To Antananarivo, Madagascar

 First look at Madagascar.

 The Ikopa River area and the rice paddies.

 My passport with the Madagascar page on the right.

The view from the top of my hotel.

Tuesday, October 24^th.

I was up and getting packed and organized before my 6 am wake up call. I had a bit of the amazing breakfast buffet that the hotel put out, and then carried my bags just down the street to the Gautrain station. For 178 rand (about $13 US) I took the train to the airport (the taxi would cost over 500 rand). The train was very modern and fast. I started in Rosebank Station and had to change to the airport line at the first station, Stanton. From there it was a quick four station trip. The train dropped me about 300 metres from the check in. I dropped off my bag, went through security and passport control in short order and then had a couple of hours to wait for my flight.

I had a window seat, but no window. I've never seen that before. The plane was not full so I relocated to a window I could see from at the back of the plane. I arrived in Antananarivo about one where the clocks are another hour ahead. Disembarking, and paying for the visa ($35 US) was easy and very organized, but after that it became weird. I asked the lady to put the small paper visa on the left side of the page under the two stamps (see the photo), but she said there wasn't enough room and put it on the next page at the bottom. After I left her station I went to the next booth where there were all the tourists gathered around a booth where three people sat inside stamping passports. They took my passport and put it with a pile of other passports. Then all three of the men had to stamp or write or sign the passport, one after another in an assembly line. When it came out the other side of the booth another man would try to pronounce and call out the name of the person. Everyone in the mob had to listen for their name and call out. Then the man would compare you and your passport photo before giving it back to you. Very bizarre. I wish I could have taken a video. I have been to a lot of countries, but never seen anything as bizarre as this. Check the photo for the number of stamps and signings on the left side of the page, they are all for Madagascar. If every country did that I'd have to apply for another new passport like in India in 2011.

After that I collected my bag and emerged into the seething mass of humanity that greets people in third world countries. I met a man who showed me the booth where the official money changer was and changed $40 US to 124,860.00 Malagasy Ariary. Then the man told me he was a taxi driver. I was suspicious at first but after talking to him for a couple of minutes I agreed to go with him to my hotel, which he said was about 20 kilometres away and would take an hour to get there. He asked for 60000 and I said that was too much and I would look for a cheaper taxi. So he dropped it to 50000 ariary. His teenage son was in the car, which initially made me uncomfortable, but I agreed, and away we went. It is always a bit unnerving when you don't know where you are going or how long it should take, but you have to trust someone. That is why I prefer airport pickups, but even they can go wrong – like in Johannesburg a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, I kept my eyes open and watched where we were going. From the airport we drove through what must have been a couple of suburbs, before driving across a river area where there were rice paddies on both sides of the road. There were people working in them and the houses around were very basic and shabby looking. The scenes and the look of the people reminded me very much of Nepal.

Sure enough after the hour and lots of crazy congested traffic we arrived at the Grand Mellis Hotel. My driver Jean Luc, offered to take me around the city for 2 to 3 hours for 120000 ariary and show me a few of the sights. I was tired and not sure if that was a good price or not, or if there really was anything to see. So I took his number and said I might call him tomorrow if I decided to go.

When I filled out the check-in form for the hotel it asked me for my mother and father's name, never had that before. I took a tour of the hotel and saw the courtyard pool, which is closed and the run down conference room on the top floor that offered a good view of the chaos of the street below. My room is very spacious and clean with wi-fi and TV. The hotel is nice enough but a bit tired and shabby. They are renovating parts of it. However, after sleeping in a tent on the ground in a sleeping bag for three weeks, I looked forward to a good hot shower, and a proper bed.

I spent the rest of the day and evening relaxing, updating blog entries and sorting photos. Then I did a bunch of e-mails and watched a bit of TV. Not much on in English, as the country is French speaking.