goodbye city of jacaranda

madagascar travelogue : final part

after days of wild life, nature and village life, we dedicated the last day to explore the city side of madagascar.

well there's no better place for that than the capital antananarivo.

to tell the truth, i didn't expect the city to be so dense, crowded and at some part, modern. i guess my conception of africa was based on the movie 'god must be crazy'.

to add to the difference, instead of vast plane land, antananarivo sits on high plate (average 1425m above see levels) so the landscape was rather uneven with high grounds here and there which made the city unique.

photo on the left was taken from the queen's palace which was mostly burnt down in the last decade. i glimpsed at that like 2 seconds before shifting my view downwards where i could see the entire city center of antananarivo, which should be more interesting than some damaged building. the center lake surrounded by purple jacaranda trees was such a pleasant sight from up here.

photo on the right was from ambohimanga, translated as blue hill where the old kingdom palace situated. this place was near the suburb, so the view from here was mostly vast land with scattered houses, not as dense as the city center. there i'm covering half of the photo, i just couldn't help it hehe...



on the left is a close up view of the dense housing area. out of those, there were no two houses that were of the same shape. i like this photo, everytime i stare at it, i'd find another detail.

my another 'national geographic moment' photo in the center, centered by a local girl who was doing another girl's hair. maybe they were sisters, or friends. whatever it is, they were so engrossed to notice my camera.

on the right, a mother was carrying her children on the back towards a buzzling riverside crowd in the middle of the day's business. caught this from inside our vehicle.



i was fortunate to get the hotel room on the highest floor with a city view. above is night shot from my hotel window.



in between old fashioned buildings, we could spot some modern attractive one like in the photo on the right. we could actually see the clouds reflection from the glass panels. simple yet elegant and yes, this is in madagascar.



what are cities without its hardworking citizens.

time goes by and before we knew it, it was time to return to reality. we took the air madagascar flight from antananarivo to bangkok before heading back to singapore.

but not before we were given the final taste of local culture.

after i passed through the passport control booth at ivato airport, i was asked by this security officer to a curtained small chamber, kind of like a fitting room, where he body-checked me briefly, then asked for money.

he asked for money!

in between heavy heartbeats, i insisted that i have none so he asked me to show him my wallet. thank god all my leftover ariaries were all in my jacket's pocket. after seeing only singapore notes inside my wallet, he let me go.

well that experience completed all the things i've seen and went through in madagascar, didn't it? now this trip feels like a good movie but with a bad ending.

but to be fair, this was nowhere near my worst experience being interrogated at portland airport. at least this incident in ivato lasted less than 5 minutes and i'd never felt like i was in real trouble.

after one last look at blooming jacarandas in the airport compound, we bid madagascar farewell.

...ed