Another day another country

Day two and I had no idea what I was going to do. Well, kind of no idea what I was going to do. I knew what I wanted to do while I was in Hong Kong but I had the luxury of a bit of time and no need to rush about trying to see it all like the last time I was here. I also managed to tick off a few of the more touristy things the last time I was here, something that added to my more leisurely pace this time.

The two major things I wanted to do were Disneyland and Macau. Waking up early it was just a matter of looking out the window at the weather and deciding which way to go. The night before a little card had been delivered to my room with the weather forecast for the next couple of days and it hadn’t looked good. The window proved to be a better indicator and although it was overcast it wasn’t raining. Macau called to me for some reason so I got my gear together and headed out.

It’s only a short walk from the hotel to the Mong Kok MTR station and when I got there a quick look at the map showed which way I needed to go to get to Central MTR and the ferry terminal. The Hong Kong subway is excellent and with a lot less lines than the Tokyo one it’s even easier to figure out as a tourist. A short ride later and I was getting off at Central. The coolest part of this particular journey is the knowledge that the last part is under the harbour itself and a crushing death from all that water may only be seconds away. Not that I was worried.

Getting from the MTR station to the ferry terminal proved to be a little more problematic but once I’d figured out I was walking the wrong way and then discovered the convenient walkway above street level that goes from the station to the terminal I was happy.

Ferries leave every 15 minutes to Macau so all I had to do was swipe my credit card in the vending machine, choose which time I wanted to leave and which class of seat and the little ticket popped out. A look at the departure board, waiting for it to cycle through Chinese to English, and I was off to the correct departure gate. It was just like an airport. I had to go through immigration and have my passport stamped to get out of Hong Kong and I had to show my ticket to get into the lounge. The ticket hadn’t had a seat number on it and I found out when I showed it that seats were allocated by means of a sheet of number stickers, one of which was peeled off and stuck onto my ticket.

Down the gangway and onto the Easyjet boat I was shown towards my seat. It was the same as a good train or average plane seat but more than adequate for a quick one hour boat ride. The boat was full but the majority of people looked like they did it every day and soon there was a sound like an air raid siren slowly winding up as the engine started and then we pulled out into Hong Kong Harbour. The ride was quick and relatively smooth but with the windows salt caked and scratched there wasn’t much to see. We berthed at the Macau ferry terminal right on time and I got through Macau immigration easily and with another stamp in my passport.

Walking out of the terminal it was really hard to see anything. That was because there was a line of young woman all holding large signs and trying to get you onto their free shuttle bus to their casino. I knew Macau had casinos and that it had some of the biggest in the world but I wasn’t entirely prepared for the onslaught. Thankfully a polite smile and shake of my head got me past the gauntlet and out onto the street. Looking one way I could see the harbour, big buildings and flashing signs, so I headed that way.

The first thing that struck me was the signs. Not just the road signs but signs on buildings and on vehicles. They were obviously in Chinese but they were also in Portuguese. I don’t know just how much influence Portugal has in Macau these days but those signs are probably going to be there for a long time showing the influence that they did have.

It was a Monday and already the 4^th of January but an awful of businesses looked closed. All of the smaller shop fronts I could see had their shutters down and the path along the harbour was virtually deserted. I came to a place called “Macau Fishermans Wharf”, a huge amusement park like place built right on the water but I seemed to be the only person there and the few shops that were bothering to open were empty. I wandered through and marvelled at what it must be like when it’s open. There was a part that was a replica of the Forbidden City, another that was a Mexican pyramid complete with volcano and even a Roman amphitheatre that looked set up for outdoor performances. All eerily quiet though.

Coming out the other side I kept going along the road and soon stumbled on the first of the big casinos. When I say stumbled I may be giving the wrong impression. It sounds like I didn’t know what it was until I literally walked up and tripped over it. The reality is that the amount of signage and neon and lights make it hard to trip unexpectedly over any of the casinos in Macau and I saw this one coming from a little ways off.

It may be a bit of a busman’s holiday but I had come here with the intention of going to the casinos. I even had a little bit of a budget to spend.

The first one I went into was the Sands. Impressive, big, gaudy, flashy, all of the things that you would expect from a Vegas style casino and it lived up to its American namesake. I wandered through and didn’t find much in the way of machines that were new to me or had any great pull on my wallet and the only table games seemed to be baccarat and pai gow.

This is where I had my first surprise. As is my habit I had stopped at the first ATM I’d found and withdrawn local currency. A good idea in usual circumstances but I found that all of the casinos took Hong Kong dollars instead. I changed the Macau patacas at a cashier, put a little bit of money into a machine so that if I got hit by a bus stepping out the door at least I’d be able to say I’d gambled in Macau and then left.

I kept walking along the water front and around the point with a strange looking building that may have had its inspiration from Jules Verne and turned out to be the Macau Science Centre. A quick look in the Babylon Casino gave me enough of a win to have a coke and a sandwich before I continued on. I passed the statue of Kun Lam which is a giant statue on its own little isthmus in the harbour. Kun Lam is a Buddhist goddess who bestows clemency on people who sincerely repent their sins, amongst other things. Having no sins to repent I bought a fridge magnet for my collection from a small stall and kept going.

There is, without doubt, a great deal of history in Macau but I spent the day wandering from one casino to the next. If you are looking for a loads of glitz and glamour and money in a small place then go to Macau. There are only 404 km of roads but if the fleet of Bentleys parked outside the Grand Lisboa is anything to go by…

Each of the casinos and attached hotels was trying to outdo the others. In true Vegas style the competition is obvious and combine all of that with the Asian sense of service and you have something impressive. Free bottles of water were everywhere for the gamblers and I was given free soft drinks while I was playing the machines. I even sat in a bar in the Grand Lisboa, eating a Monte Christo sandwich and watching g-stringed dancers.

The streets seem clean and tidy and the only sign of graffiti I could see was one small and plaintive plea to “plz tag here” which was painted on a wall in an underground walkway. About the only sour note was a slight stinky smell that seemed to hang around the waterfront and I couldn’t really figure out where it was coming from. It may be that the harbour is so polluted from centuries of use that the smell is going to be near impossible to get rid of but it did become obvious when I ventured from the casinos and shopping malls.

I explored all of the casinos within walking distance of the ferry terminal and then hopped on a free shuttle bus to The Venetian. I had been saving this one for last because it was quite a distance from the others and because I understood it to be the biggest and newest.

It was a bit of a drive from the others but worth all the effort.

It’s been a while since I was last in Vegas and I haven’t seen all of the newest resort casinos there but I find it hard to believe that any of them could outdo the Macau Venetian. It is a hotel on a massive scale and it is decorated on a spectacular scale. You can take the gondolas on a tour of the waterways in and around the casino. You can shop till the plastic melts. There are shows and entertainments including Cirque de Soleil. And there is the biggest casino I think I am yet to go into. I could go on about how big and how impressive and how golden and fancy it all is but I bet you get the idea.

The other thing that impressed me was winning. As soon as I walked into the casino I was drawn to the Star Wars machines. It must be the geek in me but the reels and the features were really cool. The other thing that was cool was winning. As it turned out I won enough to upgrade my ferry ride back, pay for my ticket to Disneyland the next day plus have some left over. I walked out of the Venetian, being smart enough to know when to leave, thinking it’s the best casino in the world.

On the shuttle bus back we passed three other giant hotel casinos that are right next door to the Venetian and evidence of more being built so it is easy to say that Macau is a happening place and that gambling is making it happen.

Back at the ferry terminal I used my credit card in the vending machine again but this time went for a super class ticket rather than economy. This got me a bigger more comfortable seat right at the front so that I had unobstructed views and a meal served aeroplane style. The meal was okay but the view was wasted because it was pitch black and I couldn’t see a thing. It was nice when all the other passengers had to wait for super class to get off first because it gave us a head start getting to immigration where I got another stamp in my passport as I re-entered Hong Kong.

MTR back to Mong Kok and a walk back to the hotel later and I was in my favourite little restaurant for a late night plate of crispy fried pork and a beer.

If you come this way then definitely take the time to visit Macau. If I get back again I’ll go and have a look at the more historical parts of town so that I can say that I wasn’t sucked in by all the bright lights.