I am staying in a village in Nosy Be called Madirokely.

This reminds me so much of the Sri Lanka I lived in during 1998 and 1999.

There are many similarities. Notably the tut-tuts jostling along the roads like go-karts on a race track, the ‘peep peeps’, sounds of motorbike engines, smell of diesel fuel, and the “Madame Madame, Oú veux tu aller? “. They share the busy roads with cattle drawn carts, fourth hand motorbikes, the odd tractor and the occasional fancy 4 x 4 Toyota.

The next tier of daily traders, mostly women, sit on newspaper to cover the slatted storm drain pavements. Playing with, or breastfeeding, cuter than cute babies, whilst they sell produce from their own gardens ; maybe garlic, green leafed vegetables, or fruits.

Then there are the street walking trades people.

Women carrying their wares on their heads, and in their hands. Vanilla, citronella and beads. One woman I saw, with a heavy load on her head, was also carrying a 5 or 6 year old boy under her one arm, as if he was a sack of potatoes. The boy looked amusingly rigid and had his head facing downwards to the tarmac.

Men carrying handmade brushes and brooms, light bulbs ( clearly a luxury item- getting from the airport to my pension last night was driven in darkness), and one man even carrying steel reinforcements for house building.

Then the backdrop to all of this scene, swathes of huge wafty palm trees and lush tropical greenery.

The scene could be Sri Lanka, but for the people. A taller race, even hints of Brazilian. Many stunning looking women, wearing brightly coloured large printed long dresses or jumpsuits, over the ubiquitous flip flop.

Although I was largely ignored I only took a few photographs, but the voyeur in me could have taken thousands.

I went out with a shopping list of : mossy spray ( mine in my lost luggage) and a book on Madagascar’s animals and birds. But, brilliantly, there was nothing for me to buy.

All of this. So wonderful, so colourful and so frenetic, but not a scene that will last into the afternoon.

Morning at the beach.

I’ve quickly got the measure of the weather. Similarities again to Sri Lanka. From the swathes of blue sky and wispy cirrus clouds in the morning, as midday approaches the cirrus turn in to huge thick white cumulonimbus. By one o’clock, these are topped and tailed by a spreading darkness, and then by three o’clock lightning cracks its whip across the massive sky, followed by long deep guttural rumbles of thunder. A signal for the heavens to open and dump down erroneous amounts of water. Amounts of water that you can’t believe the sky can hold. There is no rainfall like tropical rainfall.

The stall holders and street sellers are now long gone. Sheltering at home, they will come back tomorrow to play out the colourful scene all over again.

Storm clouds start to gather.