After nearly 24 hours of traveling, we’ve finally arrived at our first port of call - the “big” island of Nosy Be off the north-east coast of Madagascar. We’re staying at Vanilla Hotel and Spa, a gorgeous three-star place located smack-bang on the coast overlooking the sea and out to the island of Nosy Sakatia.

It’s was late morning when we arrived, and after a few language hurdles checking in (which is entirely our fault for not learning any bloody French), we were led to our room. Being quite a new place everything is very clean and attractive, with local art adorning the walls, enormous panoramic windows with a sea view and all the usual mod-cons. All the roofs here are ornately thatched with enormous palm leaves, which are in plentiful supply from plantations in the surrounding area.

After settling in, we went straight to the restaurant to have lunch. With the menu being mostly in French, we had to pool our collective language skills to understand the menu, but thanks to some charades-style assistance from the waitress, we discovered that Zebu tends to be the main offering here - it’s a little like beef, although much coarser in texture but just as tasty.

Full of red meat and feeling weary from our travels, we finally succumbed to jetlag and crashed for the rest of the day.