What I did on my summer vacation.

[Rain Man]

So for those of you who don't ever look at me, I wandered away for a while. A sample of vacation photos will follow.

[Rain Man]

At this point, it was back to Durban to get ready for (Ricardo Montalbon voice) Madagascar.

On the way, we stopped at Mtubatuba briefly. I really liked saying Mtubatuba.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Okay, next up, the beach at St. Lucia. The crowd wasn't bad.

That's so disgustingly ugly that I'm not sure why you decided to go there.

[Rain Man]

I introduced Mtubatuba to the concept of Derrick Johnson, and Mtubatuba introduced me to the concept of the Super Zulu store.

[Rain Man]

There was lots of milling about on roadsides, with people selling stuff like pineapple or honey combs by showing them to cars driving by. However, there was also lots of standing around. It took us a while to figure it out. Apparently there are lots of "independent" van drivers who go up and down the highway. They'll stop and pick up people on the side of the road if they have room, and charge them for a ride to town. Since they're all independent, the locals have to go stand on the side of the road and wait for one of them to drive by and stop.

[Rain Man]

Random view of rural South Africa as we drove by.

[Rain Man]

Back in Durban, the wifey mimics our takeoff run to Madagascar while at the "Hall of Palms" in the Durban Botanic Gardens. It was a cool walkway that had one sample of each of a zillion different species of palm trees.

[Dartgod]

Originally Posted by DeezNutz

That's so disgustingly ugly that I'm not sure why you decided to go there.

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I introduced Mtubatuba to the concept of Derrick Johnson, and Mtubatuba introduced me to the concept of the Super Zulu store.

Wow. How did you know Rain Man was going to post that picture?

[Rain Man]

We arrived in Antananarivo late on a hopping Saturday night. I got us the best room in the best hotel in town, the Hotel Sakamanga, for 65 Euros a night. It was notably less nice than a Holiday Inn Express in terms of furnishings and stuff, but it was clean and we got a two-room suite with a balcony. Here's our street.

[Rain Man]

Just in case you don't think it's really Madagascar...

[Rain Man]

We woke up the next morning and I went out to a deck in our hotel room to check out the view...

Left...

Note the cool old French building sticking up in the middle. Antananarivo is a mix of post-nuclear holocaust colonial France, modern hovel, and 7.6 earthquake when it comes to architecture.

[Rain Man]

Center...

[Rain Man]

Right...

Note the gas station below. For some reason, most of the country looked like it had been abandoned, but the gas stations were beacons of newness and cleanliness.

[stumppy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Right...

Note the gas station below. For some reason, most of the country looked like it had been abandoned, but the gas stations were beacons of newness and cleanliness.

Never underestimate the power of a 128 oz slurppy. It has the ability to unite entire nations in the quest for fast gas, enormous beverages, and clean bathrooms.

[Rain Man]

We had breakfast at the hotel, mixing it up with French perverts and also the only American we would see until our last day. I kid you not, it was a professor doing lemur research. Nice guy, so we chatted over breakfast.

On the plane trip to Antananarivo, we got documents explaining that sex tourism was being cracked down on in Madagascar. Apparently, the country is a destination for French men in terms of both prostitution and child prostitution, and sure enough, we saw a fair number of middle-aged French men traveling alone or with Malagasy women.

Apparently, the practice has been aided by old Malagasy customs that promote prostitution. In traditional culture, a Malagasy girl is considered "marriage-eligible" as soon as she hits puberty, and one of two things happened: either she got married, or she could set up her own household and "entertain suitors". A suitor was required to give the father of the girl two zebu (cattle, more or less) in order to "court" the girl. Well, some savvy fathers figured out pretty quick that they could have the girl set up a household and then bring "suitors" to her at two zebu per "date". When the French arrived, they could pretty easily afford two zebu (or cash equivalent) and voila! they got to boink a 13 year-old legally. Apparently, the government decided that that wasn't a good thing, so they were cracking down on it, though we still saw our share of French men with attractive young Malagasy women.

By the way, Malagasy people are a genetic mix of black African, middle eastern, and Indonesian races, so you'd see some who looked like Zulus and stuff (very African skin and features), others who looked Indonesian, and then everything in between.

Here's our street in the daytime.

[Rain Man]

Rain Man hanging out in the 'hood.

Note the old taxis. There were tons of them on the road, and they had to be French colonial vehicles. Most were in pretty good shape for their age, too.