Transportation and streets

Especially in touristically heavily frequented places in Madagascar, it is impossible to imagine the street scene without them: Tuk-tuks. The bright yellow, small companions rush across the streets of islands like Nosy Boraha (St. Marie) and Nosy Be at a maximum speed of 40-50 km/h. They can now also be found in Toamasina (Tamatave), Toliara (Tuléar), Antsirabe, Ambanja, Sambava and …

Madagascar is home to the last running Michelines worldwide. Indeed there exist other Michelines for example in France, but those are safely kept in museums. In contrast, two of these rail buses still chauffeur travelers around Madagascar – although it is restricted to a few times a year nowadays. André Michelin, who gave the name to his invention, developed the …

As you already know from many tropical countries, many of Madagascar’s streets are rather sandy pathways or muddy tracks than drivable roads. More than 90% of the streets are not paved, which makes travelling time-consuming, especially since distances between national parks or other things worth seeing are mostly very far. Generally, a small network of larger streets leads across the …

The counterpart to the bush taxis or Taxibrousse in Madagascar is the so-called taxi be. In English, this simply means “big taxi”. They run exclusively in the city traffic of larger cities or between suburbs and do not undertake cross-country trips. You can easily recognize them by the colorful stripes around the minibus and the large numbers behind the windscreen. …

If you want to travel in Madagascan cities without a motor, it’s best to take a Pousse-Pousse. These are rickshaws made of colourfully painted wood, which are either pulled by a man on foot or on a bicycle (Cyclo-Pousse). In Malagasy, the vehicle’s name is posy posy, but this is only the Madagascan spelling of the French word. Translated, it …

Everywhere in Madagascar’s towns and villages they travel as normal taxis: the Renault 4s. Elsewhere one sees them at most still as well maintained classic cars on exhibitions or in lover garages, on Madagascar however they belong to the completely normal street scene. But why the R4? As early as the end of the 1950s Renault wanted to plan a …

Taxibrousse is the famous French name for the Malagasy bush taxi, which is a kind of share taxi for overland drives. For most Malagasy people, these busses are the only opportunity to travel longer distances for affordable prices, and thus they are part of the Malagasy sense of life. Several companies run Taxibrousses. Often the vehicles, old Mazda, Peugeot or …