... or none at all! Welcome to Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, and the one with the longest name in the WORLD (although I wonder if Ougadougou in Burkina Faso just beats it?) Anyway, no-one calls this town by its actual name. Tana, or Tanarive, it is.
And speaking of long names, let me give you an example of the street names. Rue Rainibetsimisaraka. Or Rue Razanakombana. Even the names of some of the parks are difficult to pronounce! Jardin d'Antanimbarinandriana; I give up! Actually it doesnt really matter, as most streets don't have signs anywhere anyway so it doesn't matter if you can't pronounce them. Just keep walking til you find yourself lost. Its very easy to do here. We've spent the last couple of days doing it.
But I think I may have just found my new favourite city.
Tana is beautiful; on the on hand it feels like Europe, with its terracotta-tiled roofs, cobblestone streets, brightly painted buildings and MANY stairs - this city was built in a very hilly place, and you definitely get a workout wandering around. But doing so is much more a pleasure than a chore, especially in the Haute-ville which still has that old French colonial villa feel. The rest of the city slams you back into Africa, from first glance; its hectic and dirty and smelly, there's rubbish lying around and beggars asking for money, not to mention the pickpockets at the very vibrant and busy markets selling everything from car batteries to torches to traditional medicine and all sorts of fruit and vegetables.
But its the people here that have surprised me most; it's such a diverse and interesting mix. The people here are called 'Malagasy', which means 'Malaysian (Mala) people (gasy)'; hundreds of years ago, people came by sea from Malaysia and Indonesia to settle here; they are most evident in the central (where Tana is) and north/eastern parts of the country. We often wanted to start speaking Bahasa Indonesia to them! Others came from Africa, mainly from Kenya I think, and settled in the western regions. And there is also an Arabic influence. So when I look around at the people here, I don't just think of Africa - I think Indonesia and the middle east too. It's a real melting pot - there are those with the typical dark African skin and hair, some very light-skinned (and dark-skinned) 'Indonesians,' with more Asian features, and everything in between.
From what I've heard of the language, there is a real mix of influences too. Some words are similar to Indonesian, but the language is difficult to understand to my ear. Hopefully I'll pick up a bit of it while I'm here. So far: 'salaama' - hello. One down, a million to go...
Sitting atop the highest hill of Tana is the Rova, which is the old royal palace for the Medina Kings and Queens that ruled Tana before French colonisation. Its unfortunately closed due to slow renovations from a fire that happened there a few years ago, but what was salvaged from the palace is housed in a nearby museum (which has another massively long name that I can't remember!), which used to be the Prime Minister's residence. Interestingly, the last 3 Queens of pre-colonial Madagascar all married the one Prime Minister, who was a nasty piece of work. He killed his first wife, in order to marry her cousin, who then became the second Queen; she then died of the flu not long after they married, and the Prime Minister then helped himself to a third, and much younger, woman to marry and crown the third Queen, before the Frenchies came along.
This city lends itself very well to just wandering around (and up and down...) for a few days. I havent gotten tired of it at all; its really beautiful. Every little passageway leads to a new view of the city, another crumbling abandoned mansion, a small art gallery or artisan's shop, another old cinema or Salon du The in which you can sit and watch the world go by, nonchalantly munching on your baguette and drinking your coffee. The French certainly did leave a good legacy food-wise.
But we can't stay here forever, as pleasant as it is. So it was great that a guide randomly approached us one night and asked whether we'd like to make a river trip by pirogue to accompany 3 Japanese tourists.Why not? We were planning on doing it anyway :)
Three days cruising in a pirogue, spotting lemurs and watching river life go by? I can handle that. So, Tsiribinha River, here we come!
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