercafés in Ratsimilaho street that you can see in the center of this picture.

The Zoma Market, whose brown roofs can be seen at the bottom of the stairs from the Place de l'Indépendence, is a major attraction every day but more particularly on Fridays.

The broad avenue "Araben my Fahaleovantena" connects the Zoma Market at the far end with the railway station behind me.

Moving now south of the city center we come to Anosy Lake with the monument to the dead heroes of World War I erected by the French when Madagascar was still a colony (and its young men made good cannon fodder...).

I often try to meet people on the internet before visiting a new country. Internet contacts, like François and Annie Folio shown here in front of their home, make me feel less like a foreign tourist and more like a friendly visitor.

Rice is the staple food in Madagascar and it is grown everywhere some flat land can be irrigated like these paddies around Tana.

There are flowering bushes everywhere, even around this isolated farm in the rice fields near Tana (that can be glimpsed in the background).

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