2025 ended without me having the time (or the will, or the motivation…) to share my photos from November and December with you… And yet there were some interesting things that will remain in limbo on my computer. So you can consider yourselves lucky to have escaped the Highlights of November and December.

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December was actually a very productive month for photography. Usually, it’s a fairly quiet month for street photography, because of the end-of-year celebrations and, naturally, I’m less productive. This year was different because we had planned to go to the Madagascan island of Nosy Bé with the family for Christmas. When I say family, I mean we went with my parents, my father-in-law, my sister and her little family. So we were a group of 10 people, including 3 seniors: my 82-year-old father, my 80-year-old mother and my 76-year-old father-in-law. You don’t travel in the same way with elderly people. There was no question of moving around during the stay. We rented a typical Madagascan wooden house overlooking the beautiful Madirokely beach. It was a little haven of peace at the end of the beach, far from the noisy bars and restaurants. The house rental included domestic staff who took great care of us. Four young women and one young man. So they took care of everything: cleaning, cooking, security.

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When I said we didn’t move, I was talking about the holiday destination! I wasn’t sure how the trip would go. I wondered if everyone would be OK with the various possible excursions, and I thought that a villa by the sea with a beautiful beach right in front would be ideal in case some people didn’t want to go out sightseeing. And I think I made the right decision because during the holiday, we had two cases of traveller’s diarrhoea. My nephew was out of action for two days with vomiting and diarrhoea in the middle of the holiday, and my father had the same problem. Except that he had trouble coping with the dehydration and was very weak. You cope with traveller’s diarrhoea differently when you’re 82… He gave us a bit of a scare and we had to call a doctor who gave him two IVs of sugar, minerals, vitamins and potassium because he didn’t want to eat anything. We were able to get him back on his feet so he could fly home at the end of the holiday. I can assure you that he is fine. He is still a little weak (it’s harder to recover at 82…), but he is eating normally and has gained weight since the episode.

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It was a bit of a rock “n” roll holiday, but we had to adapt and organise our outings according to everyone’s availability. We went swimming with turtles and visited the island. We also visited a protected nature reserve where we saw lemurs, a Madagascar boa and the smallest chameleon in the world. Gwen and the kids even went to a paradise island. Actually, two islands connected by a 2 km strip of sand at low tide! Nosy Iranja. I wasn’t there for this last outing because I stayed behind to look after the doctor at the villa. Anyway, I was feeling a bit groggy in the morning and didn’t fancy a two-hour speedboat ride to get there…

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In short, apart from the two cases of traveller’s diarrhoea we had, the stay was very pleasant and we have already planned to return because it is very exotic and still very wild. I think that in a few years, mass tourism will have transformed the place and unfortunately, it will lose its authenticity.

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I didn’t know if I would be able to do much street photography. It wasn’t just the four of us travelling, but the larger group required more organisation and we were also 40 minutes away from Hell-Ville, a place I had always fantasised about! I had popped in there on the first day to do some quick shopping and was amazed by this vibrant city. I didn’t know where to look first. It was a real whirlwind, even though it was Sunday! They could have left me there in the middle of the hustle and bustle and I would have been the happiest person alive, even though I was completely exhausted from the journey, which had forced us to wake up at 3 a.m. But the excitement made me forget my fatigue and I told myself I would come back because this city was truly amazing!

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But the problem was that Hell-Ville was 40 minutes away from our villa… I made two other very short trips there. I wanted to hang out by the sea because there was a harbour just behind the town, but I didn’t get the chance to go there. We only went there to pick up vegetables at the market. Exploring Hell-Ville wasn’t compatible with our stay. We had organised outings almost every day and came back at the end of the afternoon completely exhausted.

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I am an early bird. Not really a fan of sleeping in. So every morning I was up around 5:30 a.m. Since our outings didn’t start until 8:30 a.m. at the earliest, that gave me enough time to hang out in the neighbourhood as the streets came to life. I had no idea what I would find in the neighbourhood, and I enjoyed getting lost in the maze of dirt roads among the houses. I even stumbled upon an open-air slaughterhouse where zebu cattle were being killed. A dozen young men were busy butchering the animals that had been breathing not long before, while other people waited, presumably to collect cuts of meat. Everything seemed exotic to me, and I frantically clicked away to document everything I saw. I had found my playground! Almost every morning, I would go for a walk in the streets behind Madirokely beach. This is where I took most of my photos.

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During my wanderings, I sensed that there was poverty, but not destitution. I don’t think I saw any beggars. People work there. Even if they don’t earn much, they don’t sit around doing nothing. Children work too. I asked if school was compulsory and was told that it was, but that it depended on the parents… When we were there, it was the school holidays. So it was difficult to know whether these children were helping their parents during the holidays or whether they had dropped out of school…

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In terms of photos, I had a great time during this trip. I managed to do some street photography at the beginning and end of the day without it interfering with the visits we had planned during the trip. I uploaded a very long slideshow of over 80 photos to YouTube. It might be a bit much, but if you’re brave enough, I’ll put it below. I’m not making a comeback on YouTube, it’s just a way to host the slideshow.

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2025 ended on a high note. I started 2025 in Vietnam and ended it in Nosy Be. 2026 is also shaping up to be exciting, with a trip to Malaysia and Singapore planned for next July!

All the photos were taken with the Ricoh GR3 | Crop 35 mm