10/10 Exceptional
15 Jun 2024
Beautiful hotel but Nosy Be is for s*x tourism
La Perle Rare is a beautiful hotel. The bedroom was beautiful and immaculate. The bathroom felt luxurious. The Belgian owner was super helpful in helping me to arrange daytrips and transport to/from the airport. The rest of the staff were also very friendly and welcoming. It's only a 5-10 minute walk from the hotel to the beach and the main road of restaurants. But be warned - tourists don't tend to swim at this beach because the water is dirty.
My negative comments don't relate to La Perle Rare - they relate to Nosy Be in general, but not sure where else I can capture them to warn others. Nosy Be (as well as several other areas across Madagascar, sadly) is full of white European men - mostly French and Italian - who visit for s*x tourism. Old, unattractive, white European men. Who sit in lines at bars and oogle the local 'women' (often under 18 - so often children) and choose their prey. Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, so they exploit this by paying for cheap s*x from those desperate to make ends meet. I thought I was seeing things, but a bit of Google research confirmed my suspicions. Including a UN report titled 'Madagascar: UN rights expert calls for greater efforts to tackle child s*xual exploitation'. I felt disgusted and ashamed to be a fellow white European. The amount of child pr*stitution is awful. It's undeniably a beautiful island, but I won't be going back there in a hurry as the uncomfortable feeling of being there was pretty intense.
Jennifer
Jennifer, 5-night trip
Verified Hotels.com guest review
