Gasy stories partie 1 : le premier voyage

The plan was simple enough: fly into Nosy Be, Madagascar's most popular tourist destination, spend two days finding a motorcycle and learning how to ride it properly, then set off on a three-week journey across the entire northern part of the island before returning to Nosy Be for a more relaxing end to the trip. While preparing for the journey, however, I quickly discovered that renting a 125cc motorcycle in Nosy Be was astonishingly expensive—especially when compared to the prices I had encountered in countries such as Vietnam or Thailand.

The going rate was around €10 per day. However, the moment you mentioned leaving Nosy Be and venturing farther afield, rental companies doubled the price to €20 per day—for motorcycles whose condition ranged from mediocre to downright dreadful. Let's do the maths:
Renting a battered Chinese motorcycle for forty-two days: 42 × €20 = €840.
Buying the very same motorcycle brand new: €1,000.

Undeterred, I stuck to the original plan. After struggling like never before with my bank—which I had, of course, informed in advance—to withdraw cash, I purchased a small Indian motorcycle made by Bajaj and completed all the necessary paperwork to insure it and obtain the documents required to ride legally.

Once there, a few French expatriates and seasoned visitors told me I was wasting my time. According to them, even with all my paperwork in order, the Malagasy police would still demand money at every checkpoint. As it turned out, this was completely untrue. A few officers did try their luck, but in the vast majority of cases I was able to travel freely without having to bribe anyone. I should also point out, in case this story inspires anyone to follow in my footsteps, that I had bought a helmet in Europe and brought it with me, along with a pair of motorcycle gloves.

I did not, however, have any proper riding gear—just an old pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a hoodie. In my younger days, I had ridden scooters wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a T-shirt, but it seems that age has made me at least slightly less foolish (only very slightly less).

After forty-eight hours spent learning how to handle my little motorbike, I was finally ready to begin the road trip. But it kept raining without interruption. We waited two more days, hoping for better weather, yet after four days the conditions remained just as unstable. In the end, we decided to leave anyway. I hadn't even brought a rain jacket...

The dry season is supposed to begin in early April. We knew we were cutting it a little fine, but for professional reasons we simply could not schedule the trip at a more suitable time. Now that I know the country a little better, I can tell you that the rainy season is so intense that, regardless of the official dates, the roads take weeks to dry out. So if you're planning a similar trip, give yourself a bit of leeway beyond the theoretical start of the dry season. And buy proper straps to secure your luggage to the motorcycle. I had only brought a handful of bungee cords ordered from Amazon—yet another brilliant idea courtesy of Daniel Bay!

At around 8 a.m., we loaded the bikes onto a boat to leave Nosy Be and reach Port Ankify. We disembarked there in the late morning, with the goal of making our way to the town of Ambanja, roughly an hour's ride from the port. Well, an hour under normal circumstances. In those post-cyclone conditions, it took us almost three hours, if memory serves me right (my recollections are a little hazy, as the stages that followed were fifty times harder and infinitely more memorable).

The roads were in a dreadful state. We had to grip the handlebars tightly to avoid potholes and weave through the mud on our little motorcycles fitted with smooth road tyres. Despite everything, we managed to reach Ambanja without too much trouble. As the rain continued to fall in frequent downpours, we were unable to explore much of the Ambanja region. That would have to wait until my second journey, fifteen months later.

In the end, I bought the motorcycle from a small independent dealer I happened to find on the street, and it was only during my second trip that I finally discovered the location of the real Bajaj dealership! But enough of that. Let's get back to our story, grab a coffee, and let me tell you about the stage from hell between Ambanja and Ambilobe.

The weather was fine that day, but before long we found ourselves in an indescribable mess. The road was riddled with potholes and gravel, and in some places the pavement had completely collapsed and disappeared beneath floodwater. We crossed stretches covered in thick layers of incredibly slippery mud. The scenery was magnificent, but there was no chance of taking your eyes off the road for even a second. Throughout the entire stage, we were unable to exceed 15 km/h. We had to use our feet as stabilisers and constantly work the gearbox, shifting endlessly between first and second gear. I never once made it into third gear all day. Countless times, I had to rely on the help of local people just to get through.

We eventually arrived at the Ifasy Bridge, where complete chaos reigned. The bridge had indeed been totally destroyed. Reaching the riverbank was impossible without the help of a few locals, who joined forces to carry my motorcycle down to the water's edge. Once again, many thanks to those guys—they earned every penny of the small tip I gave them. I began to feel seriously anxious when I realised that the so-called ferry was actually a tiny, incredibly narrow wooden canoe !

According to our GPS devices, we were only a few kilometres from Ambilobe when, during a cigarette break, someone informed us that there was a second collapsed bridge ahead and that we would once again have to cross by boat! Sure enough, the Mahavavy Bridge, built in 1940 and one of Ambilobe's most iconic landmarks, had not survived Cyclone Gamane either.

It took us almost eight hours to complete this 110-kilometre stage, and by the time we reached Ambilobe, we were completely exhausted. Fortunately, we had booked one of the best hotels in the region—or at least the one offering the best value for money—the Kozobe Hotel. Spacious air-conditioned rooms, a superb swimming pool, and attentive staff: my motorcycle was quickly cleaned and the brake repaired. Before long, we decided to stay in Ambilobe longer than originally planned. We were in absolutely no condition to get back on the road the next day, especially since the "news from the front" was far from encouraging: the next town we had intended to reach, Vohémar, on the east coast, appeared to be inaccessible.

The few videos we managed to find on Facebook and TikTok showed a region submerged under water. While the Ambanja–Ambilobe stage had been presented to us as perfectly manageable—which had turned out to be a rather optimistic assessment—we were now being told that reaching Vohémar was impossible, even by motorcycle.

We stayed in Ambilobe for two or three days, the first of which was spent simply recovering from that hellish stage. I love this little town. There are very few tourists, and the handful of Westerners passing through mostly remain inside the Kozobe Hotel, which is not really my style, as you have probably begun to realise by now. I enjoyed wandering through the small streets of the town centre.

We found a restaurant well worth recommending: Ke-Ka-Sha (Chez Savitrie), where we received a wonderfully warm welcome. When the chef realised that we would be staying in town for several days, he offered to prepare a special meal for us the following day, featuring dishes that were not even on the menu.

He wanted to showcase his culinary skills by preparing Malagasy-style roast duck for us, and at my request, he also made us a delicious crab and avocado salad. The memory of that warm hospitality will stay with me forever. We spent some time riding through the surrounding countryside on our motorcycles, venturing along the road to Vohémar and discovering some magnificent landscapes.

Finally recovered from the hellish Ambanja–Ambilobe stage, we decided to head for Antsiranana (Diego-Suarez), the northernmost city in the country, and stay there for almost ten days. There seemed to be plenty of places to explore around Diego, and we told ourselves that during those ten days, efforts would surely be made to improve the roads damaged by the cyclone. We simply could not imagine returning straight to Nosy Be—it would have felt too much like admitting defeat! The Ambilobe–Diego-Suarez stage was also extremely demanding. Once again, it took us nearly an entire day to cover the 140 kilometres between the two cities.

Once again, our first day in Diego-Suarez was spent mostly recovering physically. I truly fell in love with this city. I loved its atmosphere and its people. At last, the weather was improving! We visited some of the region's most notable attractions, including the famous Emerald Sea.

I attempted to visit the Red Tsingy on my own, those remarkable rock formations sculpted by erosion, but I had to give up and turn back before reaching them. It was simply too difficult on a small motorcycle fitted with smooth road tyres. Even though I was wearing gloves, my left hand was rubbed almost raw from constantly working the gearbox.

Once again, I would strongly recommend using a dirt bike rather than a city motorcycle—it was genuinely difficult on a machine like mine. In mud, you eventually learn to anticipate the direction in which the bike is going to slide, but on sand it's pure guesswork: the motorcycle can suddenly veer off in any direction without warning. My advice would be to leave your bike in Ramena and walk the rest of the way (about an hour on foot).

After that long week in Diego, it was time to get back on the road and return to Nosy Be, where a beautiful villa with a swimming pool was waiting for us. We had managed to negotiate a very attractive rate, as the tourist season had not yet really begun. One thing worth noting is that we never lost either our optimism or our naivety. Every morning we would tell ourselves, "Well, maybe today will be a little easier." It NEVER was. Not once. Diego–Ambilobe was hell. Ambilobe–Ambanja was the same hell as on the way out, except that we also took a wrong turn and lost two extra hours.

So once again, we had to cross the rivers in canoes, although this time without any mechanical damage. Right up to the very last moment, nothing went smoothly. Having left Ambanja very early in the morning, we arrived in Port Ankify at 7:45 a.m., ready to board for Nosy Be. The boat captain informed us that departure would take place around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. We simply had to wait for a refrigerated truck carrying goods to Nosy Be, which, he assured us, would arrive at any moment. We ended up waiting for that truck for eight hours.

Late in the day, we had to move the motorcycles out of the cargo hold and into the passenger area so that a herd of zebu cattle could be loaded on board. We arrived in Nosy Be in the middle of the night and under a torrential downpour, wading and slipping through zebu dung as we disembarked. Nothing was spared us—not even in the very last minute of the journey!

What an adventure! As soon as we settled back into Nosy Be, I put the motorcycle up for sale on a few local Facebook classifieds pages and quickly found a buyer. I asked for a deposit and arranged to complete the sale the day before my flight home. An excellent deal for both of us.

The most impressive excursion, for me, was the day spent on Nosy Iranja. I've seen some beautiful beaches in my life, but never one as stunning as Nosy Iranja! It regularly appears in rankings of the world's most beautiful beaches, yet many of the other beaches featured in those lists are located in extremely expensive destinations such as Tahiti or Bora Bora.

For the equivalent of around thirty euros, I was taken by boat to this earthly paradise and served freshly cooked fish and lobster. I was lucky: the weather that day was exceptional, and there were very few tourists. I've been told that spending a night on Nosy Iranja is an experience truly worth having—you can even witness sea turtles hatching at dawn—but by then I was nearing the end of my trip and my budget was running low while I waited to sell the motorcycle.

And so ends the first part of my story. In the next chapter, I will tell you how I returned fifteen months later, this time entirely on my own, to finally complete the road trip we had originally planned and bring the Gasy Stories street photography project to life!