From Ambilobe to Antalaha: Gasy Stories, a Street Photography Project (Part 2)

After spending two days in Ambilobe, a town I already knew from my first road trip, it was time to venture into the unknown: the East Coast and the towns of Vohémar, Sambava and Antalaha. First stop, Ambilobe to Vohémar via the RN5A. This road was long known as “the road from hell”. Before the roadworks carried out in 2022, it was one of the worst roads in the world, and it took several days to get from Ambilobe to Vohémar. During the rainy season, it was an absolute nightmare of mud. Just type RN5A Madagascar into YouTube and you'll get an idea of how extreme this journey used to be before the 2022 roadworks.

One of the great things about riding around on a little 125cc motorcycle is that these machines barely use any fuel. The tank holds about 9 liters, I think, and they only burn between 1 and 1.5 liters per 100 kilometers, so you'd have to be pretty absent-minded to run out of gas. But since I'd like this series of articles to inspire people like me (meaning unathletic, not actual bikers, absent-minded and slightly nuts) to follow in my footsteps, I'd rather point out a few things that might seem obvious.

You hardly come across anyone on this road, there's almost no traffic, which makes it a really pleasant ride. You can even afford to take your eyes off the road while riding, there are no bumps or potholes. You pass through a few small rural towns like Betsihaka and Ambararata, as well as some villages that seem completely deserted. The people who live there have gone off to work in the fields or in the gold mines, which are pretty numerous around here.

I had to ride all the way through this charming town to reach the hotel I'd booked: Le Square de Vohémar. The hotel describes itself as a biker-friendly stopover, and sure enough, the owner is an experienced biker herself, and everything is set up to welcome people on two wheels. The place is idyllic, with little bungalows right by the water. After those few hours on the road, I got to laze around in a hammock, sipping papaya juice, lulled by the gentle lapping of the waves.

The Green Lake of Vohémar

Hardly any tourists do things solo like I do, everyone hires a guide, so the few travelers who stop over in Vohémar never have to figure out how to get to the Green Lake on their own. As is often the case, there's absolutely no information online, and no GPS will be able to tell you how to get there!

For my first evening, I wanted to see what was going on around town. I'd picked up a few restaurant recommendations from a guy from the French Caribbean who lives in Ambilobe, good old Pascal, whom I'd already met on my first trip. He's always hanging out at Ke-Ka-Sha and he's a goldmine of useful information about the region. Before heading to one of the restaurants he'd recommended, I went for a nighttime ride around town on my motorcycle, in the Arctic cold.

On foot it's fine, but on a motorcycle the cold wind gets right through your clothes. I was wearing a pretty thick hoodie and I was still freezing! I never imagined I'd need a scarf or a neck warmer in Madagascar. I went for a drink at Ravinala, which is a sort of Malagasy nightclub, but it was still early for that kind of place and it was the beginning of the week.

Sambava, Vanilla Country

The next day, I hit the road again, heading for Sambava. From what I'd managed to gather in Vohémar, the road was supposed to be difficult, but frankly, that's a huge exaggeration. Then again, after my first trip through the mud, no road is really difficult for me anymore.

Apart from two or three stretches where the road is uneven and full of potholes that you just have to carefully weave your way around, the road is actually in pretty decent shape. I got the impression there were more police checkpoints than in other regions. I later found out that the authorities have a stronger presence in this area to crack down on vanilla theft and trafficking. Indeed, Sambava is right in the heart of vanilla country, home to a spice prized all over the world and of which Madagascar is one of the leading producers. During my trip in August 2025, vanilla prices had collapsed, the stuff was practically worthless, and the entire Sambava region was plunged into unemployment and poverty.

When you think about the outrageous prices vanilla sells for in Europe and elsewhere, you can't help feeling that there's something seriously wrong with this whole economy. From what I could gather, this collapse in prices is down to several factors, including speculation and misguided government policies. In Sambava, as elsewhere in Madagascar, the poverty you see is staggering, and frankly, it's heartbreaking. Whatever your political views, when you travel around this country, you can't really avoid asking yourself some questions about how the world's wealth is distributed.

As soon as you arrive in Sambava, you realize it's a proper big town, with an airport, supermarkets and busy streets full of people. I only stayed there for two nights, but it's in this town that I took two of the best photos of the series, Le manège de l’enfant-roi and La supérette de Sambava.

This is also where I stayed at the cheapest hotel of my entire trip: Chez Kong. For just 6 or 7 euros, you get a clean room, plenty of hot water and a very welcoming staff. The Chinese restaurant downstairs serves delicious food. Don't go swimming at Sambava Beach, the sea there is known to be extremely dangerous, with strong currents that can sweep you out to sea in no time.

The scenery along the way is beautiful, the road winds through farmland and palm groves, crossing several rivers with magnificent views from the bridges that span them. You also come across loads of people drying vanilla in the sun. There are quite a few police checkpoints in this region, due to vanilla trafficking and theft.

I'd give the gendarmes a military salute, and whenever I came across a policeman who seemed a little too suspicious, I'd pretend I was a French cop, which tended to speed up the whole checking process considerably. I imagine they don't see guys like me wandering around on their own all that often, and quite a few of them probably took me for a Frenchman living in the area.

One day, two policemen stopped me and said, “We don't want to see your licence, we don't want to see your insurance, we're thirsty.” I found that kind of nerve hilarious, and instead of getting worked up about it, I told them, “I like people who get straight to the point, at least you're not pretending! Here, go buy yourselves a beer!” Later on, in downtown Diego-Suarez, another policeman would try the same trick on me, but this time I wasn't quite so willing to play along.

He'd tell me, “It's hot in Madagascar, makes you thirsty.” It's August, it's 23 degrees, objectively speaking, the temperatures are pretty mild. I'd reply, “No, it's not hot,” and he'd fire back, “Yes, it is hot.” This little verbal ping-pong match would finally come to an end when I returned the ball with a firm “NO, it's NOT hot,” while pulling out my perfectly valid documents. He wouldn't even bother looking at them. “Alright, move along!”

Antalaha is a town with a certain charm. There aren't that many hotels to choose from, so like everyone else, I ended up at the Ocean Momo Hotel. The GPS had no idea how to get there, and since I couldn't find the entrance from the road, I ended up arriving on my motorcycle via the beach!

It's a perfectly decent hotel, with a whole collection of sculptures and giant seashells in the lobby. Customer service, however, is nonexistent. I showed up at reception, they gave me a bungalow number and left me to find it myself. “The key's in the door!” After unloading my motorcycle, I asked where the parking area was, and they just said “Over there!” while vaguely pointing in some direction. Since I'd gotten stuck in the sand on the beach while trying to find the hotel, my shoes were full of sand, and like an idiot, I ended up covering the room in sand when I took them off. So I went to reception, apologized, and asked if someone could come and clean up the mess I'd made. They handed me a broom!

I would've appreciated a slightly warmer welcome, but that's just a minor detail, the hotel itself is very nice and right on the beach. Just a few minutes' walk away, there's Cancun, a restaurant where you can get some good food and play pool. After checking myself in and cleaning up my own damn room, I headed out into the streets of Antalaha to do some street photography, of course!

I spent three days in Antalaha, wandering around the streets and along the beach. You can't really go much further south, Antalaha is pretty much a dead end. So it was time to turn around and head back. I rode all the way from Antalaha to Vohémar in one go, before making my way back to Ambilobe, where I finally got to visit Ankarana National Park, then headed up to Diego-Suarez, where I spent 10 days. But that's for the next chapter of this travel story.

Thanks for reading!