The capital of the Malagasy state surprises the European traveler by its size and its anarchic aspect. The traditional red brick houses with wooden balconies are side by side with makeshift dwellings made of boards and metal sheets. A bit further, some hotels offer all modern comfort to western travelers, without being totally isolated: the window of our room offered a sight on a huge garbage pit. It's difficult to find his way in tana, no plates are there to indicate the name of the streets, there is no real center but rather centers, like the avenue of the independence, the train station, from where no train leaves anymore, the anosy lake and the flower market. On its hills, the palace of the queen, accessible by long staircases, reminds that the past of the city had long been bound to the Imerina, the kingdom of the dominant ethnic group merina living on the high plateaus. Tana was our first encounter with Madagascar. After 10 hours of flight from Paris and the never-ending queues for the visa at the airport, young men come up and try to change euros into Malagasy francs at a good rate. Children knock on the bus windows begging for candies or pens. Arrived in the city, improvised merchants walking in between the car lines sell car radios, bicycle pumps, buckets... mostly barefoot. In a street of antananarivo, old petrol cans recycled in playground for children Antananarivo is an anarchic city, very vast, where the urban strips mixed together with rice fields A flea market where all what can salvaged is sold, installed on an abandoned railway track Torrential rain in the streets of the capital