hauteboy

Another new year, another trip. I'd barely been home three weeks since my last RTW trip to Eastern Europe and Okinawa and it is time to head off again.

In my narrowing quest to visit every country (currently 27 remaining), I have finally managed to group my remaining countries into logical trips. Western Africa, Central Africa, Indian Ocean, etc. This trip I planned to visit the island countries of the Indian Ocean: Madagascar, Mauritius and Comoros. I also hoped to visit some of the other Traveler's Century club locations of Rodrigues Island, Mayotte, and Reunion. I had visited Seychelles on my first trip to Africa in 1998 but had missed visiting the other nearby islands. One of the members of the Texas Travelers Century club heard about my trip and asked if she could join along. She has been to even more places than I have, over 250 locations on the TCC list.

I started planning this trip back in April. Skymiles award seats on Air France to the Indian Ocean are scarce during the holidays, even back then there were no award seats showing available on their Paris-Mauritius flight. Award availability into Madagascar was good, and also out of Reunion. There was also award availabity on Kenyan on the NBO-CDG route. I could see award availability from Comoros (HAH-NBO) on Air France site and expertflyer, but for some reason Delta could not book that itinerary. I had to settle for an open-jaw into Antananarivo and out of Reunion. Award price in J to most of Africa had just gone up from 120k to 140k. I had booked a 2-day stopover in Paris. I bought a separate roundtrip CDG-Prague that would allow me to spend two nights there and catch the early morning flight to connect with my flight to Madagascar. Unfortunately a few months later they cancelled my early Sunday morning flight and put me on the flight the previous afternoon which meant I would only get one evening in Prague (and my flight didn't arrive until 8PM).

For the inter-island flights I used a combination of paid tickets on Air Mauritius and Air Austral. I had to backtrack from Comoros to Reunion.

dec25 aus-atl dl f award
dec25 atl-cdg dl j award
dec26 cdg-prg af y paid
dec27 prg-cdg af y paid
dec28 cdg-tnr af j award
dec29 madagascar
dec30 madagascar
dec31 tnr-mru mk y paid
jan01 mauritius
jan02 mauritius
jan03 mru-rrg mk y paid
jan03 rrg-mru mk y paid
jan04 mru-run mk y paid
jan04 run-dza uu y paid
jan05 dza-hah uu y paid
jan06 comoros
jan07 hah-dza uu y paid
jan07 dza-run uu y paid
jan08 reunion
jan09 run-ory af j award
jan10 cdg-jfk dl j award
jan10 jfk-aus dl f award

For hotels I have a wild mix, from hostels in Paris to the Westin Turtle Bay in Mauritius. I lucked out booking the Westin earlier this year as Cash & Points rate (5000+$75) was still available for two nights over New Years Eve. I also booked the Holiday Inn Mauritius airport on cash+points. A few weeks ago I noticed that the HI Mauritius was available on pointbreaks (5000pts/nt) so I was able to rebook my reservation!

Mayotte and Comoros were trickier and I left them to last minute. Mayotte apparently does not have any hotels available online. I contacted several, one was full, and I never heard back from any of the others. Eventually I found the Caribou hotel and booked a prepaid stay on their website. At 140 EUR/nt, a bit more expensive than my usual pricepoint.

hauteboy

Previous reports:
2005
Peru/Galapagos: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...agos-trip.html
Mongolia/Caucasus: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-mtskheta.html

2007
Andaman Islands (India): http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-ixz-maa.html
Guianas (South America): http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...h-guianas.html
North Korea: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...oryo-trip.html

2008
Ethiopia: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-airlines.html
Central America: Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-managua.html

2009
St. Petersburg, Baltics and Belarus: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...d-st-pete.html
Canadian Rockies: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...n-rockies.html

2010
West Africa: Ghana, Benin, Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ir-france.html
Guam, Palau, Micronesia: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...n-pacific.html

2011
Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Bangladesh: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...atar-econ.html
Afghanistan, Pakistan: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ord-iah-y.html

2012
Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...al-guinea.html
Central Asia -stans, Iraq, southern Balkans: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...q-balkans.html
Iran, Turkey: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...gallipoli.html

2013
Yemen, Djibouti, Somaliland, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...land-more.html
Saudi Arabia, Eritrea: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-eritrea.html
Sudan, Congos, Angola, Cape Verde, Sao Tome: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...go-angola.html

2014
Algeria, Tunisia: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...unisair-j.html
Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...nuatu-png.html
Malta: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...lh-j-km-j.html
Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ther-coup.html
Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...nh-y-oz-y.html

snabbu

Bring in on!

roadwarrier

Am looking forward to this one. ^

DanielW

Looking forward to another great hauteboy adventure!

hauteboy

ugh, just realized I left my laptop charger in the lounge in Prague... there may not be any updates until I get back. And my SD card fizzled out so lost all my pics of Delta flight and Prague Christmas night market.

worldtraveller73

This should be good. Enjoy your trip Hauteboy and we'll wait for the details when you get back!!

hauteboy

Ok, crisis averted. Found a FNAC at CDG airport where they had a tres cher power supply that worked. I probably can find one cheaper in Madagascar.. This laptop chews through power supplies. I actually was able to find one that worked (for awhile anyway) in Somaliland of all places.

hauteboy

Dec 25-26, 2014
Flight: Austin, TX (AUS) to Atlanta, GA (ATL); Delta
Flight: Atlanta, GA (ATL) to Paris, France (CDG); Delta 767-400 Business
Flight: Paris, France (CDG) to Prague, Czech Republic (PRG); Air France Economy
Hotel: King George Hotel; Prague, Czech Republic; 1000 CZK ($45)
A bit of a crazy mess today. My mom had come to visit for the holidays and was flying back today, mrs and miss hauteboy were flying to San Diego, and I was flying to Prague. I had managed to arrange all our flights so they left within 90 minutes of each other. I had arranged for the Supershuttle to pick us up a bit early we made it to the airport in plenty of time and without much of a line at security.

At the JetBlue gate we ran into some friends that were also going to California. Miss hauteboy was surprised to see her classmate there at the airport. We all had our goodbyes and they boarded their flight, by then it was time for me to head down to the Delta gate for my flight.

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful other than a few bumps after takeoff. We landed a few minutes late and taxied to the B gates. My flight to Paris was leaving out of the F-terminal but I had several hours to kill before my connection. I headed to Varsity to grab some chili dogs and burgers before going to the Delta lounge.

The Delta flight left at 11:30PM which is horrible for adjusting for jetlag. This was my first time flying BusinessElite. The seats seemed quite nice, blue leather lay-flat seats with individual aisle access. However they felt a bit claustrophobic, esp for my legs/feet when the seat was fully extended. Business class was completely full. The dinner service was quite good but service was slow, took over 2 hrs to get dinner served. I watched <xxx> movie before falling asleep for a few hrs, waking up just in time for breakfast service. We arrived a bit early into CDG airport.

When booking my flights to Prague, there had been a 3PM departure, but since my arrival was at 2PM I didn't want to risk that connection. Too bad as I would easily have made that flight, I had already checked in and printed my boarding passes and only had carryon bags. The next departure wasn't until 6:15PM which meant I had a 4-hr wait with no lounge access. I headed over to 2F and managed to borrow the lounge wifi signal for awhile.

It figures, with that long a wait that my flight was delayed 20 minutes due to late arrival of inbound. Eventually we got going and landed 20 minutes late in Prague. I had pre-arranged a transfer service but he wasn't there when I arrived and had to wait another 15 minutes for him to show. Time was slipping by! I hoped to see some of the Christmas Market stalls before they shut down about 10PM.

Luckily we made it to the hotel by 9PM. The hotel is more a pub/restaurant with rooms above. They didn't have a real reception, just a table with the guest list printed out. The hotel was in a great location between Charles Bridge and Old Town square and the room itself seemed clean and quiet. I dumped my bags and headed off to Old Town square just a few minutes away. There were lots of tourists here in Prague, a sight I'm not used to as I'm usually going to more off the beaten track locations. It was also quite chilly and I'd left my gloves/hat in the room. I managed to catch some of the stalls before they closed and had a sausage on bread with mustard, svarak (mulled wine) and a trdlo, a delicious smelling pastry covered in cinnamon sugar, wrapped around a mandril and cooked over coals. Other stalls were roasting huge shanks of ham.





I then wandered into Old Town square where most of the stalls had already closed. There was a giant Christmas tree here and the Astronomical clock, I hadn't realized it was so close to the ground. At this point my SD card in the camera decided to die and I couldn't get it to work again. I wandered around a bit before heading back to the hotel and stopping at the Hard Rock cafe to pick up a new shirt. I was still pretty hungry and so ordered the duck with red cabbage and dumplings. Cabbage was good but duck was mostly gristle. After dinner I took a walk over to the Charles bridge a few blocks away.


Dec 27, 2014
Flight: Prague, Czech Republic (PRG) to Paris, France (CDG); Air France Economy
Hotel: Smart Place Hostel; Paris, France; 30EUR ($37)
I woke up far too early this morning about 4AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I had a shower and reorganized my bag before heading out to catch the Charles Bridge at dawn. There were already several photographers out getting pictures. Quite chilly this morning, about -5C but clear sky. I went back to the hotel for breakfast, they had a decent spread of cold cuts, cheese, yogurt and juices. I checked out and dropped my bag then headed back out again.

I crossed the Charles Bridge yet again and headed up the hill to the Palace and St. Vitus cathedral. Definitely a workout as there were lots of stairs. There were already several tour groups waiting to enter the St. Vitus church. I got there just before opening time at 9AM and wandered around the magnificent gothic-style cathedral with flying buttresses and gargoyles. I hadn't bought a ticket but you can go inside the entryway of the church and still get a great view without the ticket. I spent just a few minutes inside admiring the stained glass and soaring roof.




I wanted to catch the 10AM Free walking tour, so I walked back down the hill to Old Town square, stopping along the way for a hot chocolate to take off the chill. They have several free tours a day, you only pay tips to the guide. There was a decently large sized group today and they split us into two. The tour lasts three hours with an additional half hour break for lunch.

Prepping the Prague ham

The first half of the tour was around Old Town square, the Atronomical Clock, then Charles University, Wenceslas Square, and Republic square when it was time to break for lunch. It was absolutely freezing, even with thick socks and gloves on my fingers and toes were numb. The guide didn't have gloves on at all so I don't know how he did it. They stopped at a restaurant for lunch where they had 140 CZK fixed price for different entrees (not required but convenient). The second part of the tour was through the Jewish quarter, passing by the Spanish Synagogue, Franz Kafka statue, etc.

Kafka statue, Prague

It was about 1:15 and I hoped to catch the 2PM shuttle to the airport to catch my 3:50 flight. I left the tour and grabbed my bags at the hotel then walked to the shuttle pickup point. I then found out you had to prebook the shuttle and they wouldn't be there for another hour. Screw that waiting in the cold. I panicked a bit and accepted the first taxi offer (700 CZK) to the airport. I'd expected to only have 140 CZK for the shuttle so had to make a stop at the ATM again.

The ride to the airport was quick, about 25 minutes. There was quite a bit of a line at security but eventually was through and headed to the Menzies lounge (diners club). Unfortunately I didn't realize until later that I left my laptop power cord in the lounge!


Menzies lounge, Prague airport

The flight to Paris was uneventful and I slept most of it. On arrival in Paris I got a slew of texts from mrs hauteboy saying miss hauteboy was throwing tantrums.. too much change in a few days for a 3-year old. I caught the RER train into Paris and stopped by the hostel, just a few blocks from Gare du Nord. I was supposed to meet up with a friend who lived nearby but we crossed signals and I didn't hear from him right away. I decided to go grab dinner. When in Paris, I decided to go to a pizza place. Pretty good pizza with mergeuz and an egg on top, but crust was a bit soggy.

It was starting to drizzle a bit at this point. I caught the metro down to Trocadero to see the Eiffel Tower. I've been up it twice but had never seen the tower from this side. It was raining and cold when I finally arrived but that let up after a few minutes. I was pretty tired by this point and just headed back to the hostel, where I discovered I no longer had my Euro adapter or laptop charger!


Paris

DanielW

Congrats on #171!

Wondered what those round/log shaped pastries were.

I'm guessing you won't be missing the cold weather in the Indian Ocean.

ironmanjt

Yes, congrats on #171 - neck and neck again! Seems to be a New Years tradition. Bummed I couldn't join you in Madagascar...so you'll be ahead for a bit. But... 8 more coming in late January / early February! Did you manage to get a tour booked in Madagascar?

hauteboy

Yeah. 360 EUR for two people, 3d2n trip to Andasibe park. I booked the hotel in Tana separately. Just arrived at hotel in Madagascar at 1:30 AM and have to be up at 7:30AM for the drive out to the park.

This trip will visit 4 new countries, then 2 new ones (+ validating two cheater countries) in late Jan/early Feb. And 4-6 in March.

hauteboy

Dec 28, 2014
Flight: Paris, France (CDG) to Antananarivo, Madagascar (TNR); Air France 343 Business
Hotel: La Ribaudiere; Antananarivo, Madagascar; $60
I wasn't able to get any sleep at the hostel. Firstly my sleep schedule still hadn't adjusted for jetlag. Then about 2AM people started coming back to the hostel and were making noise on the floor above. About 3 AM one of my roommates started screaming Chinese in her sleep. About 5 AM with still no sleep I said screw it and went downstairs to the lobby to use the internet. Someone was on the only working terminal, but they had adapters for sale at the desk for 5EUR and I was able to get my phone a bit charged.

I headed down to Gare du Nord about 6AM and caught a nonstop train back to CDG. I had already checked in at kiosk the night before and had my boarding passes already. I headed to the M-terminal and found there was a FNAC store that had laptop adapters. Unfortunately the cheap 9/12EUR ones wouldn't work and I had to buy a super expensive $80 one (I can get a new one for $7 on ebay/amazon). Then I headed to the lounge for a few hours to wait.

I was supposed to meet a fellow Travelers Century Club member at CDG and travel together the next few weeks. She was coming in from Houston but at the gate I didn't see her and checking my phone I saw the IAH-CDG flight had been delayed almost two hours.. I hoped she would make the flight but didn't know as the flight attendants wouldn't/couldn't tell me. After boarding we sat on the ground for nearly 30 minutes after departure. I had stood by the door during boarding but didn't see her come on the flight.

We finally left nearly 40 minutes late. The business seats were the old angle-flat seats in 2-2-2 configuration. I watched the Hundred Foot Journey movie and The Dinner Game. I eventually wandered in back. I thought I spotted M. but she was asleep so I decided to check later. I caught some sleep myself then went back and found she was awake, she said she'd barely made the flight and was one of the last people on!

We arrived in Antanarivo after midnight. They were screening passengers for fever at the entrance to the terminal. I did not have a visa, so went to the visa stamp booth but they just waved me on as Americans do not need to pay. I was one of the first people off but made the mistake of getting in the wrong line at immigration. Nearly 10 minutes later he had only processed a few people, then they let a family with a baby in line in front of me which took even longer.

Finally when I got to the counter he told me I was in the wrong line. Apparently to get the visa you have to join a scrum of people at another counter (right hand side past the visa sticker window), hand over your passport where 4 guys are working on visas, then through a cattle chute to the scrum on the other side where one guy is taking the passports from the other 4 guys and signing them... needless to say by this time I was at the end of the line and there was a huge stack of passports for him to go through.

Eventually we both get through, then I went out through and met the driver. I had arranged a 3-day tour to Andasibe park but had already booked my Tana hotel separately. The Malagasy Ariary is 2500:$1 so you feel rich getting money out of the ATM. We set off and arrived at the hotel about 1:30AM. The hotel was quite clean and nice and had free wifi and supposedly a good restaurant. The driver said he would meet us at 7:30 AM for the ride to the park. I said that's a bit early... so settled on 8AM instead. Ugh. Had a relaxing shower and finally fell asleep about 3AM.

Dec 29, 2014
Hotel: Feon'ny Ala Hotel; Andasibe, Madagascar
Still woke up pretty early this morning as the sun came up about 6AM, 3 hrs isn't enough sleep for a long day ahead. Went down for breakfast about 7:30. Gotta love the French influence as breakfast was fresh baguettes with butter/jam and juice. Our driver and guide showed up about 8AM and we paid the balance on our tour, though my math was off (lack of sleep) and I initially overpaid 15EUR. We set off through town, driving down the hilly one-way streets. If you ever wonder where old Renaults and Citroens end up, they are put to use in Madagascar as taxis. Traffic wasn't yet too bad this morning but it still took awhile to wind our way through town. There were some crumbling French-colonial buildings and markets selling baguettes, vegetables and meat. The weather was gorgeous, even a little chilly as Tana sits at over 4000' elevation.

Our guide said Malagasy people eat a lot of rice and it is evident once you leave the city... rice paddies are everywhere and it looks more like southeast Asia than Africa. The landscape was lush green with rocky granite hills as we made our way east to Andasibe. The road was in great condition but very twisty and I was getting a little carsick by the time we made our stop at Peyrieras Reserve about 11AM, we would also have our lunch here.
ic and the highlight was the huge enclosure of chameleons. Every color imaginable, red, blue, green, yellow and orange were represented. Sadly I found a squished and dying orange chameleon on the ground, there had just been a big group of Chinese tourists that passed through and you have to watch where you step as some chameleons were walking on the ground. Another enclosure held pygmy chameleons which were only a few inches long, and heavily camoflauged stump-tail chameleons which look like dead leaves.

We had lunch at the preserve, I had ginger chicken to hopefully help with the motion sickness. We set off again just after 12:00 and soon stopped along the way at a great viewpoint overlooking a valley below. We finally arrived in Andasibe about 2PM at the Feon'ny Ala hotel (Song of the Forest). This was one of the main hotels for Andasibe park, the hotel consists of several dozen thatched huts (no air-con) overlooking the lush forest in the park. We heard the haunting call of the indri-indri lemurs as they announced their territory.

About 6:30 PM we headed out for a night walk. The park officially doesn't allow walks in the park itself so we walked alongside the road and down a side trail. We saw frogs, butterflies, stick insects, sleeping chameleons and in the distance spotted a woolly lemur, its eyes glowing bright red in our headlamps. After walking back to the hotel we had dinner at the restaurant.

krazykanuck

Your pastry look like this?!


I was in Prague the week over US Thanksgiving and loved it. Very cool city that I'd like to go back to. I found hot wine in Old Town Square for 35 of whatever their money is. I remember the mental math telling me it was pretty cheap!

hauteboy

Yep.. that's the stuff. trdlo.