If you ever end up travelling to Madagascar’s Nosy Be overland you will no doubt pass through Ambanja. You will arrive fresh off a 17 (or 28) hour taxi-brousse ride from Antananarivo and there is a 97.6% chance you will be forced to call Ambanja home for the night. If you do… Well… Good luck.

On our way to Nosy Be Ambanja was a safe haven, after two days and one night in a notorious taxi-brousse we stumbled off the bus, found a hotel, found a restaurant, and most importantly, found red wine and slept like the dead (without the commitment). The next day we made a quick getaway to Nosy Be and for one sweet week Ambanja remained in our memories and hearts as a good nights sleep…

And then we returned.

After a difficult week of island life we had said our Goodbyes to Nosy Be and made our way back to little old Ambanja – the city of sleep and wine. Arriving in the light of day meant a whole new light was shined over the little city… And just like the stars and the crowd in a nightclub, Ambanja looked a whole lot nicer under the darkness of the night…

Under the harsh Malagasy sun we managed to make our way back to the cosy little hotel which had treated us so well last time… We found the four staff members sleeping under the reception desk and managed to convince one to stand up and show us an available room…

Reluctantly leading us up the stairs we were given a freshly made room for a sweet close-to-nothing price. The room was as basic as before but we couldn’t complain about a bed, a fan, and a complimentary naked lady in our bathroom..?

After sharing my bathroom discovery with Joost I decided to ask the manager why exactly our bathroom included the mysterious birthday-suit-wearing biddy… I was told that she worked at the hotel and no one seemed to find it out of the ordinary that she in the bathroom, and completely naked.

Eventually the mysterious lady casually left. The bathroom was clean and I assumed so was she… It wasn’t even lunchtime and things were getting weird.

As we would be stranded in the city for at least the next 24 hours until we made our onward travel plans we decided to dedicate the day to doing some serious washing… (Maybe the naked lady had inspired us). We woke up a sleepy staff member who agreed to do our washing… And then barged into our room while we were changing out of our dirty clothing… Then just stood at the door sucking a lollypop unfazed by our nudity and potential desire of privacy…

I was beginning to feel that there was something odd about this hotel…

I also noticed that some ‘guests’ were only checking into a room for an hour or so and then checking-out… Judging from their ruffled hair and ruffled linen I suspected they were not just catnapping. We had to get out of this city…

Studying our Madagascan Bible (AKA our outdated Lonely Planet) we discovered that it was possible to hitch a ride with one of the country’s main tour operators ‘Evasion Sans Frontiere’. Many of the companies northeast circuit tours ended their trips in Ambanja and it was possible to arrange a seat in their cars back to Diego (our next destination) for a mere 40 000AR per person (only $4 more than a seat on a dreaded taxi-brousse). We called immediately and discovered that there would be two seats available the next day. We had arranged our great escape.

The only trouble was that we wouldn’t be departing until lunchtime. Desperate to escape from our seedy hotel we dedicated the morning to the city’s one tourist attraction. The Millot Plantation…

Long story short the director of the Plantation was an anal-rentative control freak and we didn’t see eye to eye… Cut the story even shorter and I got us kicked out of the plantation…

I had never been more excited to leave a city.

We spent the rest of the morning strolling around town and visiting the courts to amuse ourselves. We then returned to meet our ride… An hour later than arranged it finally arrived. Three men hopped out and greeted us with the warm Malagasy hospitality we hadn’t seen for a few days. Realising that we had a full day of travelling with local tour guides I was excited to get some great tips and inside Malagasy travel tips… (Because in Madagascar you really need all the help you can get).

“So you’re a guide?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome! What should we see up North?”

“There is a lot to see in the North…”

“Yeah there is… But what do you recommend?”

“I can’t tell you. Everyone is different!”

Great. Even the people that have careers in giving Madagascan travel advice can’t give us travel advice. I hoped Northern Madagascar hadn’t changed much since 2012 because it was just us and little old Lonely Planet…

The rest of the day was typical of many other days on the road in Madagascar. Long and awkward.

Occasionally our travelling companions would break off from the Madagascan screamingly loud conversations to tell us something in English…

And by occasionally I mean 4 times.

Converstation 1:

“Do you know what the favourite food in Madagascar is?”

“…Rice?”

*Madagascan passengers erupt in laughter…*

Conversation 2:

“That tree is a travellers tree. It is filled with water.”

Conversation 3:

I can’t even remember the actual conversation but somehow we ended up hearing a long Madagascan ‘legend’ about some lakes. It involved a man getting water from a local villager and then all the villagers turned into crocodiles for no particular reason. He also introduced the character of a giant at one point who never appeared later in the story and when we asked what happened to the giant we were told that ‘he also turned into a crocodile.’

Conversation 4:

The last conversation was about local weddings in Madagascar. We heard about all the different traditional wedding games, i.e. hiding the bride, making the bride sit in the chicken coop, covering the bride in a blanket… (I do not want to be a Malagasy bride). This conversation escalated very quickly into a lecture about adultery… By the ‘passion’ in his tone I was under the strong impression that one of our companions may have been having trouble in Paradise… I guess making your bride sit in a chicken coop on your wedding day may be setting yourself up for a lifetime of potential bridal revenge…

Eventually we arrived in Diego. We said farewell to our travelling companions and erupted into laughter about the unbelievable awkwardness of the past two days. We pulled ourselves together and stood at reception to check in.

A man stood behind the desk…

Expectations: “Welcome to our hotel! How can I help you?”

Reality: *Awkwardly staring at us with a look that said nothing other than “you’re still in Madagascar and the weirdness of your day is not over yet”.*

Ambanja

If you do get stuck in this city there is a hotel/restaurant called Hotel Patricia that serves good food, and more importantly good wine. It might also be a less weird place to stay than the creepy hotel we were in…

Hotel Patricia
Hotel – Bar – Restaurant
Tel: +261 (0)20 8650022

Evasions San Frontiere is definitely a cheap (although likely an extremely awkward) escape from Ambanja…

Evasions San Frontiere
86 062 44
www.mada-evasion.com