This sweeping landscape that stretches to the Far mountains is not a continent it's an island at the dawn of geological time 150 million years ago Gondwana a supercontinent made up of africa america and antarctica began to break apart Madagascar separated from Africa and began to drift on the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean it was not until about 2,000 years ago that the first humans arrived they were Indonesians who had used the monsoon winds to sail their outrigger canoes all the way to the shores of Madagascar down through the centuries the identity of the MAL gosh people took shape and would be enriched by the contributions of Arab and Indian navigators onboard LuPone all will be following in the wake of the Dow's and outriggers that sailed from Muscat Zanzibar and Bombay to discover the sea routes that led to Madagascar our voyage begins in unseren Anna the land of salt in my gosh though the town is still called Diego Suarez by its inhabitants with its grid work of streets lined with colonnade houses the town could be a French provincial capital of the 1960s lost out in the tropics the town was named after two navigators Diego Diaz and Fernando Suarez who discovered the bay enroute to the Portuguese colonies of India this Bay is not only one of the largest in the world along with the Bay of Rio de Janeiro it is also one of the most sheltered ugv it's it's big picture this Bay that has 100 kilometres of shoreline and just one narrow inlet one kilometer wide that's what it's named antoku means a whole inner earth with a little entrance so from out at sea you can't see anything you have to get close you enter the channel and that's when you catch sight of the bay up until the 18th century pirates use this bay as a base from which to attack the French and English ships returning from India when the French colonized the island at the end of the 19th century Diego Suarez became an important port a gateway to the Indian Ocean where coumarins Indo Pakistanis Yemeni Somalis and Chinese immigrated and mingled with the older sakalava and anton karana populations that period has given Diego Suarez its present population a cosmopolitan mosaic of different races colors and creeds diversity but not a melting pot for each ethnic group has remained strongly attached to its origins and traditions so with all this in mind just who are the true my gosh today school med loves even today it's hard to really say we've come to the conclusion that those who live in Madagascar are Mal'Ganis but let me tell you something do you look at shores just I was French I had a French national ID card and when the country became independent I was studying with no friends I could have stayed in France but I'd like being Mel - and I came back to Madagascar I exchanged my French ID card for my mail cash ID card but I still kept my name Qasim Ali all we mail gosh are like that we want to be mail gosh because God brought us to such a wonderful land less than 100 kilometres from Diego Suarez is the anchor on a special reserve it is a shining example of all the beauty and mystery of this land of Madagascar this forest of limestone.
Needles carved out by the rain five million years ago is called the Chingy a labyrinth of crevices with their extravagant forms this maze of ravines and sharp cliffs opening into yawning caverns was used for centuries as shelters by the Anton Khurana tribe the cliff people during their wars against Madagascar's Highland tribes in addition to the Chingy the ankarana reserve is home to another of Madagascar's mysteries the lemur this branch of the primate family which is not as highly evolved as monkeys and apes is found almost exclusively in Madagascar when the vast island broke off from Gondwana and drifted away there were no lemmers aboard they most likely migrated here on islets of floating vegetation navigators we could say but just how did the lemurs manage to keep other primates from settling on their territory for there are no monkeys or Apes in Madagascar therein lies and other mysteries it's morning and the poni has weighed anchor as soon as we leave the shelter of the AYGO Bay we pick up the trade winds a powerful breeze that fills the huge sale of our three master perfect airlock Sunsail how fast are we going 13 knots perfect sailing over LAPD on once we rounded Cape amber we set our course south for no Seibert afiyah in the red amma islands we land on the long stretch of beach swept by the Riptide these boats which are usually moored are perched high and dry on the outskirts of the village the sea is not very rough but for nasi Barajas fishermen the conditions are far from ideal no need for traps nets or lines the water is clear and visibility good the fishermen can simply dive to gather sea cucumbers its scientific name is hala thuria and the Chinese pay a fortune for it on account of its supposed curative properties the town became ours when we go fishing for sea cucumbers we bring back a lot each fisherman takes 15 to 20 like this one that means working all day we spend the whole day out at sea we start diving around 8:00 in the morning and go to about 3:00 in the afternoon and the next day it's the same routine 8:00 a.m. after 3:00 p.m. and we can dive everyday because the sea cucumbers reproduce all the time once they've gathered their day's quota of sea cucumbers the fishermen head for grant air to sell their catch the cucumbers have already disappeared from the Seas of China and are in serious danger here even though fishing is strictly regulated there's a lot of poaching for the MAL gosh it's just a way of making a living they would that we want to go back home because you're from far off we're strangers here that's what the song says we want to go home to our villages our own sauna as we leave no see behavior and head south LuPone all runs into some heavy winds the next morning we're coming into magenta our southernmost port of call on this trip the pirogues that are sailing back and forth across the Bay of mashenka are identical to those that for centuries carried out the trade between the city and India and Africa this is the land of one of Madagascar's eighteen ethnic groups the sakalava they were formed over the centuries by intermarriage between East Africans and Yemeni which explains why misciagna is the most Muslim city of the island the city is a bustling hive of cars motorcycles and above all rickshaws the rickshaws were introduced at the beginning of the 20th century by the Chinese who came to work on the railway line and now there are more than 3000 of them weaving in and out of the traffic need to push through Monica morena pee I get up very early like all the rickshaw drivers I go get the rickshaw at the Depot sometimes I clean it up before I take it out to work in Dayton Virginia at noon I take a break for lunch and at the end of the day when I finished I bring the rickshaw back to the boss's garage that's when you have to pay the rental it's about one-year-old 50 for the morning and one-year-old 50 for the afternoon and that's how it goes every day that's the life of a rickshaw driver Hawkins and Shannon Shannon Jean Casarez there's no special position you use to pull a rickshaw there's no particular technique but it's important that the rickshaw be in good shape all the nuts and bolts have to be tight the tires will inflate at an angle you have to check it every day before going out tonight and the passengers have to be seated in a stable position that shouldn't rock because then it's hard to control rickshaw driver is a really tiring job it means sweat and more sweat rickshaws have existed in the city for about a hundred years but dows have been around for much longer even though motorized freighters have been in use for a long time there are still quite a few would endow sailing the coasts of Madagascar that are exclusively wind powered these cargo ships from another age invented by the arab navigators were masters of the indian ocean for more than 1,000 years it was thanks to these vessels that the indo-pakistani 's were able to gain commercial domination of the entire region we do a lot of business with the Indians the currents there aren't many mela gash in our line of work it's the indians who control the trade so whether it's in to the armed morondava or belo samara.
We have to deal with them for example the owner of that dau is a quran it's the same thing here in ma Jinga it's the Koran Indians who own everything I really aren't many Malaga in the business gasps miss Fox Maru while the DAO stranded on the beach like wounded birds wait for the rising tide to bring them back to life slender sailing pogs continue to glide across the estuary of the Betty's boca river we follow them and after a few kilometers find ourselves in another world awash in the waters of a blood-red river we leave the main stream of the river and head up a narrow tributary towards maraboli the air on the river banks the local farmers and fishermen hold an informal market where they come to sell and barter their goods Wow they've people come here to buy the staples the votes come loaded with white rice paddy rice corn pistachio nuts fish sometimes shrimp they bring all that to this market here mara voêe the former capital of the sakalava Kingdom was the hub of a very prosperous agricultural region many endo Pakistanis came to settle here and became wealthy traders when the regional capital was moved to Mirjana most of the Banyan's meaning the hindus and the currents the indo-pakistani Muslims left Mara void and moved to the new capital which was the case with the family of Abdul Taib Kshatriya and yet I'm India that means I speak the language my mother tongue is majority in school we spoke French and we read the Quran the Holy Quran in Arabic I'm Arab so I learned Arabic here in the Quranic school we mix all the languages together even my four-year-old grandson speaks fluent mal gosh because most of our customers are mal guys we got rich thanks to these well Josh my children are merchants but my grandchildren won't carry on the family business here because their horizons have been expanded they look to France Europe their world is master we have education now information technology all that the small-scale family retail business is a thing of the past your meaning the day is drawing to a close the last rays of sunlight set this giant baobab aglow this tree several hundred years old is the living witness of mahjongg US history and its present vitality LuPone ah has once again taken to the sea like every evening since we left Diego Suarez the captain holds his traditional meeting with the passengers in the lounge to give them a rundown on the weather and our next day's stopover leaving mazaya we change direction with the ship under full sail we set our course north for no city Anja a small island paradise near nosy Bay a turquoise blue sea intense green vegetation no cierran jell-o's beneath the warm sun beams lapped by the waves of the Indian Ocean nothing seems to disturb this perfect harmony not even the fishing party that's underway at the far end of the beach just a few meters from the shore the young fisherman cast their net then they form a circle and advance making noise and splashing to scare the fish into the trap that they closed little by little and so thanks to what seems an effortless game the village youngsters have put lunch on the table the youngsters with their open generous nature seem to enjoy living together the picture seems too good to be true yep Jill Bale the son of the village chief confirms our impressions he thank you for nice nice old mafia campin on hearing a village you have the wise folks the elders they organized the social life of the village it might be bad but you also have the young people the girls and boys we TCE problems it mean there's no conflict because the elders give advice to the youngsters Africa mama me so everybody in the village gets along fine in this village where everybody seems content just living together there's even an artiste jolly a meaning January 4 that's the month who was born in is a musician and passes his time singing in the village lanes you see this instrument here what I strung it myself and made the sound books as for the tunes let's say it's a leaky hose II sometimes on double-o songs I play a bit of everything I would really like to be able to her in my living with my music to become a real pro someday the old folks don't have janvier dreams of glory they carry on living as in the past taking what nature offers whether it be fish or coffee but the young dream of a different life hapana lying at anchor is a reminder to them that Norse eBay is not far away nor see Bay with its shops and tourist hotels it's normal to live in the village where you where are you used to living if I have to live somewhere else yo C Bay for example I'm not familiar with that place you eat now if you had a good reason to live somewhere else why not leave but you never know what your life will be like somewhere else so I think it's better to say much I'd be willing to leave but only if I were rich I didn't choose to live in that house roofed with corn husks but it's mine because I'm poor and that's why I stay here but if I get rich some day I might even go to another country but in the entire well since I have no money I'll stay right here and I will the opponent takes to the sea for the last time on this voyage next stop nasi Bay we drop anchor at North Sea Bay in spite of the wind there are still some ragged clouds clinging to the distant Peaks the zodiac boats are lowered and we head for LV the capital of no C Bay over the past few decades NORs ebay has become one of the most popular tourist sites of the indian ocean nevertheless LVL has managed to keep its authentic male gash character even though the French influence here dates back to the mid 19th century about fifty years earlier than the rest of Madagascar threatened by the marina tribes from the Highlands the sakalava sovereigns requested military support from the French thus in 1841 the sakalava Queen Jamaica granted the island of nasi Bay to Admiral de l who was governor of elbow bone now Reunion Island in exchange for his protection the courthouse the prison the government house most of the colonial buildings that give the town its quaint charm date from that period when the French arrived here in no C Bay they were already prosperous Indian and Arab merchants doing good business in this Bay which is one of the best sheltered on the island they had set up a trading post called an Bernardo Mara Dhaka which means literally the place of many shops not far from the ruins of the old trading post lives a community of sakalava nowadays 89 years old he spent his life selling the Indian Ocean now he's come back to live out his old age here in hum Bernardo oh ma and I started sailing on Indian modes Indian boys and Mombasa deep twice into the Seychelles and I did the whole coast of Africa cook my grandfather and grandmother were pure African Africa easy to Wandy Arab slave traders sold them here to the Indians my grandfather and grandmother were born in Africa they were abducted by the Arabs to be sold here like every day while the men are out fishing the village women get together to chat and do their makeup a ritual that probably goes back to their African ancestors he ii love the sakalava and the africans lived up in the hills way up there right and down here you had the Arabs and the Indians these huge warehouses now overrun by the vegetation give an idea of the vitality of the trade that the indo-pakistani had developed here in amber Nora r1 is a hub there was no one there before the Arabs the Arabs were the first group of people to settle here and amber Nora then around 1839 the indo-pakistani started arriving they came here because they knew it was already a trading town a center of commerce business all right away they got on good terms with the Arabs in order to do business here the main business was the slave trade there were big ships that came from Bombay from Zanzibar and sometimes from Oman the Arabs would bring the African slaves here and the traders would come from Bombay with merchandise and they would trade before there's a shoosh the abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1848 would give the French the new rulers of the island the opportunity to put an end to the commercial dominance of amber Noro the Arabs leave nasi Bay and the Indians transfer their activity to El Villa where even today their business is still thriving the history of nasi Bay like that of Northwest Madagascar in general has been continually enriched by the arrival of new immigrants the sakalava the Arabs the Indians the French but Russians why are there rushing graves in hell Ville cemetery the key to this mystery is to be found in a bay a few hours away from North Sea Bay the aptly named Russian Bay [Music] in the morning we board a dowel and set our course for Russian Bay this boat belongs to Nicola a Frenchman who's been living in the region for about 20 years he has a passion for antique boats and the stories and legends that go with them when he saw the pure ones and dolls of Madagascar it was love at first sight so he dropped anchor here had his own bow belt and now spends his time and energy to showing off this magnificent coast to travelers and at the same time he tries to recreate the magic of the voyages some days gone by I hope it's only back to the max on these these are cargo boots that go all the way back to the Arab conquests the Arab trade routes in the northern Indian Ocean don't go my son Charlotte is 12 so for me they are steeped in history have incredible sales they just whisk us centuries back in time and even now it works it sails when you're lucky enough to see a site like that it dawn those vast sails the conch shell they blow the whole atmosphere of loading that's busy it is serene at the same time because these are sailing ships and they have the sort of serenity of a huge caravan getting underway I said to myself just say like that just has to stir your imagination yeah kept Levangie Peterman the 90 kilometers on coast between OC Bay and the road ama islands are off the path of the trade boats so they still have these light thermal winds in the morning and during the day like what we're getting right now we get these thermals 300 days a year we get this weather 300 320 days a year we don't even worry about the weather we'll be getting it ever since the dawn of time they've been sailors from all of a sudden after months of hard sailing on the high seas they see that it was amazing the Coast treats us to a series of breathtaking spots one after the other in different styles and they all made good hideouts it was quite something for the slave traders.
The smugglers everybody but just what were the Russians doing here in this Bay that now bears their name the story begins in February 1904 war breaks out between Russia and Japan the Russian fleet in the Baltic sets sail to recover the Pacific Fleet part of the fleet takes the Suez Canal route and the other part with the bigger boats rounds the Cape of Good Hope they rendezvous at Madagascar after a few months the fleet is once again reunited but Russia has already lost the war what remains of the 20,000 Russian sailors stay here a few wrecks at the bottom of the sea some blue-eyed male gosh on the shore there's not the slightest trace there's only the elusive memory of an incredible maritime adventure our Madagascar adventure is drawing to a close now it's time to take a look at the interior of the island as we did when we landed at Diego Suarez on the hillsides here they grow a ylang ylang a plant that comes from Malaysia and which is now a gold mine for nasi Bay the ylang ylang plants are pruned regularly to keep them low so that picking is easier can you watch that a hand Roku once a day they bring the flowers to the distillery the essence that they extract with these old copper charcoal heated stills will be used in the world's most famous perfumes even though Madagascar is opening up to the world the traditions brought over from Africa are still alive in the villages the chumba or ancestor cult is one of the most common during the trances that may last several hours the living enter into contact with the dead me and when this cult has existed for a very long time it's the ancestor count worship of the agency when the elders die Pitkin their spirit inhabits us the others live within us enter into all the little people in a way it's the old ones that direct them if you could stay her guide us the last paddle strokes the last crossing we're headed for the [Applause] here in the heart of this primeval forest is where the lemurs live they are true natives of Madagascar they witnessed the arrival of the first navigators from Indonesia and all those who followed to forge the MAL gosh people.
