I have pretty much wanted to go to Madagascar since I fell in love with traveling a decade ago. I’m not sure where the fascination came from but it definitely had something to do with lemurs. So, when my husband and I were looking for an African adventure, we decided to seek out a lesser-visited country in search of adventure.

Getting there: We flew in and out of Antananarivo, the capital city, which, thankfully, is referred to as “Tana”. Air service is quite limited but carriers like Air France can get you there from Europe. There are no direct flights from North America.

Getting around: Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world so getting around will likely require air travel or long car rides. Since the roads can be bumpy, using the local Air Madagascar carrier, can help you get from one side of the island to the other in no time at all.

What to do: In my 9 days on the island, I spent all my time exploring the northern part of Madagascar. I would recommend including the following sites in your holiday:

• Nosy Be – this island located off the coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel boasts beautiful beaches and picturesque blue water. There are opportunities to snorkel and scuba dive and you are also able to visit Lemur Island (known locally as Nosy Komba). Here, you can interact with semi-wild lemurs.
• La Montagne d’Ambre – This park, which translates to “Amber Mountain” is a beautiful national park which has several waterfalls and a fantastic crater lake you can hike to.
• Great Tsingy at Ankarana National Park – Check out the amazing limestone formations in this national park. As you hike to the Great Tsingy, you’ll cross through the jungle where you might even spot a lemur!

Dining: Madagascar is a French colony so you’ll notice that influence in their meals. There is also an abundance of seafood and Italian food. If you’re a vegetarian, you can easily get by on pastas and salads. For meat eaters, there is a local animal, very similar to a cow, called a zebu which is served at most restaurants.

Language: French and Malagasy are the local languages but English is spoken, especially in hotels and restaurants.

Thinking about going? G Adventures and Peregrine Adventures only offer tours to the southern region but it’s quite easy to arrange a flight into the north to explore on your own. If you’d like to visit the north, I recommend Mora Travel which can be contacted by email at moratraveltnr@moratravel.co. They also have a website but it is in French. If you hire a guide to accompany you, I recommend asking for Fano who is a wonderful, fun guide!

Written by DIWYY’s Kristina Wegscheider who traveled to Madagascar in December 2011.

The train grinds to a screeching, unscheduled stop. From the window to my left, the ground falls away sharply and only a nineteenth century stone bridge separates our dilapidated carriage from the murky Keralan estuary that sweeps away into the distance. To my right I can see across the stifling carriage, through the glassless windows, to verdant paddy fields that have been the typical view for hours. We’re only two hours into the journey that I know is meant to take eight. Despite the characteristically optimistic name, Alleppey Express, the train’s journey has been faltering and slow, and my heart has already begun to sink. My fellow passengers seem entirely unconcerned by our unscheduled stop, the shouting snack wallahs or the lingering stench from the bathroom. I wonder to myself whether I’ll ever really get used to India’s railways.

India’s trains are the stuff of legend even among the most hardy of travellers. Parts of the national railway network even hold UNESCO world heritage status — but they are still workaday trains, not just tourist destinations. Historic, they are, but speedy, they are not. Nonetheless, without a doubt they’re one of the best ways to travel through India – thanks to government subsidies, you can travel hundreds of miles for a few dollars, and long distance journeys are rarely busy. I’ve always found second class seats perfectly comfortable and as a solo female traveller I’ve never felt unsafe – you can usually find a severe-looking elderly matriarch to sit near to, and no man in India is willing to misbehave around one of these highly respected women.

There are few better feelings in the world during the occasional energetic bursts, when the train picks up speed and races through the Indian countryside. In southern India, where I picked up this train, there’s no need for windows. The outside air provides far more effective cooling as it rushes through the carriage than the ancient overhead fans. The Keralan landscape offers uninterrupted vistas of vibrant patchworks of paddy fields and glimmering waterways, dotted with the occasional colourful flash of a fuchsia sari or white dhoti as men and women harvest the fields by hand. Bending palm trees line the water’s edge, where you might see a flash of blue and orange as a kingfisher dives into the water.

But when the train grinds to a halt, as it had now, the carriage air quickly becomes thick with heat and the smells of chilli bajis that are hoisted up and down the train by fast talking wallahs. Even on an eight hour journey I wasn’t willing to brave the train toilets. I could already smell them from my seat, and that was deterrent enough. For this journey I’m sitting in a sleeper carriage. The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that above my normal-height seat there are two levels of fold down beds, on which the more spritely passengers can scramble up and take a nap. My earlier journey had been on an ordinary second class carriage – in those, passengers simply climb straight onto the luggage rack if they want to sleep.

While we waited, a pair of Hare Krishna men had joined the train, strolling up and down with doctrinal books for sale. My fellow passengers, many dressed in religious robes with foreheads thumbed red and paan stains on their teeth, silently ignored them. Later the orange-robed men were replaced by a plucky boy of about twelve, who dumped a stack of Hindi children’s books on the lap of a middle-aged man opposite me, hoping to make a sale. The boy is one of India’s many children who work all day, selling schoolbooks when other children are in school. The man made no reaction at all. Eventually the boy took the books away, unsold.

Now, after half an hour of motionless waiting, finally, inexplicably, the driver sounds his horn and the train begins to slowly pull away. I watch the men who had disembarked for a cigarette or a toilet stop leisurely climb aboard the slow moving train. The young boy stands on the embankment, watching the train depart. A rush of cool air sweeps through the carriage and I see women watching the train from the distant water’s edge. Everything is finally set in motion, and we continue on our journey.

Megan Palmer is an Oxford based writer with an interest in history, wildlife, the great outdoors and general travel. In recent years she has been fortunate enough to summit the Torres del Paine in Patagonia, discover wild gorillas in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, scale the walls of Constantinople in Turkey, cruise the (not so blue) Danube in Budapest and explore some of Rajasthan’s most spectacular Jain temples and ancient pilgrimage routes. Travel is her passion, and she is always seeking out new adventures and experiences. You can check out a selection of her travel writing and fiction on her blog.