Tsingy de Bemaraha - Getting there

The Tsingy de Bemaraha is one of Madagascar’s most extraordinary and remote destinations — but getting there is not nearly as simple as it looks on a map. In this episode, we break down the real logistics behind visiting this UNESCO World Heritage Site, exploring the different routes by road, river, air, and private charter. From overland expeditions to the famous Tsiribihina River descent, this is a practical, honest guide to what it actually takes to reach the Tsingy, how much time you need, and how to choose the right approach for your travel style.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Madagascar Travel Show. This is Brett from Dadamanga bringing you another episode about amazing adventures in Madagascar. Sit down, settle back, get a glass of wine or a cup of tea, and enjoy the show. Okay, welcome back to the Madagascar Travel Show. So today we're going to get into one of the most common and honestly one of the most misunderstood questions that I get from travellers. How to get to the Tsinghi de Bemara? On a map, it doesn't look that complicated, but in reality, this is one of the most remote and logistically demanding destinations in Madagascar. And that's what makes it so special. So let's start with the basics. The Tsinggi de Bemara is located in western Madagascar near a small village called Baikupka. To get there, basically you have to move through a chain of places. Everyone starts in Antonarivo, the capital. The nearest regional city is Morundava. And then depending on your route, you may pass through Meandri Vazu. From there you push deeper into the west. So now look, before we even talk about routes, there's one critical point. That critical point is that the Singidabumara is not a year-round destination. The park typically closes around mid-December, sometimes earlier in late November, and it reopens in April. Sometimes the first week, sometimes the second week. It all just depends on the weather and how much rain fell in that region during the wet season. In practical terms, you're looking at safe travel from May to November. For us at Dadamango, we don't take clients for the Tsinghi before the first week of May. You know, it's just too risky. If you book in late April and the roads haven't dried up and you can't get there, you know, it's a disaster. So we prefer to be conservative and we start in May. So the reason for it for the closure is that the western area gets a lot of rain during that time. The road is really just a mud track. There are two rivers to cross which fill up with water and flood. And then once the rain is over, we need time for the roads to dry out, and often they need grading. Now, grading actually means lots of local people with shovels digging the mud on the road and flattening out the surface so cars can get through. This is particularly worse at the actual entrance to the park. It's 18 kilometers from Baikoupica to the park entrance, and that part of the road is the worst. So you may get to Baikopica, but you may not be able to get to the park, which would be an enormous waste of time. Right, so today we're talking about the options because there isn't just one way to get there, there are several, and each option suits a different sort of traveller. Option one by road from Antananarivo. Now this is a full expedition, and I mean that literally. If you're starting in Antanarivo, you're looking at a minimum of around eight days for a round trip. The drive from Antananarivo to Morandava takes about 18 hours, and clearly that's not something you're going to do in one go if you value your safety. So you break it up. Two days to reach Morandava, another day to get to Bekupika, then time in the park, and then the same going back, if indeed you're going back to Antananarivo. But here's the thing, it isn't just about getting somewhere. The journey is the experience. You're driving through the beautiful countryside, you drive through the highland cities, Ansira Bay, you drive to Meandrivasu, you're crossing rivers on ferries, you're passing through remote villages, you're seeing landscapes that most visitors to Madagascar never see. It's slow, it's rough, and yes, the roads can be challenging. But for the right traveller, it becomes the highlight of the entire trip. Most of our trips pause in either Ansira Bay, so Antananarivo to Ansira Bay about four hours, and Siri Bay to Murundava 12 to 14 hours, depending on the on the road on the day. Also, once you reach the park, so you've gone to all of that trouble to get to the park, you want to spend more than one day there, really. So we normally break it up. The second option for a road trip from Antananarivo is to sleep in Meandri Vazu. So Tana to Meandri Vazu and then Meandri Vazu to Morondava. It kind of splits it about halfway and it makes it somewhat easier on the second day. So once you get to the park, of course, you want to spend at least two days there. Day one would normally be the Grand Singhi. This is a very big day out. It's about eighteen kilometers from the village of Bekupka to the Grand Singhi, and it takes up to two hours to get there for 18 kilometers. The road is pretty rough. Then you want to have five or six hours in the park and then the same sort of journey to get back to your hotel in Baikoupuka. Day two would normally be the small Singhi and the gorges of the Manambulu River. The small Singhi has some much easier uh circuits. It's also much closer to Baikupika, it's right there near the village. And the small Singhi is the easier of the two. It's very close to the village of Baikupaka, right there near the village, so it doesn't require a journey to get to it. And the circuits in the park tend to be more gentle. The small singhi is usually combined with a visit to the Manambulu River. You go by Pirog on this beautiful river through incredible granite lined gorges. It's a really beautiful day out. We're not here to talk about the park so much today though. We're here to talk about the journey. So moving on to option two. Option two is to fly to Morundava and then continue to the Tsinghi by road. This is the most balanced option. You can take a domestic flight from Antanarivo to Murundava and from there it's it's about nine hours. What you would normally do is drive from Murundava to Belu Sotsira Biena, where you would stop for lunch, and then continue on for the last approximately four hours from Belu to Bekupka. This cuts out the two days of driving to get to Murundava. You still experience the west, the landscapes, the villages, but you just don't spend days getting there. From a time perspective for the total trip, if you're flying in and out, you're looking at four to five days. For most travelers, this is the sweet spot. Then moving on to option three, the river expedition. Now, this is something special. If you have time and you like nature, photography, or just you just really like being off grid, this is one of the most memorable journeys in Madagascar. So from Antananariva, you drive to Meandrivazu, and then you spend three days descending the Tsiribina River by boat. There are two types of boats. Either a traditional pirogue, so you sit down low in a pirogue for two and a half days. Now, for me, it would kill me because I have a bad back. It's not for people with lower back strength problems. You do need to be fit to tolerate the pirogue journey. Because once you're in a pirogue, because of balance issues, you can't stand up. So once you're in it, sitting down, you're sitting down and you've got to stay sitting down. For me, I couldn't handle it. But we do send people on that journey and people do really love it. The second option for the river trip is a river boat. Think African queen, but brightly painted, chug chug chugging down the river, deck chairs on the roof, private dining table in the cabin, open walls, and descending the river slowly with a team of people to take care of you, and camping on the riverbank at night. Both options require camping on the riverbank at night. Personally, I think the riverboat option is a really, really wonderful journey. You may see crocodiles, you'll certainly see bird life. You pause at waterfalls where you can take a shower under the waterfall. It's really, really a very, very beautiful trip. There's some spectacular flora on the way. Not so much in the way of fauna. You won't see as many animals, but you will see lots of beautiful plants. And just the journey itself is really, really very special. A lot of people tell us that the food on that journey on the river at night cooked over a campfire is the most delicious food they had in Madagascar. We send a lot of people on this trip every year, and without fail, it's very, very popular. People really, really enjoy it. And at the end of the river journey, you end up about four hours from Bekupika. So day one is a full day, day two is a full day, day three is a half day, and you end up on the riverbank in a small village close to Belis Sosira Bienna, and then it's about four hours' drive. Your car will be waiting there to collect you and take you on to Baikoupuka and the Tsinghi. The flying into Morondava option, of course, can be done one way or both ways. If you fly in, visit the Tsinghi, you could then drive out and either back to Antanarivo or you could journey a circuit heading south on the RN seven highway. That's something that we plan for a lot of people. Or in the opposite direction, up the RN7 Highway from Tulia, turn off at Ansira Bay, drive to Morundava, visit the Tsinghi and fly out back to Tana for the end of the trip. Okay, so we have four options. Option one by road. Option two flying into Morundava, then driving to the Tsinghi. Option three on the river. Option four is at the other end of the spectrum, and that's visiting the Tsinghi by private charter flight. This is the fastest way to do it, obviously. Most typically you would leave Antanarivo early in the morning and fly directly to a small private airstrip at Bekupuka, so you're very close to the park. Here are the practical realities of that option. The airstrip is very basic. There's no S craft security overnight, so planes need to reposition to Morundava even if you stay in Baikoupuka. So it does mean higher costs, but if you're building a high-end itinerary or you're combining multiple remote parks, it can really completely transform your experience. A typical journey would be to fly into Bekoupuka, visit the park, go back to your aircraft, fly down to Morundava, visit the avenue of Bayababs in the evening at sunset, go back into Morundava and overnight, and the next morning take your aircraft on to another destination. It is, of course, also possible to let the aircraft leave without you, and you carry on by road or some other combination. Okay, so what we've got so far is driving from Tana to Ditsingy and back, and we need about eight days. The next option is flying to Morundava and flying out, let's say fly in and fly out, four to five days in total. The river expedition is only one way. So that's day one, drive to Myandrivasu, day two, three and four on the river and ending in the Tsinghi. Day five in the Tsinghi. Let's say day six in the Tsinghi. Day seven, drive out to Morundava. Day eight, drive out of Morundava to Ansura Bay or fly out. So about eight days if you're going to use the boat. Private charter, you can do it in a day. Fly into the Tsinghi, visit the Tsinghi, fly down to Morundava to see the avenue of Bayabs, or you can you can fly straight back to Tana and skip the avenue of Bayababs if you wanted to. So it is obviously the quickest trip. What we do tend to do with the charter flight trip is fly to the Tsinghi, fly down to Morundava, visit this avenue of Bayabs at sunset, the next morning fly to Ishalu, visit Ishallu. The next day fly to Ranamafana, fly to Finaransue, in fact, and transfer by road two hours to Ranamafana National Park, and the next day fly back to Tana. That is obviously the most expensive way to do it. So is the Tsinghi worth it? Well, it's not a World Heritage Park for nothing. Yes, it's absolutely worth it. It's one of the most extraordinary landscapes in Africa, a forest of limestone pinnacles rising out of the earth. But it's not easy. The roads are bad, it takes a lot of time, but that's exactly why it remains so special. If you plan it properly, you allow enough time, you approach it with the right mindset, it becomes one of those trips that stays with you long after you've left Madagascar. Now, we get a lot of people who want to go there. Everyone wants to go there, in fact, but very few people plan adequate time for it. Hence, this episode, I wanted to get this out there so I can refer people to it so people do really understand just how much time you need to allocate to visit this wonderful place called the Singhi de Bemara. I'm going to deal with Tsinghi of Ankarana and the Red Singhi, or Singhi Rouge, which is in the north of Madagascar near Diego Suarez or Ansiranana, in another episode. I'd like to keep this episode short. We're now already at about 20 minutes. So that's it for today. Thank you for listening to us, and don't hesitate to send us questions, okay? All right. Thank you for listening and bye for now. So that was our episode for today. I hope you enjoyed listening. We look forward to you joining us next time. Wishing you a fantastic day and over and out.