Madagascar

Madagascar was one of the last large landmasses on Earth to be settled by people. The first arrivals, around 1,500 to 2,000 years ago, came by sea and were primarily of Austronesian (Southeast Asian) origin — the Malagasy language is closely related to a language of Borneo — later joined and mixed with East African, Arab, and other Indian Ocean peoples. Rice farming and outrigger canoes came with them.

The island was divided among highland and coastal kingdoms until, in the early nineteenth century, the Merina Kingdom based in Antananarivo unified most of it, adopted Christianity and a written script, and modernised. France invaded in 1895–96, abolished the monarchy, and ruled Madagascar as a colony; a 1947 anti-colonial uprising was crushed with tens of thousands of deaths.

Independence came in 1960. The decades since have brought a Soviet-aligned socialist period under Didier Ratsiraka, repeated political crises and disputed transfers of power — including a 2009 coup that led the former DJ and mayor Andry Rajoelina to power and got the country cut off from aid — and, through it all, a slow decline: Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, with income per head lower than at independence.

Malagasy culture is unusually unified across a large island — one language, one broad worldview — and centred on the ancestors (razana). The clearest expression is the famadihana, the "turning of the bones," a highland ceremony in which families exhume ancestors every several years, rewrap them in fresh silk shrouds, dance with them, and rebury them; tombs are often grander and more carefully built than houses.

A pervasive system of fady — taboos that vary by place, clan, and family — governs behaviour: which days one may work, which foods to avoid, whether to point at a tomb. These are taken seriously and visitors are expected to respect local guidance. Other traditions include the hira gasy day-long highland performances, the valiha bamboo zither, zebu cattle as wealth and sacrifice, and a slow, proverb-rich style of conversation summed up as mora mora — take it easy.

Most Malagasy are Christian, often blended with ancestral belief, with a Muslim minority on the coasts. The eighteen recognised ethnic groups — highland Merina and Betsileo, cattle-herding Bara and Antandroy of the south, coastal Vezo, Sakalava, and others — differ in dialect, custom, and livelihood.

About a tenth of the roughly 30 million people live in Antananarivo, a hilly highland capital of stairways, rice paddies in the low ground, and crumbling French-colonial and Merina architecture. The rest are overwhelmingly rural, farming rice terraces, growing vanilla and cloves in the northeast, herding zebu in the south, and fishing the coasts.

The economy rests on subsistence rice, on vanilla — Madagascar produces most of the world's natural supply, a boom-and-bust crop plagued by price swings and theft — on cloves, cocoa, coffee, lychees, nickel, and a slowly growing tourism sector. Deforestation from slash-and-burn farming, charcoal, and illegal rosewood logging has stripped most of the original forest, and the far south suffers recurrent drought and hunger.

Daily life follows the farming and rains, the market, the church and the ancestral tomb, and the long, slow journey by bush taxi between towns.

Malagasy cooking is built on rice — vary — eaten at every meal, often three times a day, with a side (laoka) of meat, fish, beans, or greens in a light broth. Romazava, a beef-and-leafy-greens stew flavoured with the peppery herb anamalao, is the national dish, and ravitoto (pounded cassava leaves cooked with pork) is close behind.

Zebu meat, grilled or stewed, chicken, freshwater and sea fish, and koba (a rice-flour, peanut, and banana log steamed in leaves) are common, with sakay, a fiery chilli condiment, on the side. The coasts add coconut-based curries and excellent seafood.

Ranovola or ranon'apango, "burnt-rice water" made by boiling water in the pot after the rice, is the everyday drink; toaka gasy (home-distilled rum) and THB (Three Horses Beer) are the alcoholic staples, and Madagascar grows its own coffee and vanilla-scented everything.

The Avenue of the Baobabs near Morondava — a red dirt road lined with towering Grandidier's baobabs, best at sunrise or sunset — is the island's signature image. For wildlife, Andasibe-Mantadia in the eastern rainforest is the easiest place to see and hear the indri, the largest living lemur, with its siren-like call; Ranomafana and Masoala add more rainforest species.

Isalo National Park in the south is a sandstone massif of canyons, natural pools, and palm-filled oases; the Tsingy de Bemaraha in the west is a UNESCO site of razor-sharp limestone pinnacle "forests" and gorges, reached by rough track and river. The classic overland route is the Route Nationale 7 from Antananarivo to Toliara, taking in highland craft towns, Antsirabe's rickshaws, the Anja reserve's ring-tailed lemurs, wine country, and Isalo.

The coasts and islands are the beach draw: Nosy Be and its satellites off the northwest for diving and lemur-spotting, and Île Sainte-Marie off the east coast, a former pirate haven with whale-watching from July to September. The Amber Mountain and the eroded Red Tsingy near Diego Suarez in the far north round out a country where the getting-there is always part of the trip.