© Richard Randall

Madagascar's oldest catholic church is there, it dates back to 1857, and was a gift from the Empress Eugenie of France to the island. There is also an old granite fort which dates back to 1753 at the southern end of the town, unfortunately it is out of bounds to the public as it serves as a military post. There was a market on Tuesdays and Thursdays when it is considered taboo to work in the fields. There was a place where you could hire motorbikes; Studio Flash, unfortunately we were unable to as the rain was conspiring against us both times we tried! Another hotel we stayed at was the Hotel Lakana, which was considerably more expensive than the Betty Plage but being restless souls we thought we would give it a try. Hotel Lakana looks lovely, there are some bungalows attached to the jetty which we quite fancied but they do not have bathrooms, you have to use the communal ones back on land, and as we are no longer teenagers we like our own bathroom if possible, so we opted for one of the bungalows on dry land which came complete with en-suite. The room was very nicely furnished and the bathroom was lovely, lovely that is until we went to have a shower, the shower works by a short bursts tap, so every 30 seconds or so the water goes off, this didn't happen at the Betty Plage! So you either had to put up with the water stopping every few seconds or stand with one hand on the tap to keep it running constantly, or get someone else to shower with you so that they could keep the water flowing, which is the best idea as it's not easy to shower and wash your hair with one hand! The Hotel Lakana was a lot busier than our last hotel, mainly with English people, and as when we travel the last thing we want to do is talk about England we were rapidly going off the place. Hotel Lakana has supposedly one of the best restaurants on the island, which after we had eaten there one evening didn't give us much hope for any of the other establishments! The food was so mediocre that I can't even remember what we ate, still the room was nice enough and we weren't going to be there for long. Richard had a birthday whilst we were on Ile Sainte Marie, followed a couple of days later by our wedding anniversary, so we decided it was time for yet another change of hotel. We had heard that the Hotel Soanambo was quite luxurious but didn't have much character, but as we were not over enamoured with the Hotel Lakana it could be the place for us. We don't rely on travel guide books at all, we rarely make accommodation reservations preferring to stay in hotels that take our fancy at the time, but we do usually take a look through the relevant guide book for the handy maps and the translation section. Anyway, we went along to the Hotel Soanambo to have a look round as we had walked past it previously and it did look nice, so we thought we would see what birthday deal they could offer us, well you don't get what you don't ask for! The manager was happy to help us, and so we moved from The Hotel Lakana to our new home ~ Hotel Soanambo. Our bungalow was set right on the beach looking out over the water, glorious. The bungalow itself was large with a separate bedroom, the bed being a solid concrete clock upon which sat the mattress and it had a huge new mosquito net. There was a nice big lounge area and a nice clean bathroom. Happy with our beach front bungalow, Happy Birthday! Apparently there was a tennis court at the hotel as well as a swimming pool, and the longest jetty we had seen so far. You could walk out to the end of the jetty and relax on the loungers, sipping a drink and enjoying the view and the peace and quiet. The water was very shallow from the beach right out to the end of the jetty so you could actually walk out in the water, although it was very rough under foot. Closer to our bungalow the water was gloriously warm and although far too shallow to swim in it was great to just float about. The swimming pool was quite close to our bungalow and I would go in and splash about like a crazy person, I'm not crazy, I just can't swim! There was an older man and his girlfriend who used to sit sit by the pool near us sunbathing, and every now and then when the noises of my near drowning got too much for them they would look up disapprovingly in my direction, but I didn't let this put me off of learning to swim! One afternoon I was once again splashing around when the man decided that he would like a swim too. So without further a do he dove head first into the water and as he came up to the surface he let out an almighty scream, because I am a crazy person, the water was absolutely freezing! I don't think I have ever seen someone with such a confused look on their face or move so quickly to get out on to dry land! I bet he always sticks his toe in first before he goes swimming now! I just thought that as this hotel had an empty pool I might as well take full advantage of it and learn to swim, which after about three days of splashing around like a maniac, I can, it might not have been a pretty sight but I was happy! Whilst we were staying at the Hotel Soanambo we decided to go for walk across to the other side of the island, the east coast which was so vastly different to where we were staying. At that time there were no hotels or anything, just miles of untouched beaches it was so beautiful. We strolled along for hours and we only saw one other person, a fisherman untangling his fishing nets. When it came time to leave Ile Sainte Marie we were both very sad to go as we had had such a lovely time there.

ANTANANARIVO

Back on Madagascar in Antananarivo, we booked into the small Hotel Raphia which had been newly refurbished. Unfortunately the rooms were not en-suite but our room was large and we liked the friendly staff and the little garden. During the night though I couldn't stop sneezing, it appeared the name Raphia was more than just a name. There was raffia everywhere in the room, covering the door, the wardrobes the bed head, and now I found out that I was allergic to it! So we decided not to spend too much time in the room, and we found ourselves in Le Buffet Du Jardin a restaurant/bar which seemed to be very popular and busy. Obviously we were taking medication for the prevention of malaria, and we found that the horrible side effects of this medicine were alleviated when we drank alcohol, no seriously! After the first few hours sat happily drinking and chatting had passed we decided that it was pretty pointless moving on anywhere else as we were very comfy where we were. We hadn't intended to stay for quite so long but the time just seemed to fly by, there was so much to watch, all these different people coming and going. It wasn't long after we had first arrived in this bar that we realized why it was so popular, and why there was a quick turn around of male customers. It was a pick up joint for 'businessmen' and the local prostitutes! The funny thing was how it was all done, considering that the concerned parties obviously knew what they were there for you'd think it would all be very straight forward and quick. But it took quite a while for the 'couples' to pair up. First the man would sit down at his own table and order a drink, and then after a while he would begin to make eye contact with the lady who took his fancy, and then he would send a drink over to her table, and eventually they would sit at the same table and chat for a while before finally going off somewhere to seal the deal! It almost appeared like a regular normal dating scenario, guess that's one way for the men to ease their conscience! It wasn't usually long before the lady would reappear and sit down and then do it all over again with a new customer. We found it amusing to watch, in fact we ended up spending 11 hours in that bar that night ... it probably had more to do with the ill effects of the anti malaria drugs than the entertainment though, neither of us could be bothered to move, we kept saying just one more drink and then we'll go ... neither of us were even slightly tipsy. I don't think the beer contains much alcohol and we should know because we polished off a lot of the 1 litre bottles of the local Three Horse Beer! We both loved everything about Madagascar, apart from the 'businessmen' and their 'girlfriends', which after a few days makes you feel very uncomfortable, mainly because of the large age difference, these lovely young girls and these awful old men - yuk! They seemed to follow us around too, from the mainland to the Ile Sainte Marie and back again, the same men sometimes with the same girl sometimes with a new one. It makes you feel quite sad but I guess everyone has to make a living. To get away from the sniffles that occurred at the Hotel Raphia we spent the last night at another hotel, an Ibis right in the centre near to the Buffet du Jardin. These large chain hotels are all the same in every country throughout the world but at least you know exactly what you are getting. This hotel had an added extra for us, we asked if we could get up onto the roof and someone kindly unlocked the stairway and we went up and it was well worth it. The view from up there right over Antananarivo in every direction was fantastic, so if ever you are there make sure you go up for a look. Another Hotel worth popping into is the Hotel Colbert, described in our guide book as a throwback to French imperialism at it's best - or worst, depending on your perspective (non-French expats complain to surly staff). It's main competition is the Hilton, but obviously the Colbert had a more unique feel to it, and we loved it. Whenever we travel and whatever hotels we are staying in, be they low budget or top end, we always go in to the 'better' hotels, sometimes just to take advantage of their air conditioning but always to check out the bar! We were treated like royalty at the Hotel Colbert, along with the drinks we ordered we were given a couple of large plates full of snacks, yummy! We had taken another traveller, who we met at the Raphia Hotel, with us and she loved it too, although she was concerned that as we were all rather casually dressed we would be asked to leave! We had popped in to the Hilton too, but only because we had heard that they had an internet service there, which they did ... and lots of lovely air conditioning, and more importantly cakes!

So in case you didn't get it, we LOVE Madagascar and wouldn't hesitate to return there if ever the opportunity arose, fantastic country, fantastic people, fantastic time :)

Caribbean

Sundries

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