I thought I was going to leave Madagascar on a good note. My adventure in this country has been awesome so far. On the day that I was suppose to leave the country, I had one of my worst food poisoning experience ever. At this point, all I wanted was to escape from Madagascar.
Final night in Antannarivo
On my last night in Antannarivo, Karen, myself, and my sisters decided to celebrate an overall great trip by enjoying Malagasy cuisine one last time. We had just finished checking out the city of Antannarivo and said our goodbyes and thank you to the awesome driver in our journey within Madagascar. Not too long after, we headed towards the hotel restaurant to grab one last dinner in Madagascar.
We ate some local beef and had some tiramisu for dessert. All seemed well and we went to bed. However, this was not the case the next morning…
Food poisoned
As soon as I woke up, my stomach was hurting a lot. I quickly went to the toilet and thought that was the end of it.
However, I was wrong. I started feeling chills, felt extremely sick and wanted to throw up. All I can taste at this point was was the tiramisu I ate the night before.
I thought I can wait it out and feel better several hours before our flight out of the country would come. I was dead wrong.
Escape from Madagascar no matter what
The tour company that we booked our trip in Madagascar was asking me if I want to see a doctor. I turned them down because our flight was in 3 hours. In my mind, the most important thing to do at this point is to escape from Madagascar and Africa no matter what.
The drive to the airport was a long and painful one. Our vehicle did not have air conditioner and all I can smell was horrible pollution from the congested traffic in Antannarivo.
Besides the horrible smell, the noise pollution was also just as bad. It was one of the worst travel experience I’ve had thus far.
Airport corruption
I had hoped that everything will be okay as soon as we reached the airport. However, no one can escape from Madagascar without some last minute obstacles. As I was dying on my way through the airport security. Numerous airport security staff tried to extort bribes from me.
I said no to all these corrupt pieces of shit of course. I have nothing respectful to say to individuals that tries to extort money from tourist and locals alike.
Luckily, they didn’t press on because I was just feeling so bad from this food poisoning bout.
The line up to get my boarding pass was also quite rough. I was literally laying on the ground suffering from the effects of the food poisoning. When we finally got to the front to check in and collect our tickets, the staff completely messed up and did not process any of our request.
I ended up getting window seats when I requested for the aisle seat to make it easy for me to go to the washroom when need be.
Escape from Africa
Thankfully, the plane ride from Madagascar to Ethiopia wasn’t too bad. I managed to switch seats with my girlfriend and I ended up with an aisle seat.
However, we had a long layover in the Addis Ababa airport and it was also extremely cold there. Despite the airport being nowhere near as bad the the one in Madagascar, it was still a rough wait. Mainly because many Africans don’t like following the rules and they tend to rush to the the front of the line without waiting in queue.
When we finally boarded the airplane, I passed out really hard from sheer exhaustion and suffering. At least my escape from Madagascar and Africa has been successful.
As much as I love travelling to Africa, I always feel happy to leave the continent. Despite its beauty and rawness, travelling in the continent of Africa is really rough and not for the faint of heart.
Arriving in Asia
We had one more connecting flight before we would arrive at our next destination which is the Philippines. The Bangkok airport was our last destination before reaching Manila and we were glad to finally be back in civilization.
People lined up, your seat request in the airplane is granted, and in general things just moved smoothly and more predictably.
The last flight going to Manila was smooth and my cousin came to the airport to pick up myself, my girlfriend, and my two sisters.
8 days recovery period – girlfriend spends Christmas Day in the emergency room
Sadly, the effects of the food poisoning wouldn’t go away. For the next 8 days, I was still suffering from stomach problems. My girlfriend also had stomach issues that simply won’t go away. We ended up going to the emergency room during Christmas day to help my girlfriend get the proper medication and get rid of her illness.
After taking some antibiotics, she recovered immediately.
I personally just toughed it out and the stomach problems from the food poisoning eventually went away eight days later.
We ended up losing 5lbs of weight each from this persistent food poisoning bout.
Truly a once in a lifetime experience in Madagascar
As much as I enjoyed my adventure in Madagascar, I just don’t see myself going back. While it was worth travelling there, especially since I love a good adventure, it’s definitely a once in a lifetime experience.
My advice to all travel seekers out there is to definitely visit Madagascar and see everything you want to see there. Because chances are, you’re not going to go back. I’m never going to see Tsingy de Bemaraha and I’m okay with that.
In my opinion, if you want to avoid getting food poisoning, I would stick to cooked vegetables and perhaps the local steak. Avoid eating dairy because they don’t have proper food handling and refrigeration in Madagascar.
After this arduous experience, I can honestly say that I am happy to escape from Madagascar for good.
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1 thought on “Escape From Madagascar – While Having Food Poisoning”
Hi,
I read your post and do agree with you that visiting Madagascar is a great experience in a lifetime like hiking on the limestone formation at the Tsingy of Bemaraha, spotting the unique small five in the wild (lemurs, chameleons, geckos, frogs,….). Malagasy people are very friendly and welcoming at the same time.
About the food safety, i would suggest visitors to go straight to the physician before landing in the big island for medicines prescriptions in case. The food in the country is so different compared to other area, most of the ingredients are organic and free range (without additif). In this case, guests stomach are not get used to handle those changes and it leads diseases to them. For instance, a free range cow meat is not the same as a beef steak from other country, i mean the zebu in Madagascar is raised in a huge area outside a firm and mainly feed with organic food (green grass, peanuts,…) and it can affect the milk in term of dairy products.
The food is not unsafe but its components are differents compared to others developped country. I can tell that Malagasy dishes are healthy (without additif) and tasty as well.
Best wishes,
Nandih