Category: Insider Madagascar

Half of Earth’s chameleon species live only in Madagascar — from Brookesia micra, tiny enough to stand on a match head, to the cat-sized Parson’s chameleon.

Madagascar’s top predator looks exactly like a cat — but the fossa is a giant mongoose-relative, a case of convergent evolution, and the shadow every lemur fears.

Understand Madagascar through its ordinary days — the mora mora pace, taxi-brousse travel, rice meals, long names and fady. A guide to the everyday most visitors miss.

Rice is the meal, the measure of the day and the centre of the culture. A guide to the real Malagasy table — romazava, ranon’apango, koba, street food and village rum.

Madagascar’s great monuments are hills — royal compounds above Antananarivo where kings ruled and ancestors lie. A guide to the Rova, Ambohimanga and the sacred highland sites.

From an empty island split off Gondwana to an Austronesian landfall, a highland kingdom, a colony and a republic — the whole story of Madagascar, and where to read each chapter.

The ring of a hammer on hot iron is one of Madagascar’s oldest sounds. Blacksmithing here dates back some 800 years — an honoured craft that scholars have strangely overlooked.

Madagascar’s highland women turn plain cloth into something close to lace with Richelieu cutwork — a meticulous, years-to-master embroidery and a meaningful souvenir.