Madagascar or Indonesia?

Madagascar. It is severely threatened ecologically. See it while you can.

For me this is a really difficult question; both are great to travel.
Probably I would let time decide: If I only had one month I would go to Madagascar. If I had 3 months I would go to Indonesia.

Good Luck!

Hi.
Actually, both countries are quite similar in some ways (poverty, climate, malaria, overpopulation, rice paddies everywhere, helpful smiley people, markets). But I would go to Indonesia. It's easier to travel independantly (and therefor more joyful), cheaper, cleaner (Madagascar really is filthy, and infections just won't heal...), safer, there's more diversity in landscape and culture and people speak English. If you speak French, Madagascar is relatively easy, too, but the bush taxi system honestly is a drag (an experience one time, bone wrecking all the other times) and by no means as enjoyable as the public transportation in Indonesia.
Plus in Indonesia beaches are usually clean and not considered as public toilet.
If you have limited time, restrict yourself to some regions. I loved Sumatra, and I loved the North of Madagascar. But then again, in Madagascar the places I liked best where the National parks and Nosy Sakatia, in Sumatra, it was simply everywhere.

Hope that helped

Berit

Great post. Thanks Berit.

Peace,

BB

Well Berit really does seem to have had some bad experiences in Madagascar - but his criticisms represent just one point of view.

Beaches in Madagascar are not generally misused as public toilets. Sure some are - happens in Europe as well - and it certainly also happens in Indonesia, as I very well know, but a generalized judgement is completely unjustified in both countries.

Madagascar is really filthy? No. It quite definitely is not. There is no more dirt and squalor than in any other poor developing country, and no more than in many parts of Indonesia either. And the majority of people in both countries set great store by personal cleanliness and hygiene. Infections just won't heal in Madagascar???? Well maybe Berit's didn't, but mine do, always and rapidly - if I get any at all - and you don't, in Madagascar, actually see hordes of people wandering around with open unhealed sores or debilitating infections.

Indonesia is safer? Oh really? Well I find it difficult to recall the last time anyone in Madagascar blew up tourists (Bali), when different religious communities set about killing each other and anyone else who got in the way (Sulawesi, Moluccas), when the government practised something close to genocide on an ethnic group they consider inferior and killed foreigners who witnessed it (Irian Jaya) and conducted a vicious civil war against a people whose traditional independence prevented them kow-towing to the dominating ethnic group (Aceh until recently).

Madagascar is one of the safest developing countries there is. The main danger there is road-traffic accidents, but Indonesia is not a world leader in road safety, either. Sea passages in both countries can be a danger to life and limb.

It is just as easy to travel independently in Madagascar as in Indonesia. In fact on one level it's much easier, because there are no areas where travel is restricted by the government or where you're advised not to go by your home foreign ministry. Public transport in Indonesia is generally more comfortable, if that's a criterion for you, but whether or not you find taxi brousse travel in Madagascar a drag is a matter of personal attitude. In Madagascar you can get almost everywhere by taxi brousse, and I find the experience and the contact with local people always interesting. Comfortable it is usually not, but my bones have yet to be wrecked by the experience.

Indonesia is cheaper? No, sorry, but no.

Indonesia has more diversity in landscape? Well, one guy I met there said Sumatra was monotonously dark green and in Java when you've seen one rice terrace you've seen them all. It's a point of view. A rubbish one, but it reflects an attitude. Madagascar has a huge diversity of landscapes from the rainforests and beaches of Masoala in the north-east down to the spiny forests of the south and everything in between.

Diversity of cultures? No contest. Indonesia has it.

In Indonesia people speak English and in Madagascar they speak French - does any serious traveller really make that a criterion for choosing which country to visit?

"In Sumatra 'it' was simply everywhere? Well assuming we mean roughly the same thing by 'it', 'it' is everywhere in Madagascar too, if you care to look for it.

Where's all of this leading? Well really to the point that you shouldn't have to choose. Madagascar and Indonesia are not similar, except in the trivial sense that they're both developing countries and you'll find typical developing country symptoms in both. Otherwise they're hugely different and travelling in both can be deeply rewarding. And I wouldn't, by the way, let the dangers I've listed above stop me going back to Indonesia.

As right now I'm taken up with Madagascar's wildlife and biodiversity, I'm tempted to follow BigBri's recommendation and say Madagascar is "severely threatened ecologically, see it while you can." But then, what about the rainforests of Kalimantan, the orang-hutan, the Java rhino, the Sumatra tiger - you need to be in a hurry to see them, too.

The problem is, PW, you've posed an impossible question. How do you choose between two incredible countries that people quite rightly get equally passionate about? Go to one of them this year and the other next year. Perhaps as you've just experienced one South-East Asian culture in Myanmar, you should try something different and go to Madagascar first.

Thanks so much for all the replies. It certainly gives me something to think about. I wish I had all the time and money to both in one year!! I'm sure that wherever we end up travelling, it will be well worth it and very exciting. Thanks again!

PW

I was one month in Indonesia in 2007 and one month in Mada in 2006, so maybe I can give you some ideas that might be helpful. I guess which one is better depends on what are your preferences. Both countries are great on scenery and culture, and you can find about that on the guides and the web, so I'll give my impression on other issues. I admit that I liked Mada better, but I'll try to be neutral.

Mada:

Good things:
- In many places we could talk to the people and not feel like we were tourists whose money was sought after. Saying 2-3 words in Malagasy goes a long ways to make friends there.
- Food. We tried really exotic and good stuff down there.
- Fauna and flora unique and interesting, but also accessible: you can see lemurs, baobabs, chameleons, etc.. without having to spend weeks in the jungle.
- Culture: we found Malagasy culture extremely interesting. And not only the usual cultural stuff that you can read ahead in the guide, but also the way people live and think. We visited some small isolated towns, and it was quite interesting.

Bad things:
- Big country + slow transport makes one month only enough for part of the country (we visited center, NE and W only).
- You'll have to pass through Tana, but I don't think it is that interesting.
- In some parts it rains more that one can think is possible (Masoala, in our case).
- Often it's hard to find somebody who speaks English, and in some areas even French.
- Deforestation and general resource mismanagement will make it a much worse place to go within a few years.

Indonesia:

Good things:
- Lots of variety in culture and ecosystems. Indonesia is like several countries in this aspect.
- Primitive cultures in Papua (for me this was a big highlight).
- Volcanoes!
- Great diving (we only did Bali, but there seems to be many other places). Still, very good diving.

Bad things:
- In all Indonesia you'll often only find javanese cuisine (white rice + veggies/meat). After some time the rice/noodle routine got a bit boring.
- Indonesia is huge, and you'll spend a lot of time travelling. Finding flights was not as easy as it was cliamed in the LP.
- Lots of people trying to scam you. Getting to Baliem Valley took us 3 days to learn how/who needed bribing in order to get a plane ticket, for example.
- Java is filthy and Bali overcrowded with tourists.
- Gamelan at 6 AM every day in Bali.

I hope this helps! I think you'll have a great time in either of them anyway.

C

I have also been to both, and found Indonesia far more interesting culturally, much more beautiful scenically and far better value for money.
As for the beaches and the diving/snorkelling - it is like comparing heaven to earth, in favour of Indonesia!
Like a previous poster, I also found Madagascar far more depressingly poverty-stricken and dirty than Indonesia, and certainly much harder to get around. At least in Indonesia foreigners don't have to pay several times the local price for domestic flights!

Overall: No comparision!
The only unique things Madagascar has are the lemurs, which you will pretty much only see in heavily commercialized reserves.
Indonesia has far more diverse wildlife, and those, even star species like orangutans, can usually readily be seen without having to pay special foreigners' entrance fees and hire compulsory guides.

BB is correct that Madagascar's ecosystems are severly endangered - in practice this means that much of the country is a deforested wasteland. Indonesia is a lot greener, even in those bits that have been turned to farms from forest, and vast tracts of scenic rainforest are still easily seen even outside reserves, especially in the east of the country.

While #8 is entitled to his opinion like everyone else, it would be nice if he was a little fairer in his criticism.

For example: "At least in Indonesia foreigners don't have to pay several times the local price for domestic flights!"

Well you don't in Madagascar either. I regularly buy domestic tickets in country both for myself and Malagasy citizens. We always pay the same price, whichever of us does the booking and whether we book at the same time or separately. The comment above is a slur.

But while we're on the subject of flying, every single airline based in Indonesia, including the flag carrier Garuda, is on the list of airlines prohibited from flying into European Union airspace for safety reasons. Air Madagascar is safe, and of course is permitted to fly into the EU.

"The only unique things Madagascar has are the lemurs"

Well it's possible to make analogous comments about any country if you're willing to travel through it with your eyes and/or your mind closed. But what serious and responsible traveller would want to do that? Madagascar has a vast amount more that is unique than just the lemurs, both in terms of fauna and flora and in terms of diversity of culture.
If you're looking for "star species" big animals, then you may well be disappointed, but it's hardly a secret that Madagascar's animals are small and shy. If that's not your thing, then go to Indonesia and see the star species there before government incompetence and corruption finally drives them all to extinction.

And as far as cultural diversity is concerned, it's quite clear that a country consisting of 13000 plus islands with a host of different nations who are only together in the same state as a result of European colonial rapacity is going to win hands down in comparison with any other country. The cultural diversity in Indonesia is fantastic, but it's in a league of its own. The fact that Madagascar (and anywhere else for that matter) cannot compete does not remotely justify the implication that cultural diversity is absent.

"much of the country is a deforested wasteland"

Compare this comment with the following: "Much of Indonesia in general and Sumatra in particular is a monocultural wasteland in which the native ecosystems have been destroyed to make room for rubber and palm-oil plantations".

What these two comments have in common is that, while there is a grain of truth in each of them, they neither of them are a fair and accurate reflection of the true situation in the respective country.

"only see in heavily commercialized reserves"

This is patently absurd. Madagascar's reserves are not heavily commercialised. What #8 really means comes a couple of lines later: he resents having to pay a higher entrance fee than local people and having to take a guide.

It's a point of view, but consider: Madagascar is tenth or eleventh poorest country in the world, far poorer than Indonesia, and the national parks don't run themselves. It costs money to manage the parks and to protect them, and if we want them to continue in existence, it should be obvious that we should make a financial contribution when we visit them. And it's actually a no-brainer that one of the best ways to protect parks and reserves in the developing world is to get the population involved, both by allowing them to visit at a price they can afford, and, more importantly still, by showing them that they can benefit from the parks economically. The entrance fees that foreigners pay go in part to running projects for the benefit of people living close to the parks, and the use of guides provides employment for local people who might otherwise not have any. All of these people have a vested interest in maintaining and protecting the parks, and that is not, by any definition, "heavy commercialisation".

As I've said before, it's pretty sad if someone is in a position where they're forced to choose between two fantastic countries to visit, but slagging Madagascar off as a dirty and uninteresting wasteland is neither fair nor even remotely accurate.