A motorcycle journey through the fabled island of Madagascar offers driving through magnificent landscapes with unique nature and wildlife, cattle markets with zebu bulls and villages where time seems to stand still.
"Vruuuuuuuuum!!!" The motorcycle speeds through the mountain landscape and around the bend where a barefoot herder is driving a herd of motley zebu bulls down the asphalt road. The sound of the motorcycle causes one of the big oxen to flee in terror from the herd and across the road in great leaps, but immediately the barefoot herder is upon it, and with his bamboo stick raised above his head, he herds the ox back into the herd, which lazily trots on. I shift into first gear and slowly roll past the animals on my motorcycle, giving a thumbs-up to the shepherd as a thank you for his great efforts in keeping his cattle in check. "Halloooo Fassa!", he shouts back, raising his hand in greeting while smiling. "Fassa" means "white man" in Malagasy,
which is the local language.

We are on a motorcycle journey in the highlands of central Madagascar, where cattle drovers, ox carts and soapbox trucks are a more common sight on the road than cars, buses and motorcycles. The sky is blue, the air is fresh, and the road winds past sleepy villages with clay-clad houses where time seems to stand still, except when the many children in the villages spot our chromed motorcycles lighting up the landscape and reflecting the sun's rays. The sight makes them immediately run down to the road, waving and cheering. The bravest of them put their hand out for a high five. A subtle greeting in the form of a raised hand from the clutch handle is rewarded by squeals and screams from the excited village children - their day is saved. And so is Ogen's, because it almost feels like you're driving the final stretch of the Tour de France, such is the enthusiasm and joie de vivre the children radiate!

Madagascar - where Asia meets Africa

Here in Madagascar, Asia and Africa meet both geographically and culturally. The population is a mix of descendants from eastern Indonesia, who hundreds of years ago sailed many thousands of kilometers of canoes all the way from Sulawesi, located in the southwestern part of the Indian Ocean. This part of the population is recognized by their Asian features, but over many centuries they have mixed with descendants of other peoples descended from the Swahili-speaking population of eastern Africa, as well as descendants of Indian, Pakistani and Arab traders, French and English colonists and pirates, creating a diverse population and a complex culture that makes the tropical island of Madagascar something very special.

Here in the highlands, the road takes big turns through the mountain landscape, and you could really enjoy tearing the motorcycle alternately from the right to the left side, which gives a wonderful sailing feeling of pure driving pleasure.It is a real pleasure to ride a motorcycle on the winding mountain roads, over mountain passes with magnificent views and through the green and lush highlands, along rivers and lakes, through traditional farmland with terraces of rice fields that are shaped like in Asia on the mountain slopes. The many different mountain passes we crossed had staggering views, and below us, in the valleys, the sunlight shone like a thousand mirrors in the many rivers and rice fields.

We made a number of stops on our first day on the bikes, as the sight of both the magnificent scenery and the colorful people along the road was new and overwhelming. The smell of wood smoke and grilled beef wafted from the embers of the small street kitchens that could be found everywhere in the marketplaces and at the small rest stops, where the local buses were packed to the brim with people. On the roofs of the buses, old rusty bicycles were lashed together with wicker baskets of live hens and chickens that squawked every time the bus went over a bump or into a pothole. Apart from the few local buses, it's mainly ox carts that are used to transport goods around Madagascar, which gives a fun settler vibe here in an African country.

Wherever we pulled over and parked the motorcycles, we experienced the hospitality and curiosity of the locals. Close to one of our accommodations, located far out in the mountains, we visited a small village school where a young French teacher showed us around and told us that the parents out here in the countryside paid for the children's schooling by donating one dried cup of rice a week to the school, as, according to the teacher, there was no real cash economy out here. Outside the entrance to the school, there were plastic buckets where the parents could "settle up" with the principal.

From the Amazon to Nevada. Madagascar's landscape is diverse

Madagascar is also known as the 8th continent and with good reason, as we were to discover, as the landscape constantly changes character. The large tropical island is generally divided into three zones: a green and lush east coast with dense and almost impenetrable rainforest and rushing rivers, a central highland consisting of farmland and a west coast where there is almost no rainfall and therefore characterized by a desert-like dry and barren landscape with thorny cacti and colossal baobab trees.

On the first part of the trip, we took a detour to the east and drove through the dense rainforest on a perfectly winding asphalt road alongside a large rushing river that flowed into a large and deafening waterfall. Not far from here we parked our motorcycles and took a short walk through the jungle in the hilly terrain of Ranomafana National Park, where we were lucky enough to spot a herd of brown lemurs, great apes that feed on the bamboo shoots in the dense jungle, and we got very close to them. Lemurs only live in Madagascar and the neighboring Comoros Islands and there are approximately 30 different species.

The packed lunch was taken on a hilltop overlooking large rivers and dense green jungle as far as the eye could see, so you almost felt like you were looking out over the Amazon jungle. No more than 120 kilometers to the west, the jungle had transformed into a dry mountain landscape, characterized by corn-yellow rice fields, as seen in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal or in the mountains of northern Vietnam. Here in Madagascar's central highlands, dense green tea bushes stood in straight rows like privet hedges as we turned off the main road and drove down towards our hotel.

We made a stop here and visited an old tea factory where we saw how the tea was picked and how tea is produced here in Madagascar From the winding mountain roads in the highlands and around the tea plantations, we drove further west and once again the landscape changed character as large, sand-colored plateaus appeared on the horizon. The landscape became increasingly arid and yellowish, reminiscent of the Nevada desert and the wide open spaces of the southwestern United States. The road here was wide, paved and with big, soft curves so we could really get the bikes up to speed and feel the dry wind tearing at our clothes as the landscape slipped by and the sun shone from a cloudless sky. After a couple of hours of high-speed riding, we stopped at the edge of a forest at the foot of a high mountain.

Here was a small nature reserve called Anja Reserve, and this place offers a unique opportunity to see the black and white lemurs that live on this part of the tropical island. On our little hike into the edge of the forest, we could hear lemurs calling to each other and we saw about 20 lemurs playing tag in the treetops and on the rocks.

We continued our drive heading southeast and were able to drive much faster than the last several days in the highlands where the roads were very winding. We arrived at our hotel near Isalo National Park in time to watch the sun set over the mountains while enjoying a cold beer.

Once darkness had fallen in Madagascar and the motorbikes were safely parked at the hotels, each evening we explored the exciting cuisine that blends Asian, East African and French food traditions with menus such as beef steaks, roast duck legs with pepper sauce and sometimes local meat and fish dishes seasoned with vanilla. In addition, the locally brewed sugar cane rum in Madagascar is often infused with spices such as vanilla and cardamom or fruits from the baobab tree, coconut and banana, and in this way, Madagascar has a tradition of brewing spiced rum, much like we in Denmark create our own spiced schnapps.

To the west coast where the baobab trees grow

After a visit to Isalo National Park, where we hiked through the mountain landscape, swam in cooling waterfalls, got up close to brown lemurs and had an outdoor lunch cooked over an open fire, we saddled up again and drove the final stretch to the west coast of Madagascar. Here we crossed a plateau and passed large family cemeteries decorated with zebu bull horns and wooden figurines of zebu bulls.

According to tradition, about three years after the death of a family member, the grave is opened and a ritual called famadihana is performed, where the bones of the deceased are carried to a river or to the nearest lake, where they are washed and then wrapped in cloths before being placed back in the grave. The whole ritual is accompanied by dance and music. After the bones of the deceased are placed back into the family grave, the deceased family member is revered as one of the ancestors whose spirit lives alongside the living.

The last stretch through the tropical island went to the east coast, and after a couple of hours of driving along straight roads and large soft bends, the first large baobab trees appeared along the road. We continued east to our hotel, which was right on a white sandy beach overlooking the Mozambique Channel, as the sea is called here on the west coast of Madagascar.

This evening we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the ocean. Here on the west coast is the Ifaty Baobab Reserve in a bone dry and sandy landscape. Here we saw some very spectacular baobab trees scattered in what can best be described as a magical forest with all kinds of strange growths. The baobab trees here are characterized by a thick trunk, brown bark, and the canopy is made up of a few spiky branches, with very few green leaves and, at this time of year, with large brown fruits that you can also buy at the local markets along the west coast.

Our trip back to the capital, Antananarivo, and from there to Denmark was by plane early the next morning, and from the plane we could look down over the landscape and the route we had traveled by motorcycle across the tropical island of Madagascar.

Fact box

We drove KTM 790, Honda 350 cubic, African Twin 750 cubic and Honda Tenere 650 cubic.

Anyone with a Danish passport can get a tourist visa upon arrival in Madagascar.

The international driver's license is valid in Madagascar.

Madagascar has around 22 million inhabitants.

The climate is tropical, so it's warm all year round. However, it can get chilly in the mountains of central Madagascar.

In Madagascar, hotels are of a good standard. In most hotels and major cities you can get all kinds of Western food, and French cuisine is particularly popular.

Exotic seafood is served along the coast.

M.C. ASIEN organizes motorcycle tours with a local Danish motorcycle guide in Madagascar and takes care of all the practicalities.