Foulpointe east-coast beach house

Foulpointe — Mahavelona on Malagasy maps — is the east coast's favourite weekend beach, an hour and a half north of the port city of Toamasina on a good tarred road. A coral bar closes off a broad lagoon here, so unlike most of Madagascar's wild, surf-battered east coast the swimming is safe and calm, and the village has grown into a relaxed strip of hotels, seafood shacks and holiday houses under casuarina trees.

The house is a hundred and ten square metre single-storey build in the practical east-coast style: rendered block walls on a timber frame, a steep corrugated roof for the rain, wide eaves and a verandah looking through the trees to the water eighty metres away. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open living-kitchen, ceiling fans, a rainwater tank plus mains connection, and a fenced garden of lychee, coconut and jackfruit.

Foulpointe itself covers day-to-day needs — market, bakery, pharmacy, small supermarkets, the seventeenth-century Fort Manda — while Toamasina, ninety minutes south, has the full range of hospitals, banks, hardware and the country's main container port, plus an airport (TMM) with several daily flights to Antananarivo. The Pangalanes canal and its lakes start just south of the city.

Life here is green and easy. Lychee season in November and December turns the whole coast red; vanilla, clove and pepper come down from the hills; the lagoon is calm enough for children and kayaks, and beyond the bar the fishing is serious. Humpbacks migrate past between July and September, and Île Sainte-Marie, the great whale-watching island, is a short flight or ferry to the north.

As everywhere in Madagascar, foreign buyers work through a Malagasy company or a long lease rather than freehold title, and a notaire is essential. Cyclone season runs roughly January to March on this coast, so build quality, roof fixings and shutters matter more here than on the west — a well-built house is worth the small premium. For the money, few tropical coasts give this much space, greenery and calm water.