Driving Through Antisrabe to Ambositra

 The bridge market.

A taxi bus negotiating through the crowd.

Beans and rice from above.

It is also obviously a very social affair.

The laundromat.

 Wherever we stopped we were greeted by kids.

 Circumcision trucks.

My bunkie Florien in a rickshaw.

 The hills of the highlands and some of the rice paddies.

 A sabotaged bridge.

 Typical houses.

Sunday, November 5^th.

We left the Belvedere Hotel by 7:30. Luckily it was Sunday so that traffic was very light, otherwise Patrick (our guide) said it would have taken a hour and a half to get out of town. The first stop was an ATM so people could withdraw some money and then a grocery store for five litre jugs of water a few supplies. I bought a new toothbrush as I forgot mine the Chalet des Roses yesterday.

It was great to get out of the city and back into the countryside. We were travelling on National Road 7 which was much better than 8. It was a sealed road and was in pretty good shape, although it had no shoulders and was incredibly winding as we travelled through the highlands.

About an hour in we stopped for a view of a very strange street market. It takes place every Sunday on a bridge with no railings. It was fascinating to watch the goings on. A little later we stopped for a 'bushy bushy' pee stop as there are no toilets on our route.

As we drove we saw how intensively farmed this area of the country is. There are hundreds of rice paddies and other crops. Not much is left unused. Then in the middle of nowhere we came across a bamboo shack that was selling toy drums and guitars and then there were two more selling the same. No idea why they needed three in such a small area. Then we came across three of four that were selling toy trucks. Patrick told us that these were presents that parents bought their male child after circumcision at the age of four. Then he explained a really weird cultural anomaly. We the boy is circumcised the skin is given to the oldest male in the family and he eats it!

We stopped in the city of Antsirabe for lunch at a tourist friendly restaurant. There were a number of other tourists there. And afterwards we had a half hour tour of the city in rickshaws. There are two types here, man power or bicycle, we had the man power one. As we were all sitting in our individual rickshaws and we were waiting to get underway a number of street peddlars accosted us. One lady came up and put something in my face and said 'I have no money'. What do you say to that. The tour was not really that interesting and probably would have been much more interesting on a weekday as the streets were pretty quiet and a lot of the shops were empty.

We came across a broken bridge and Patrick explained that there was a strike in the country in 2002 over election results and that someone blew up the bridge. This caused a crisis because the road connected the north and south parts of the country. For over six months before they built a new bridge, trucks would bring cargo to the bridge and people would have to carry in manually across the river and load it on trucks on the other side. There was a whole community that rose up to provide this service.

He also told us about another strike in 2013 because of election results. He said that the elections are always rigged and the richest candidate is usually able to buy the presidency. He said that the government does not believe in a good education system because they know it is easier to control uneducated people and that only 1.7% of Malagasy people go to university. Patrick and our driver and his assistant all said that they have never voted because they know it is futile.

We arrived at our hotel for the night around 5:30 and quickly got settled before pre-ordering dinner. We ate at 7:00 and as usual most people headed off shortly after that, as we are off early again tomorrow.