Introduction
In my last post, T2330 – Hot and Spicy, I described our visits to two ports in Tanzania, Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam.
After visiting three ports in mainland Africa, our cruise then switched back to sailing the Indian Ocean. In this post I will cover the following:
- a day anchored off Mamoudzou, the capital of the tiny French island of Mayotte
- two days spent anchored off Andoany, the capital of the island of Nosy Be, off the coast of Madagascar
- a day spent in Antsiranana, the capital of the Diana region of Madagascar
Watching the port talk about the ports covered in this post given by one of the Destination Services team, she emphasised that visiting these places and taking tours there is not going to be the same as travelling in Europe, and the same advisory information was also given in the Daily Times. In summary the warnings were:
- the countries are still developing their tourist industry
- the guides may not be the usual standard and still learning English
- the coaches may not be the usual standard and may not have A/C or a PA system
- there often won’t be room to store wheelchairs and scooters
- the heat and humidity will make walking strenuous
- any bathroom facilities could well be very basic
Carol and I are both very seasoned travellers, and we are lucky enough to have over 1800 nights cruising far and wide around the world between us. We take these limitations in our stride – in fact regular readers might remember that one of my favourite expressions is that the best travel is at the edge of your comfort zone.
Mamoudzou, Mayotte
As usual Carol and I were out on our balcony early to watch our approach to Mayotte. We sailed along the coastline for quite some time before anchoring off Mamoudzou.
This was a first visit to Mayotte for both Carol and myself. We had booked on a three and three quarter hour ship’s tour called South of the Island, which promised a scenic drive, with three stops on the way.
Reaching the shore on our tender, we were greeted by an array of local girls in lovely bright costumes singing a welcome to us. We boarded our coach, which was apparently normally used as a school bus, and which was better than we expected, albeit the windows were very dirty and marked, which was to hamper my photography.
The local guide that we had could actually speak quite good English – in fact he told us that he has spent some time in London. However there was no public address on the coach, and unfortunately he made no effort to tell us the same information at different positions in the coach – and so for example anything he said at the front, the people at the back could not hear, and vice versa. Over the whole tour, about the only facts we learned about the island were that it had only four petrol stations – he proudly pointed one out! – and that it had only one university.
We set off through the town, and I snapped some shots through the dirty window.
Once we reached the countryside we rapidly learned that our driver must be a frustrated Formula 1 driver, despite the narrow and windy roads. He drove the coach at breakneck speed, throwing it around all the corners, and we all had to hang on tight to the handles on the back of the seat in front of us for dear life. When we approached a sharp blind corner, instead of slowing right down, his technique was just to lean on the horn as much as he could, while we all silently prayed that there wasn’t anything coming the other way. Likewise, should we come up behind another vehicle he would leave it to the last moment to slam on the brakes hard, and when I dared to open my eyes to look we would invariably have come to rest inches from the vehicle in front. Basically it was horrendous, we could not relax and enjoy the scenery, or even see much of the scenery at the speed we were doing.
After a while some fellow passengers noticed that a large broom, one of a number of items that were already stored on the luggage rack above our heads, was about to come crashing down. The local guide was alerted, but all he did was push it back onto the rack. A few minutes later as the coach swung around again, sure enough the broom slid again, only this time it came crashing down onto the arm of the lady sat in the seat in front of me – it did not take long for a very nasty large bruise to appear on her arm.
At one point we came up behind a van which was erupting huge clouds of nasty white smoke from the back.
Somehow we arrived at our first stop, which was at Musical Plage. Here we had a 15 minute photo stop to see the beach, and also a 500 year old baobab tree.
Reboarding our coach, no mean feat as none of the four coaches doing the tour in convoy had numbers in the window, we continued our scary drive along the coast. Eventually we came to a stop at the side of the quite busy road, and the guide motioned for us to all get off – into the traffic – with no explanation of where we were or what we were stopping to see. Reading the tour description later we deduced that this was Tahiti Plage where we were supposed to admire the view – hmm, to say we were underwhelmed would be a major understatement. It wasn’t the non-descript beach that was the focus of our attention, our animated conversation with fellow passengers and the ship’s representative was how awful and scary the tour was. The ship’s representative told us that she had done loads and loads of tours, and that this was the worst she had ever done, and that she would be submitting a very detailed report when she returned to the ship – assuming we made it that far!
We had a riveting 15 minutes there, before our nightmare coach-ride resumed. Our reaction to the driving was not enhanced by the number of rusting wrecks of vehicles – or parts of vehicles – that we kept seeing in the verges throughout the tour. Just as we left the second stop, we passed a whole pile of wrecked cars.
Eventually we arrived at our final stop, the Pôle d’Excellence Rurale, where the tour description said that we will discover ylang ylang and vanilla trees, and taste fresh exotic juices while you enjoy some local singing and dancing. Our local guide gave each of us a tiny slip of paper, which we could exchange for our refreshments.
We queued for a while to get our refreshments, but when I saw what they were I just left the queue. On offer were fruit kebabs, but these were on open plates outside, and had flies crawling over them. The ‘juices’ were being served out of old plastic bottles, again out in the open. What is the advice when eating and drinking in tropical places – only have stuff that’s covered or sealed, and opened before your eyes or by you. On a health and safety basis there was no way I was going to have anything offered, and I still have my little ticket!
Instead, following my ears, I went to see the singers and dancers. This proved to be a group of girls in local costume banging out a rhythm with their wooden slats, and swaying in time. Fine – the only problem was they stopped before the fourth coach arrived! I never did find those ylang ylang and vanilla trees.
During our equally fast and hair-raising drive back to the port, I did manage to snap a couple of pics of the petrol station that we had passed earlier!
Both Carol and I can honestly say without exaggeration that this was the first time that we actually felt surprised and thankful to have got back to the port safely. Instead of returning relaxed and contented as usual, we were both absolutely shattered and very stressed. So much so, that when the Destination Services counter opened later, I went straight there to cancel the tour we had booked for the next day as we both felt we just needed to relax and unwind. Fortunately that tour had a wait-list so we did not lose any money.
I am sure that the speed that we drove had a lot to do with the fact that the same coaches and guides were doing the exact same tours in the afternoon, and there was just a fifteen minute window between the time we got back to the quay, and the departure time of the afternoon tours. I have been told that the coaches did not speed on the afternoon tours – but as I was not there I cannot say if that is correct.
The next day when completing the tour feedback form I covered both sides in writing detailing all the problems we encountered and why we felt so unsafe and stressed by it all. Despite raising significant health and safety issues with regard to the driving and the refreshments, the response to date has been nothing.
I will let you guess whether or not Carol and I would recommend this tour to you!!!
As we set sail just before sunset I took some photographs from our balcony.
Andoany, Island of Nosy Be, Madagascar
Formally known as Hell-Ville, Andoany is the capital of the Madagascan island of Nosy Be.
Both Carol and I had been to Andoany once before, on our 2019 Grand Voyage, when we took a ship’s tour to see the lemurs on Nosy Komba – see my post D19GV – Lemur Ribs.
In the original itinerary for this cruise we were due to be anchored off Andoany for one day. Earlier in the cruise we receive a letter to inform us that as another cruise ship was going to be in Antsiranana the day we were due to be there, we would go there a day later, and spend an extra day off Andoany.
As we sailed in and anchored up, I took a few photos from our balcony.
After the trials and tribulations of Mayotte, Carol and I needed to have a very quiet relaxing couple of days. It also did us both good to have a couple of days out of the intense heat and humidity that has been relentless of the past couple of weeks or so, and which does drain our energy levels so much.
While Carol stayed on the ship both days, I did do a couple of short outings.
On the first morning I took the tender ashore, and just gently wandered around the port area for around half an hour, taking photographs as I went, before returning to the ship.
On the second morning I managed to secure a seat on a RIB ride around the bay. I have enjoyed three RIB rides before, one in the same place, one off Komodo Island, and best of all, one around Sydney Harbour – see my post D19GV – SYD-NYE.
A RIB ride is great fun – provided you are agile enough to get your leg over the seat of course. We sped across the bay to the island of Nosy Komba, and then back along the coast. We then went right up to a sailing boat, where one of our crew handed over a large black plastic bag, saying here is your cheese. One of my fellow passengers asked the crewman if it was really drugs, and he said that he could not possibly comment!!
The ride was over all too soon – it was much shorter than I have done before, but there again this ride was free unlike the others.
We were delighted to see that various members of the crew being given RIB rides as well as the passengers. I noticed that when crew were aboard the RIBs seemed to go faster and turn more sharply – and took some photos of their fun.
Just before dinner we set sail for our next port of call, Antsiranana.
Antsiranana, Madagascar
Carol and I were up very early, and we were delighted by how comparatively cool the air felt as we sat on our balcony and watched our approach to the port, where this time we would be docked.
We had visited Antsiranana, still sometimes known by its former name of Diego Suárez, once before on that 2019 Grand Voyage. That time we had walked around the town but we were underwhelmed by what we found, so this time we decided to book a ship’s tour.
The tour we had chosen was a three and a half hour tour called The French Mountain. This tour promised a similar content to the ill-fated tour in Mayotte – baobab trees, a viewpoint, and refreshments – so it was going to be very interesting to see how the two tours compared.
As we left the ship there were local musicians playing at the end of the gang-plank, and also four pretty local girls in colourful local costume. This time our tour busses were more like converted vans, once we clambered up into ours it was very basic but fine – and the only air conditioning was the open windows. Our local guide spoke good English, albeit with a strong French accent, and told us about anything and everything – and being a smaller group the lack of a public address system was not a problem.
We drove out of the town to our first stop, a large lay-by area overlooking the bay and the island of Nosy Lonjo, also known as the Sugar Loaf of Diago Suárez. Our local guide explained how the island was sacred to the local people, and about the ceremonies held there. Around us there was a large number of men, women and children all trying to sell us things, sadly many with wildlife – a monkey, and lots of chameleons on sticks – this was to be a theme around the tour.
Driving on (at a nice relaxed pace), we had to pass through several checkpoints on our way to our next stop, at the foot of the French Mountain. Here our local guide led us to a viewpoint below the baobab trees, where he told us in great detail about the trees, how very long they live, and about their fruits.
He then led us back across the road to see a tamarind tree. Here the sea was very close, and there was a lovely cooling breeze. Some cows also thought this was a cooler place to be!
We then continued our drive along the coast until we reached Meva Plage, a hotel and restaurant complex where we stopped for an hour for our refreshments. This was a lovely place to stop, with a patio area around a pool, and a thatched balcony out over the stunning white-sanded beach. Here there was a good selection of food and drinks available, and while most where content to sit in the shade and enjoy the views and the refreshments serenaded by a local band, I decided to stretch my legs and have a wander around with my camera.
Initially I walked along the lovely beach, before returning to photograph the beautiful flowers all around the complex.
We drove back to the port the same way as we had come.
While we rested in the cool of our cabin that afternoon, we reflected on what a complete contrast the two recent tours had been – while we had got nothing from the one in Mayotte other than being stressed and distressed, this time around we felt very relaxed and thoroughly contented with what had been a very good tour, one that we would recommend.
Late in the afternoon we noticed that crowds of locals were gathering in the park, clearly to watch us sail. We had been due to sail at 5pm, but one of the tours – an epic 9 hour tour to a National Park, was not back by then. More and more 4×4 cars eventually arrived back at the ship, and it was getting dark around 6:10pm before we actually set sail.
We then had a day at sea sailing towards our next port of call, Réunion Island. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.
Postscript
This morning we were invited to a Diamond Elite coffee morning in the Observatory. As well as coffee or tea, there was an impressive array of drinks on offer, as well as tempting little pastries and cakes. We always enjoy these opportunities to chat with the senior officers. Captain Mikael kindly introduced Carol and I to his lovely wife Mia, who we were pleased to meet as she is to be our ship’s representative when we do an overland tour in a couple of weeks time. She seems good fun, and agreed with us that what happens on the tour should remain on the tour! Carol and I currently have all our extremities crossed that we will make it on this special extended tour, as unfortunately we know that covid is very much on the ship at present.
An Englishman Onboard 
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