Nosy Be

Nosy Be — the name simply means big island — lies in the bay of Ampasindava, in waters that Swahili and Arab traders worked long before Europeans arrived; the ruins of the trading town of Mahilaka on the mainland shore opposite are evidence of that commerce. The island itself was settled by Sakalava and other coastal people and fell within the orbit of the mainland Sakalava kingdoms.

Its modern history begins with war on the mainland. As Merina armies pushed into the north-west in the nineteenth century, Sakalava leaders sought outside help, and in 1840–41 the island passed under French protection. The French built a port at the southern anchorage and named it Hell-Ville after Admiral de Hell, then governor of Réunion; its Malagasy name is Andoany. Plantations of sugar cane, coffee, vanilla, pepper and — from the early twentieth century — ylang-ylang were laid out, and workers came from the mainland, the Comoros and further afield, giving the island a mixed population and a creole flavour distinct from the plateau.

Nosy Be remained a colonial outpost until independence in 1960, after which the plantation economy declined and tourism gradually took its place. Direct flights, dive operations and beach hotels turned it into Madagascar's leading resort island, a status that brought money, migration from the mainland and pressure on reefs and forest alike. The island's dependence on visitors was made plain when international travel stopped in 2020 and started again a couple of years later.

The island is Sakalava in its foundations, with Antankarana neighbours to the north-east, and mainland Malagasy, Comorian, Indian and Arab-descended families, along with a long-settled French community, layered over that. Islam is more visible here than on the plateau, practised alongside Christianity and ancestral religion, and the mix shows in the food, the names and the music.

Royal ancestors matter. Sakalava relics are kept in shrines called doany, and tromba — possession by the spirits of dead kings, in which mediums speak with their voices at gatherings accompanied by music — is a serious part of religious life. Sacred sites on the island are visited with a guide and under strict rules of behaviour, and many local fady concern royal spirits rather than family ones.

Salegy, the fast accordion-and-guitar dance music of northern Madagascar, is the island's soundtrack, and the Donia festival in the early dry season is the biggest gathering of the year. Women wear brightly printed lamba wraps and often a paste of ground wood called masonjoany on their faces, used as sun protection and decoration. Life runs slowly in the heat, with early mornings, a long midday rest and sociable evenings, and the pace and dialect are noticeably different from the capital's.

About 110,000 people live on the island, most of them in and around Hell-Ville and the villages along the southern and western coasts. The town has the port, the market, the hospital, the banks and the administration; the beach settlements of the south-west are a different world of hotels, dive shops and bars, and the interior is farming country of small plots and plantation blocks.

Three economies run side by side. Tourism employs the most visible workers — hotel staff, guides, boatmen, drivers, vendors on the sand. Agriculture continues on the old plantation crops: ylang-ylang distilled for perfume, pepper, vanilla, sugar cane and coffee, with cocoa from the Sambirano valley on the mainland opposite passing through. And fishing, from pirogues and small motorboats, feeds both the villages and the restaurants.

Migration from the mainland is constant, drawn by the promise of tourist money, and it has outgrown the island's housing, water and waste systems. Seasonality rules: money floods in during the dry months and thins out in the rains, when cyclonic weather can cut the boat crossings and keep visitors away. Sex tourism, reef damage, deforestation of what little forest remains outside Lokobe, and pressure on fish stocks are the issues most discussed locally.

The island eats from the sea and the coconut. Fish, prawns, crab, octopus, squid and lobster are grilled over charcoal or simmered in coconut milk, and rice comes with everything, as it does everywhere in Madagascar. Chicken in coconut sauce is the classic coastal laoka, and the greens-and-beef romazava of the highlands appears too, lighter and with more coconut in it.

The Indian and Comorian presence shows on every street: sambos, the fried pastries called samosas elsewhere, curries, biryani and skewers sold from stalls in the late afternoon. Zebu brochettes are grilled at dusk, and cassava, breadfruit and grilled corn fill out the plate. Fruit is abundant and cheap — mangoes, lychees in season, pineapple, jackfruit and coconuts drunk fresh.

Nosy Be's own products flavour the cooking: pepper grown on the island, vanilla from the north-east coast, cocoa from the Sambirano valley across the channel, and the ylang-ylang that scents the air rather than the food. Cane rum is the spirit of choice, most often as rhum arrangé, steeped with vanilla pods, ginger, lychee or cinnamon in big glass jars; Three Horses Beer is the standard beer, and fresh coconut water, tamarind juice and strong coffee the everyday alternatives.