travel – Page 54

Mandraka …

The largest lemur alive today is the Indri. The easiest place for the visitor to see them is at Perinet. So for us it was back to Antananarivo and then by road to the east.

We broke the journey at the Mandraka Nature Farm where we had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a variety of interesting albeit captive creatures.

This character is a Leaf-tail Gecko. It was lifted out of its cage and placed on a mossy log. It makes a good introduction because under these conditions you can see them. Finding them in the wild is much more of a challenge as you will see in future posts. You can easily distinguish geckos from chameleons by looking at their feet …

which are divided into two in chameleons.

Whereas snakes have no feet.

Also on display they had crocodiles, tortoises, some butterflies, frogs, flying foxes and it was the only place where we saw Tenrecs. This little guy is a Common Tenrec.

Nahampoana …

After a few days at Berenty our long-suffering bus took us back to Fort Dauphin. Along the way we were able to see the Triangular Palms endemic to this region and we also spent a little time in another section of spiny forest.

After a night in Fort Dauphin we visited Nahampoana about 10km north. This is essentially a botanical garden in which native wildlife have found a refuge amongst exotic trees.

It’s a splendid scene and I’ve done my best to disguise the fact that the Verraux’s Sifakas are sitting in eucalypts. The gardens are well maintained and cover about 50 hectares (approximately 125 acres).

The animals are fairly approachable, above we have a male Collared Brown Lemur and on sentry duty below is a Ring-tailed Lemur.

We found a few chameleons, their eyes are capable of the independent movement … you get the most pleasing photos when they take the trouble to look back at you.

The bird list wasn’t huge but included Lesser Vasa Parrot and our first sighting of Madagascar Blue Pigeon. The gardens hold some Radiated Tortoises and some captive Nile Crocodiles.

Dennis …

Now where was I? Ah yes, Berenty Reserve in the south of Madagascar and by the time we left Berenty we had enjoyed the company of our Malagasy guide for a few days. Dennis had made sure that we got on the right bus, the right plane, made sure we got fed, made sure our bags got to our rooms. In short he had looked after us very well but he had also been our guide in the true sense of the word.

He had introduced us to the Malagasy world, a world of different customs regarding marriage, the treatment of the dead, fady (taboos). He gave us the chance to see through Malagasy eyes and always with a smile and gentle good humour.

Madagascar life is pretty tough. Most homes have neither electricity or running water. Cooking is mostly done on charcoal, washing is done on the river bank or beside a communal tap. The only power available to most is man power … if you want it somewhere else then carry it or haul it.

The guy with the sack is carrying charcoal. Hand drawn carts are a common sight.

If someone doesn’t have anything in the bank and little in the cupboard we might say they are living day to day. The equivalent Malagasy saying reveals a deeper layer of feeling … “It is better to die tomorrow than today”.

So what was Dennis’ own story? He was in no rush to tell it but it emerged that Dennis had set out to make something of himself in one area that seemed to offer good prospects by studying English and tourism. How had he financed that? Well, Dennis had sold second-hand magazines to tourists right outside the Hotel Colbert. He had a cousin that worked at the airport who would rescue magazines abandoned on incoming flights and sell them to Dennis. He would tidy them up, do his best to get rid of the creases and head for town. Tourists coming back from the remoter parts would have had no news for a few days and some would buy a magazine.

McGee would never see the pesterers outside the Colbert through the same eyes again.

Berenty …

After breakfast, fresh croissants of course, we checked out of the Hotel Colbert and headed for the airport.

We had met Dennis, our Malagasy guide, the day before but today we started to get to know him better. His English is good, his smile is almost permanent. I will tell you more about him in due course but today we fly.

We fly south to Fort Dauphin aka Taolagnaro – the Malagasy, just like us in Oz, are busy replacing the names bestowed by recent colonists with those bestowed by previous colonists, the flight is delayed and we travel not by the direct route indicated in the itinerary but via Toliara on the west coast. We had been warned that Madagascar Airlines schedules were more provisional expressions of intention than rigid timetables. We got to Fort Dauphin a couple of hours later than was intended, climbed into a bus and travelled 80kms to Berenty. The journey took three hours, we arrived after dark. The alleged road was shared with trucks some of which had trailers (B-doubles in Australian terms) coming from Antananarivo 1100 kms or four days rugged driving away. It had once been sealed, the remaining tar stood up like table top mountains surrounded by potholes and muddy swamps. I do not wish to be reincarnated as a Malagasy bus.

Berenty Reserve is an island of residual forest in a sea of sisal plantation. Or even an ocean of sisal. I imagine it was set aside to assuage the conscience of the plantation owners as they annihilated the environment. It is now home to some readily accessible lemurs and a tourist hotspot. The accommodation is excellent and you always know the food is good when you see the locals dining there …

Over the next few days we walked in the gallery forest and in the spiny forest and made the aquaintance of Ring-tailed Lemurs, like the guy with the croissant, and Verraux’s Sifaka,

and the Red-fronted Brown Lemur.

We also got to see the White-footed Sportive Lemur and the Reddish-grey Mouse-Lemur and some nice birds.

And lament the loss of habitat. Sisal is grown for fibre which can be made into string or cloth. If you have abandoned plastic bags for the benefit of the environment and take along a sisal bag ponder on the habitat that existed before the sisal plantation was established.

On the street …

As you approach the doors of the Hotel Colbert you are given a warm and enthusiastic welcome. I’m not talking about the staff. By GDP per capita Madagascar is the ninth poorest country in the world. The people that are so pleased to see you are keen to sell you some little cadeau to take home, a musical instrument, an ammonite, a box or even a second-hand magazine. And there are some simply begging, one lady had a baby on her back and primary school age children panhandling for all they were worth.

They will be waiting for you again if you go out. In Australia we are sometimes troubled by the flies. We use the word”sticky” to describe particularly persistent flies. Some of these folk take no for an answer, some are more persistent. My first experience was of a guy who spotted the tourist about a block away from the hotel and wasn’t going to give up whilst I was on the street. Sticky sprang to mind, a good walk spoilt even more than golf.

He was trying to sell me a valiha, a zither like instrument the strings mounted around a bamboo tube. It was the finest little valiha in the universe and mine for a very reasonable price. No matter that I would never get it into Australia, could I not buy it, can you not see that I am in desperate need of a meal, perhaps if I reduce the price …

He circled me as I walked, I several times pulled him from the path of passing cars. The attention was unwelcome, embarrassing, pathetic and eventually beyond endurance. I turned and went back to the hotel. In the last few yards he pointed out the contrast between me who could afford such a nice hotel and himself who could not afford food. Very sticky little pest.

I am an early riser, the following morning I was out before the pests arrived. The streets were already becoming busy, street traders were selling breakfast cooked on charcoal burners. This time I went without a camera. I got little attention.

There are shops, even a small supermarket or two in Antananarivo but the local folk do most of their shopping right there on the street at stalls or at the open fronts of the buildings.

I got back to the hotel at six thirty, the lady with the baby and begging children was just arriving.

Hotel Colbert …

When visiting Antananarivo McGee stays at the Hotel Colbert.

At least it seemed like a routine by the time I’d checked in for a single night for the fourth time. And a very pleasant routine at that. The rooms were fine, the restaurants were fine, the ambiance was fine, the staff were fine and the location is perfect. I’m told there is an older and a newer wing. I stayed in the newer wing each time and it might be a good idea to request that.

Tripadvisor has this little gem …

When I arrived in my room I felt it was dusty and dark. I had also requested that they do not have any feathers in the room as I am highly allergic. Unfortunately they could not change the pillows as they only had pillows with feathers so they suggested I move to the La Varangue down the road which was a far more acceptable Hotel.

… just a snippet of an extended whinge, I assume by the owner of La Varangue. If not the whinger will have found Madagascar almost beyond endurance.

Next door is the Ambohitsorohitra palace, built by the French, it now serves as a presidential office.

This is illuminated at night, suggesting some encouragement to look at it, but if you look at it for long during the day you are quickly moved on by a man with a machine pistol.

Hotel Colbert is in the middle town which is the commercial centre. From the terrace you look up to the high town which is where the nobility had their palaces, the view is dominated by the Queen’s Palace, the Manjakamiadina, currently under repair.

Queen Ranavalona l ruled from 1828 to 1861, a time when missionaries from London were introducing new and dangerous ideas and European powers were itching to take yet another colony. She did a pretty good job of absorbing what was useful whilst fending off the colonisers and enforcing the traditional Malagasy values. An edict issued in 1835 made life rather difficult for the missionaries and by twelve months later they had all left town. The cliffs below the palace came in rather handy for an early form of bungee jumping. Those who possessed a Bible, worshiped in congregation or continued to profess adherence to Christianity might find themselves dangling up there. Those who recanted the new fangled faith would be hauled in, those who refused would have the ropes cut.

Not far from the front door are the steps to the lower town.

I enjoyed the Colbert, but I am easily pleased, I’ll even put up with feathers in my pillows. Bearing that in mind let me recommend a couple of restaurants, not that there is anything wrong with the food at the Colbert.

Villa Vanille … if the French left anything useful it was the food, absolutely fabulous, good service a bonus and the trio of musicians were very very good.

La Varangue, cordon bleu in the midst of the weirdest collection of antiques, rated number one in Antananarivo and it wouldn’t surprise me if it deserved it.

Antananarivo …

I left Johanessburg’s sprawling and, it seems, rapidly expanding airport on a South African Airlines flight.

The airport at Antananarivo was quite a contrast. So too were the roads and surroundings on the way into town. Whereas South Africa has multi-lane highways and electronic tolling, even if most drivers are refusing to pay the bills, Antananarivo has a very modest airport and narrow streets. Even though July is the start of the dry season the countryside is green unlike the dusty brown highveldt around Jo’burg.

Both cities are cooler than you would expect for their latitude because both are quite high, Jo’burg 1750 meteres, Antananarivo 1280 metres.

Once again, I travelled with Zegrahm Tours, the map, which I shamelessly filched from their website, shows the places we would visit.

One theory is that Antananarivo comes from the Malagasy for the place where far too many ans arrived. It is far more likely that it translates something like the city of a thousand (the strength of the force deployed by King Andrianjaka 1612–1630 to capture the town formerly known as Analamanga), although it is now home to a little over two million. It sprawls over the hilltops in all directions, the intervening valley bottoms are agricultural land mainly given over to the cultivation of rice.

Antananarivo was a major city before the colonial era but was built from wood and thatch.The Malagasy believed that a place to live in should be built from living materials. Outsiders brought in the practice of building in brick and stone from about 1820 and they were used to construct the foreigners small number of churches, schools and factories. In 1869 Queen Ranavalona II lifted the prohibition on the use of brick and stone by the Malagasy and the new materials rapidly replaced wood.

Much of life is conducted on the footpath …

Because of the very poor state of Madagascar’s roads the tour would fly to most of its various destinations. Because Antananarivo so dominates the country’s economy this would entail radial flights to and from the capital. So every few days would bring me back to the Big A. Each time I stayed at the Hotel Colbert. More of that next …

Madagascar …

I’m leaving today.

I have been to a lot of out of the way places and the most frequent response from friends and co-workers has been “why?” … but that’s not the case with Madagascar. It seems that everyone has their own inner Madagascar, it may not be the first place on their bucket list, but when you mention it, eyes light up. Is it the movies, is it the Lemurs at the zoo or is it some TV documentary?

If you allow Australia the privilege of being an island as well as a continent then Madagascar is the fifth largest of the world’s islands. It’s about 1500 km top to bottom and about 570 km wide at its widest point. It’s about 420 km west of its nearest neighbour, Mozambique. The central highlands range from about 750 to 1500 metres. The east coast gets the rain, the west and south coastal regions are dry.

Madagascar was part of Gondwana and although it is now close to Africa it parted from the Africa-South America landmass around 135 million years ago. It kept company with India until about 88 million years ago. Its prolonged isolation has given it a very special evolutionary history. If friends and co-workers had said “why?’ instead of “ooh” this would have been my answer – to see the wildlife.

The population is a little over 22 million and on average they survive on about $450 a year.

Human settlement first came from the east some time between 350 BC and 550 AD, making Madagascar one of the last substantial land masses to receive the benefit of people. The founding population is estimated to have been around 60 to 200 individuals based on genetics. They likely arrived by outrigger canoe from Borneo. Subsequent settlement was mainly from subsaharan Africa.

Approximately 90 percent of all plant and animal species found in Madagascar are endemic, including the lemurs (a type of prosimian primate), the carnivorous fossa and many birds. According to Avibase there are 300 species of bird and 108 are endemic. The chameleons are another highlight, the island is home to two-thirds of all the world’s chameleon species and is possibly where they first evolved.

Some of the animal colonists have had better luck than others, the Malagasy Hippos are gone unless I happen to stumble across the kilopilopitsofy, although the Nile Crocodile is worth looking out for (diligently). The Elephant Bird survived until the 17th or 18th century. They stood about 3 metres tall, weighed about 400 kg and laid eggs which could be greater than a metre in diameter.

Now where did I put my passport and the tickets?

I will not be posting until my return so please, call back in about three weeks.

Ah, Port Fairy …

Jewel of Victoria’s west coast.

I have the enormous luxury of spending a few days here.

It is 290 km west of Melbourne where the River Moyne reaches the southern ocean. This coast was home to a small whaling industry from the 1830’s, a store opened here in 1839 and the Post Office in 1843. It is the home of Victoria’s oldest continuously licensed pub and some other fine heritage buildings. If it wasn’t for the sand on the beach and the better weather it could be an English seaside village.

It is still a working port. Less than a hundred metres from where I’m staying there is a guy making wicker cray pots on the deck of his fishing boat. A couple of days ago they were just a bundle of rods soaking in the river.

The tourist can walk along the wharf, take a stroll around Griffith’s Island, the early whaling base, or visit the koalas and emus at Tower Hill fifteen minutes drive away. Have lunch at Rebecca’s, tea at the Lemongrass Thai Restaurant and recharge the soul. They tell me the folk festival in March is not to be missed although it’s not my scene.

It is a splendid place for the bird watcher.

The best place to stay is Doc’s at the Mill, right at the wharf and an easy walk into town or to the beach. The old flour mill was built in 1860, it’s the only three story building in town. It has had a colourful history itself, as you can see from the photo the third story is now wood. If you want to see the stone that used to be there you need to look at the tower of the Anglican church in Regent Street!

It has been converted to luxury accommodation with three bedrooms. Contact Langley’s +61 3 5568 2899.

Mihir Garh …

Garh means fort, we have already visited Mehrangarh in Jodhpur.

If you google Mehrengarh you will find “Mehrengarh Fort” several times in the first page, like the HIV virus and Gondwanaland, this is a tautology and if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times “Do not repeat yourself.”

But I digress, Mihir Garh is the Fort of the Sun. It stands in the Thar desert in Rajasthan, an outpost of utter luxury, so carefully constructed that it seems to belong there, more than that it almost seems to have grown there. Its form is inspired by the traditional village architecture, the building and the furniture were all completed by local craftsmen. No two guest rooms are the same.

In the stable here there are some fine Marwari horses.Legend has it …

… that in the 12th century AD, a group of people that would later be known as the Rathores, were exiled from their homeland. Sheoji, the man who would be the father of the Rathores, rode out proudly with a group of faithful pilgrims to find a new home. Their will was of iron, and their horses were strong and fast. Together, they would settle in a region called the Marwar, in Rajasthan, to start a new life.

The horses that bore them were integral to their survival and represented the pride and strength of the people. Over many years, they grew into the regal Marwari breed, and their beauty and power was known to all, represented by their distinctive inwardly pointed ears. When a Marwari horse moved through the city streets, the commoners would bow deeply before it. Yet while their heads faced the ground, their eyes would strain upward to get a glimpse of the almost mythical creature. For hundreds of years, this legendary horse would reign as the symbol of Marwari aristocracy.

They carried the feuding warlords into battle, in an area where there were plenty of warlords and no shortage of battles. They are fine looking animals.

I spent my last two nights in Rajasthan at the Mihir Garh.

When the sun rises it is back to Mumbai and then home …