A few days in Antananarivo, Madagascar

What a relief after the last trip’s crazy delays on Kenya Airways to be back on South African Airways whose flights were all on time. Well actually that is not true – they left on time and both arrived early – always a bonus. Arriving in Tana is a bit of a trying experience. It takes forever to get through immigration and once through immigration you have to run the gauntlet of all the porters trying to take your suitcase to wherever you are going. I got a little cross though because I managed to avoid all the porters and found the driver of the hotel’s bus but when we got to the bus there was a smartly dressed man waiting there who took my suitcase, put it in the bus and then demanded I pay him. All this while the bus driver was grinning his head off! Well I just told the guy to get lost because I never asked him to lift my suitcase up on little step and his shouting at me for a tip was annoying. Eventually he got the message and moved on to another victim.

So I started the long drive to the hotel thinking how much I don’t like Tana because of people like Mr GiveMeATip who are in plenty supply here but then I decided I needed an attitude change. I started looking for good things along the way. The scenery on the way to Tana is nice. I like to see the rice paddies with the ducks swimming around and the cows browsing on whatever they can find to eat. I also got a kick out of seeing the kids on the sports fields playing not soccer as I expected but rugby!





After an hour long journey of suicidal driving I arrived at my hotel. This time I am at a different hotel to my previous trips. My local contact made the decision to use a different hotel due to the crazy accounting at the hotel we used previously. So I have been staying at the Grand Mellis Hotel.

The hotel is really quite nice and meets all my criteria: safe, clean, free internet access and it has a small gym. It is right in the middle of Tana so quite noisy with my bedroom window open but it has double windows so it is really quiet when the windows are closed. The windows have to be closed at night anyway because it is quite chilly after the sun goes down – in the region of 4C°. My room is spacious and the bed comfortable. The only negative is that the toilet leaks. I have to jiggle the handle to decrease the amount of water running into the bowl so that the cistern fills but this doesn’t stop the leak. It sounds a bit like I have my own private fountain in the room.
 My comfy room

 Looking down on the street from my room - love these old cars that are used as taxis

The view across from my room

The other nice thing about the hotel is the food. It is a good thing that there is a gym! The breakfast has been a little strange for me but it really is just because I am not used to continental breakfasts. Cakes and pastries are only on my breakfast menu for my birthday and even then only irregularly. The lunches were in a class of their own! I wish that I had taken photos everyday but below are the photos from just one lunch. It wasn’t all that expensive either only about R100 / $8 for a three course meal.
 A chicken salad starter

Main course of snapper fish (Lethrinus sp for those who are interested)

Dessert!

On the work front everything went well. We could not use the online database but worked around that issue again. On the first day we started a little late because I was waiting for everyone in the meeting room and everyone else was waiting for me in the hotel lobby. They then asked reception if I was here, they were told yes I was and they phoned my room to find me. Eventually it dawned on them that they should look in the meeting room. It would have been the first place I would have looked! After that though we had no more confusion and they worked very diligently to finish all the updates in the set time.
The view from the meeting room

Our group




Next stop Mauritius!

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