10 days in Madagascar; here’s our story.
the past few weeks have been a lot for me.
People were coming forth with stories related to the travel agency I’ve been working with the past four years, everything flashing angrily on social media. I’ve been tired; tired of feeling all the different emotions that coursed through my body with every sharing that came in.
Then, while talking to a friend last week, the inspiration hit me; I’m going to repurchase my Squarespace subscription, and write our story.
Ever since Beyond Limits 4, I’d been responsible for delivering the experience of each expedition through my words, Ryan’s photos (he’s usually the expedition photographer) and a main video created by the expedition videographer. This season, I’d pulled out of my writer role. And it just hit me that… I can still deliver our team’s story even on my own.
Because regardless of everything that’s unfolding, Madagascar was a memory to honour and remember.
Our 18-man strong team lives on as the first group of Singaporeans to traverse the wilderness of the Makay, and I want to immortalise that. I want our story to live on in history, because we are a beautiful mix of Singaporeans who were brought together by our choices to join this expedition. We shared many unbelievable moments throughout our trip, and I’d safely say on behalf of everyone,
that despite everything?
This trip will stay with us for years to come.
So here comes our story.
But first, there are a few things I’d like to address:
My aim is to bring you through our story, and pay tribute to the overall experience as much as possible. I do recognise that this is written from what I witnessed with my eyes, what I felt with my heart, what I thought and reflected in my mind. I can only promise that I’ll do my best to write in a way that objectively captures the general experience of this trip, and any personal sentiments written will be made obvious to you.
There are parts of the trip where different team members may hold vastly different thoughts and feelings in, and I’d do my best to help you tune into the moment and immerse yourself in the situations we were in. If you’re here because someone you know was on this trip, go ahead and ask them about what happened! Hear their perspectives, and their reflections now that it’s been a while after the trip, and may that open some meaningful conversations for you.
Last thing! Photos featured here will be ‘unprofessional’, because I’d assumed that I would be able to use our expedition photographer’s photos like how I did the previous BLs. But I’d pulled out of being a writer with Beyond Expeditions, so I no longer have official access to use his photos. I will use the photos I myself have taken; they may not be professionally taken, but they will be enough to help you be with our story.
So here comes our story! May my words bring you with us into and through the Makay trek, and more importantly,
with us through these 10 days together as a team.
Day 0: Meeting at the airport (2nd June, 2025).
“We are a BIG group,” I gulped as I walked towards the meeting point stated in our Whatsapp chat.
It was 11.37pm on the night of 2nd June, and most of the team was here at Changi Airport. Some participants were heading over to Antananarivo (capital of Madagascar) on a different flight arrangement, so we had 15 out of 18 members present.
It’s not that we hadn’t met. We’ve had three team trainings, one pre-trip briefing; not everyone appears at each of these events, but there HAVE been opportunities to meet fellow participants on the trip. I’ve even had IG dm conversations with a couple of them, in fact! They’re not complete strangers to me, but it still felt overwhelming to be looking at all these people and realise that… “I barely know these people and I cannot believe we’re going to be spending the next 10 days together.”
14 strangers who barely knew each other are now flying off to the land of baobabs! Little did we know what was coming for us (hint: a crazy whirlwind of events)
- Wei Ren, our 15th member was floating around in the departure hall because he rushed in without reading our group chat, and three other members were on their own flight arrangements to Antananarivo.
I’m pretty comfortable with big groups, but only for a maximum of 3 hours or so. I’m someone who thrives on 1-to-1 interactions, where deeper conversations can take place. Boredom and disinterest kicks in fast for me when it’s mainly small talk and surface-level connection, which often happens in big-group settings.
I walked towards the check-in counter, where some participants began waving at me in acknowledgement.
“Val!” “Hello!" “Check-in’s here, go go!”
I smiled, waving and returning their warm greetings as I stood in line. A fellow participant glanced at me and his eyes widened. “You only have those bags with you???” My eyes followed his line of sight, landing on my backpack and pink duffel. With a nervous laugh, I shrugged. “At this point, I really don’t know if I’ve packed appropriately… the packing list was quite confusing for me."
Watching my bags move away from me, I took in a deep breath and mentally prepared myself to enter the group’s space. “Let’s go,” I whispered to myself as I made my way over to where the group was gathered (in front of Starbucks). Whatever happened from then to boarding time hangs hazily in my memory; I vaguely recall congratulating someone on graduating med school, asking someone else how they knew another member of the team prior to this trip… I also recall chatting with another member and their partner who’d come to the airport to send her off. I then found myself drifting through the departure hall with about 6-7 other participants. We sat down, talked for an hour or so and finally, it was time to board the plane.
Most of us were seated alone, the team scattered throughout the plane. Settling into my seat, I sighed in contentment. The team is a lovely bunch of people, don’t get me wrong. I just also appreciate my own alone time, to ‘recharge’ after interacting with such a large group.
Here’s a screenshot of my e-ticket, to show you how we travelled over from Singapore! From what I understand, there are several other ways to get to Antananaviro too.
Upon landing, a lady from Ethiopian airlines ushered our group to the lounge. Until today, I have no clue how exactly we got access to the lounge. All I remember is one of our participants walking towards us after checking his luggage in, wide-eyed as he exclaimed, “Guys, I don’t know why but the lady at the counter told me that we are going to get lounge access when we reach Ethiopia!”
A shot of us after spending about 3 hours at the lounge!
Bleary-eyed and slightly groggy from the flight, I followed the team in. Sunlight spilled in through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the lounge, with a rather welcoming array of needs met; a buffet spread that introduced quite a variety of local foods, a bar for the ones who wanted alcohol, a showering area, and an abundance of seats available for lounging around.
After nearly nine hours in the air, my body was aching to move. So the moment our group picked out a corner of the lounge to settle in, I leaned over to the participants nearest to me. “I’m going to walk around and maybe try that coffee that another participant raved about…”
“Do any of you want to come along?”
Our expedition photographer, videographer, and Su Chii decided to tag along! We took the first sip of our lattes, and exchanged knowing looks and chuckles.
The coffee was unimpressive… to say the least. So the real treat here wasn’t in the cup. It was in the company.
Finally boarding our second flight, one that will ferry us from Ethiopia to Antananarivo!
I took these two flights to return to something I hadn’t touched in a year; reading. Somewhere along the way, my commitment to full-time work had drained all the fun and joy out of reading.
With hours stretched ahead of me and no other worldy distractions, I easily devoured a romance novel by the time we reached Madagascar! It felt like I’d reclaimed a small part of myself.
One of my favourite things about flying? Being above the clouds.
Day 1: Arriving in Antananarivo
Our first hiccup of the trip came through baggage claim.
Some of us were waiting for quite a while, when one participant checked her AirTag. “My luggage is apparently still in Ethiopia…” A mix of gasps and murmured disbelief spread through our group. A few of us started throwing out different theories about delayed transfers, lost tags, and other possible airline mishaps.
One participant chuckled, clearly amused. He shared that when he travelled to Mongolia a few years back, his luggage was stuck at one of the transit airports. “… I only got it back on the last day of my trip.”
“Wait… so you wore the same set of clothes throughout?” I stared at him, stunned.
He laughed and gave a sheepish shrug. “What to do?” And another participant piped up, “For guys, easy. Just flip the underwear inside out every 2-3 days and you’re good!”
The few of us burst into laughter. Suddenly, even with the possibility of missing bags, the mood felt noticeably lighter.
I took this photo as we entered Madagascar’s airspace. My jaw dropped open; the terrain was foreign, vast, and breathtakingly magnificent.
First groupshot in Madagascar, credits to our selfie-master! This time, we had our main Malagasy expedition guide and two more participants with us.
Oh! And to our relief, every single one of our bags eventually rolled out through baggage claim.
(Still missing the last participant who had their own flight arrangements!)
Our expedition photographer entered the van first, so I decided to snap a photo of him.
Once our guides piled our luggages onto the top of the van, our first stop was for the mobile store — quite a few of us needed physical SIM cards.
We ended up waiting for quite a while, as the mobile store clerks settled everyone’s SIM cards. I didn’t keep track of the time, but it must have been close to an hour. While waiting, the group took turns wandering into the nearby grocery store, emerging with all sorts of snacks, chocolate bars…
And some? A cheeky alcohol stash.
While waiting for everyone to return to the van, I stayed outside with these two participants to talk and admire the skies.
Our van lumbered through the streets of Antananarivo, and out the window, I spotted noodle stands, raw and grilled meats, and many fried things I couldn’t name. Young children ambled down the road, lemons bundled in their arms. A couple of them smiled and waved at us as our van passed by.
The sun was setting when our van finally turned into the hotel carpark. While our guides helped us load our bags off, we were ushered into the hotel lobby to proceed with check-in. Some of us went for a short walk outside, experiencing the cold crisp air of Antananarivo for the first time.
This was the first time I experienced the drastic change in temperature from day and night. I puffed out a breath of air, amazed ro
