Lemurs and lychee rum in Madagascar

 "Coconella, Monsieur?", asked the little girl. I said, "Oui". I thought I would get a coconut with coconut water. She brought a huge fruit, bigger than a pumpkin! I was travelling on the Côte Est Railway in Madagascar, a classic African train journey.

I was in Fianarantsoa, commonly referred to as Fianar, in Madagascar. I was staying in a Chinese owned hotel and had just finished my breakfast of chicken noodle soup and coffee. I think it was the first time that I was having noodles and coffee. I have had noodles and tea and I have had noodles with liquor, but I don't think I have ever had noodles and coffee. I asked the Malagasy receptionist, "How do I get to Ranomafana?". I wanted to go to Ranomafana National Park to track lemurs in the wild. Lemurs are primates that are found only in the island of Madagascar. She said, "You can take a taxi-brousse (bush taxi) going to Manajary and get down at Ranomafana". I said, "How do I get back?". "I don't know", she said.

I took a cycle-rickshaw from the hotel and reached the taxi-brousse station in Fianar. I wanted to find one going to Ranomafana. I still didn't know how I was going to get back. I found the taxi-brousse going to Mananjary and there I met two Croatians, a young man and a young woman, also going to Ranomafana. They were planning to stay overnight in Ranomafana and proceed the next day to Mananjary or Manakara by taxi-brousse. The taxi-brousse driver said, "Why don't you rent a taxi for yourselves? If the three of you share the cost, it's not too high". The taxi driver told the Croats, "The taxi-brousse will come full to Ranomafana. You may not get a seat to Mananjary tomorrow". He was doing a hard sell for the taxi. I was also hoping that his hard sell works! The Croats agreed and we negotiated a fare that was not much higher than the regular taxi-brousse fare. The taxi would wait for us in Ranomafana and bring us back to Fianar.

On the way to Ranomafana, the Croatian woman said, "I have been to Bangalore, India". I was surprised. I said, "Only business travellers find their way to Bangalore". She said, "Yes. I went there on work". She was a Technical Writer working for a company where my friend, Sandhya, used to work in technical writing. I had been right. Bangalore beckons only those on work. "The traffic in Bangalore is horrendous", she said. I agreed! She asked, "Where is your next trip to?". I said, "Uganda". She said, "Maybe we will meet there. We are also planning a trip to Uganda". We stopped for coffee and there was a vendor selling clothes which were piled up by the side of the road. The Croatian woman said, "The clothes look old". The driver replied, "They are used clothes from Europe. A lot of people can't afford to buy new clothes". After a couple of hours, we reached Ranomafana National Park.

Inside the park, we had to be accompanied by a guide. Guides were mandatory. Our guide was a young Malagasy woman wearing a dark-green shirt and dark-green shorts. Vehicles are not allowed inside the park. We were on foot. The trails were well marked and were not too tough. We wandered around for almost two hours, but we did not find any lemurs. The guide pointed out a lot of birds to us, but no lemurs. She also showed us the unique bottle trees of Madagascar, but no lemurs. And then it happened. We had stopped and were talking and a conspiracy of lemurs came by. There were about 20 to 25 of them, adults and young. The guide said, "Don't move". We stood still and they went right past our feet.

The next morning, I was trying to find my way to the train station in Fianar. Nobody seemed to know where it was. I wanted to book a ticket to Manakara by the Côte Est Railway. I walked around but did not find the station. Google Maps, in 2013, did not have offline maps that you could download. I saw a shop named 'Patel' and walked in. Patel is an Indian name. I asked the owner, "Do you speak Hindi?". He said, "Thoda thoda (a little bit)". He knew only French and Malagasy. The Indian merchants in Madagascar had been there for several generations and many no longer spoke any Indian language. In a broken mix of Hindi and French, he gave me fairly accurate directions to the train station.

I reached the train station and wanted to buy a ticket for the next day. The process for buying the ticket is complex. Tickets can only be bought one day earlier. I stood in a long line and bought a token for the next day's train. The next morning, I checked out of my hotel and reached the train station at 5 a.m. I once again stood in a long line and exchanged the token for a ticket. The train was supposed to depart at 6 a.m. There were a lot of foreigners, all Europeans, waiting to board the train. I counted about 50 to 60 of them. 6 a.m. came and went. There was no sign of any train. A train with a diesel locomotive chugged in around 7:15 a.m. and stopped. Everyone, slowly, got on the train and waited. We waited for almost two hours. The train finally departed around 9:15 a.m.

The train was full. Every seat was taken. I had kept my bags under my seat. The seat was a wooden bench and three people sat on it. There were two benches on either of the aisle. There was a Malagasy woman sitting next to me. She knew a little bit of English. She had a basket full of oranges and kept giving me oranges to eat. After eating, she would just throw the peels out of the window. There was one toilet for the entire coach and it kept getting dirtier by the passing hour. The journey was slow but scenic. We went through 67 bridges, 47 tunnels and countless waterfalls. As soon as the train entered a tunnel, you had to clutch your bags. It would get pitch dark as there were no lights on the train and the Malagasy woman had told me, "Your bags can get stolen".

The train stopped at several stations, but there was no food available. There were vendors selling fruit and water. At every station, there were vendors selling used European clothes. In one station, a little girl, who was probably six years old, asked me, "Coconella, Monsieur?". I said, "Oui". With my limited knowledge of French, I had assumed that I would get a coconut with coconut water. She ran as fast as her little feet could and brought me a huge fruit, bigger than a pumpkin! I didn't have the heart to say "Non" to her. I bought the fruit from her. I didn't have a knife, so I was wondering what to do with it. The woman next to me took it from me and gave it to a group of men. They ripped the fruit open with their bare hands. I got a chunk of it. It was chewy like a jack-fruit but sweet like a melon. The train came to a stop at one station. We were there for more than one hour. The Malagasy woman told me, "A Chinese man is holding up the train. He wants to load something onto the train". "He must have paid the driver", she added. 

The train reached Manakara at midnight. We had taken 15 hours to cover a distance of 150 km. It was raining heavily. I took a cycle-rickshaw to my hotel. I sat down and the driver covered me with a transparent plastic sheet. He pedalled through the heavy rain for what seemed like a long time. It was pitch dark and there were absolutely no lights. I could see nothing. Was he going to the hotel or was he taking me somewhere to rob me? I could then see some lights in the distance and we reached my hotel. An old Chinese woman was the owner and she did not know any English. "Francais?", she asked. I said, "No". She said, "Malagasy?". I said, "No". She then asked, very hopefully, "Hokkien?". I said, "No". She then called another Malagasy woman who knew a little bit of English. 

The Malagasy woman asked, "Do you want something to eat?". It was almost 1 a.m. I said, "Yes, please. I have only eaten oranges the entire day". She said, "I will make you an omelette. A spicy Malagasy omelette. Not a European omelette". "That would be nice", I said. She gave me the spicy omelette with a bottle of beer. She then gave me a slip of paper with the Wi-Fi password on it. I was in remote Manakara, but connected. The next morning, I woke up late and went for a walk. I reached the Indian Ocean. My father's house in Chennai, India was by the Indian Ocean. I had travelled thousands of miles and was seeing the same ocean. 

To my surprise, I saw an Indian restaurant in remote Manakara. I walked in and there was a young woman of Indian descent, wearing a very short pleated skirt. She knew a little bit of English. She said her ancestors were from Gujarat in India. I had a nice table, with a view of the Panganales Canal and the Indian Ocean. I ordered the popular Malagasy, 'Three Horses Beer' and she gave me a samosa (a triangular fried Indian pastry filled with spiced potatoes) with it. That evening I was in the restaurant in my hotel, having dinner. A group of about 15 old European men walked in. They were all in their 70's. They were accompanied by a group of young Malagasy girls. Most of the girls were under-age. The old men sat down and were pulling the girls on to their laps. I left the restaurant and went back to my room. I had witnessed a similar incident in Antsirabe, which I have written about in my previous blog.

I was back in Antananarivo, known as Tana, to catch my flight back to India. Madagascar is known for its flavoured rums and I wanted to have some. I went to a bar known for it and ordered a lychee rum. The waitress gave me a wine glass full of white lychee rum. It was nice, fruity and also strong. I finished it and ordered another glass. The waitress exclaimed, "Non, Monsieur!". I said, "Yes, Madame". I finished the second glass and ordered a third one. The waitress shook her head and had given up on me. I finished the third glass and got up to leave. The waitress took out her phone and asked, "Taxi?". I said, "No. I will walk back to my hotel". She insisted, "Non, Monsieur. Taxi". I declined but she was not too surprised and I walked back to my hotel. 

The next day in Tana airport, I bought two bottles of lychee rum in the duty-free liquor shop. But they got confiscated, even though they were in sealed bags, while I was transiting Nairobi airport. No amount of pleading worked. I keep getting items confiscated while transiting Nairobi airport. Previously, I had been travelling back from Zanzibar with some Zanzibari products and they confiscated it. "You are stealing Africa", he had said, imperiously.

Have you ever been on a classic train journey? If so, where?

Comments please! Thou shalt get a reply!

Afternote

This is the second and concluding part of my Madagascar blog posts. In addition to the guidebooks, I got a lot of information from Lonely Planet's 'Thorn Tree' travel forum. Particularly, from a woman who writes under the handle 'marogisa'. Unfortunately, Lonely Planet has decided to shut down the travel forum. I had been using the forum since 1997. Luckily, the old information is still searchable. 

Please do read the first part of my Madagascar blog, "In search of the coin with the lowest value in the world": http://kodavarthi.blogspot.com/2020/11/in-search-of-coin-with-lowest-value-in.html?m=1

 Copyright © 2020 by Shyam Kodavarthi. All rights reserved.