Antsirabe to Ranomafana, Madagascar

While I never found myself an oasis of calm in Tana, Antsirabe felt like a breath of fresh air in comparison. Well, at least the few blocks around the centre did: like Tana, a wide central boulevard leads to a disused train station. Unlike the chaos there though, I arrived in Antsirabe to find simple amusement park rides in a pedestrian area. Rather than dodging traffic, I was dodging the occasional toy cars and trains full of children and their parents.

There’s a distinctly cleaner air here too: for last-mile transport, where Tana only has taxis and Morondava and other cities have tuk-tuks, Antsirabe seems to have eschewed motors and pollution entirely and gone for the classic cyclo-pousse (bike rickshaw). It’s small enough for it, much cheaper, and friendlier all during my multiple trips to and from the gare routière — a big contrast to the frustrating experience of actually taking the onward transport from there by taxi-brousse.
Continue reading →