Macau - Warning: Do not read if easily offended!

Only forty kilometres from Hong Kong, Angela and I decided a day trip to Macau would be an interesting diversion, and so we made our way to the dock to catch a high speed ferry. First established as a trading post in the sixteenth century, Macau, or Ultra Marino as it was then called, became a colony of Portugal in 1887, remaining so until 1999 when it was finally handed back to China.

Our journey there took one hour and as we sped along, I began to watch the in-sail-entertainment. It was a Japanese television program which pitted man against bear. They were not fighting each other in the traditional sense, but were battling it out in a furious hotdog eating contest. At first the young Japanese man seemed to be doing well, using the two hotdogs at once method. They disappeared down his throat in quick and impressive succession. The bear meanwhile was leisurely chomping away, followed by a smooch around, and then a sniff here and there. The man seemed a dead cert. As the contest hotted up however it became clear he didn't stand a chance because even though the bear was taking its time, it was still getting through its meaty frankfurters at a hefty pace. By the end, the bear had munched through fifty hotdogs compared to the man's paltry thirty-eight.

“Why do they bother having a passport control?” asked Angela, which was a valid question since as Macau and Hong Kong were both essentially the same country. I told her I didn't know as we joined the back of a long queue. Not only did Macau have its own border control, it had its own currency, its own police, and even its very own airline.

The day we chose to visit turned out to be a bloody hot one. The heat was intense and together with the high humidity, it turned us into sweating wrecks in no time. Actually, that's a lie, Angela didn't sweat anywhere near as much as me. As we walked past the lines of free buses waiting to transport people to casinos, I could feel the sweat dribbling down my back. It would later reach my testicles.

At first glance, Macau seemed to be cut from the same piece of cloth as Hong Kong, but when we looked closer some differences were notable. Firstly the buildings (with the exception of the casinos and posh hotels) were noticeably shabbier. Some of them looked like they could do with a good clean. And the streets they stood upon were not as clean as Hong Kong's, often with litter and the occasionally a smattering of graffiti. We soon became disorientated and so decided to ask for directional help. We spotted a couple of people outside a large hotel, a man and a woman, who were wearing some sort of uniform. They were employed by the hotel to direct people on and off buses that were arriving and leaving.

“Hi,” I said. “I wonder if you could help me?” The woman glanced at me briefly before turning her attention back onto the road. The man didn't even bother looking. Feeling slightly irked, I asked if they could point us in the right direction of Senado Square, which was in the heart of the city. I even pointed at my map showing where we wanted to go. The woman shook her head but the man finally spoke. “We don't speak English.”

What a bloody cheek! Fair enough if they didn't actually speak English, which I seriously doubted, but to not even deign a look at the map - it was plain and simple rudeness. As we walked away from the StarWorld Hotel, I felt a dampener on our trip to Macau had just been placed.

The heat was getting worse as we trudged onwards through downtown Macau. We considered jumping in a taxi but felt we were so close that it probably wouldn't be worth it. Growing ever thirstier, we bought a bottle of water which lasted only seconds before it was gone. My t-shirt was getting drenched and sweat was seeping into my eyes. It made it hard to stare at the casinos.

Macau’s economy is based primarily on tourism, mostly around the gambling industry. It surprised me to know that since 2006 Macau had taken in more revenue than the casinos of Las Vegas. The road we were walking along was literally full of them, some looking fairly classy, others looking tacky to the extreme. The biggest offender in the latter category was the Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino, a gigantic golden thing which jutted out amongst the other skyscrapers like a cross between a supersized Christmas bauble and an enormous football trophy. I thought it looked fantastic, but Angela thought it an eyesore.

Eventually by pure chance we stumbled upon Senado Square, a picturesque part of the city centre flanked by brightly painted colonial buildings. A fountain stood in its centre which was - and I apologise for the upcoming alliteration - a popular place for people to pose for photographs. We moved on, coming to a section of town full of narrow streets lined with shops that among other things sold slabs of deep fried meat which looked like bits of pink plastic.

Up a slight incline, lay the ruins of Saint Paul's Cathedral. Only the front of it remained after the rest was destroyed by a fire in 1835. It is perhaps the most iconic sight of Macau (apart from the casinos) and plenty of people were crawling over the steps, all jostling for position to take the perfect snap.

“Look at your trousers!” said Angela. She'd been walking behind me as we traversed the cathedral remains. “They're soaked. It looks like you've wet yourself!” She took a photo so I could see for myself and she was right. A dark wet patch of scrotal sweat. Undeterred, we consulted the map and decided to visit Guia Lighthouse, another of Macau's most visible landmarks. And if people spotted my sweat patch, then so be it.

The guide book said there was a cable car that went up to the lighthouse, but after wandering around in the heat for half an hour we couldn't see any sign of it. As more sweat trickled into my nether regions, we resigned ourselves to climbing up by foot.

The lighthouse, which sat atop the highest point in Macau, had been flashing its lights since 1638. It was so famous that it actually featured on the front of the ten pataca note. As we climbed a spiralling road, which led onto a steeper spiralling pathway, my head throbbed, my ears pulsed, my heart raced and my testicles sweated. When we reached the top I had to rest my hands on my knees for some minutes.

The lighthouse was rather small, but looked well kept. Alongside it was a church, as well as some old Portuguese battlements which included a wall and a canon. The view was impressive, spanning much of the city and in the distance we would easily see the huge spindly entertainment tower as well as the airport in the background.

The cable car did exist and we decided to take it back down to ground level. After the short journey was up we decided to make our way back to the ferry terminal. It didn't take long for us to get lost and so we were forced to consult our huge and unwieldy map. I didn't have a clue where we were and neither did Angela. As we looked this way and that, looking for inspiration, a young man approached. “Do you need assistance?”

In direct comparison to the unfriendly duo outside the SkyWorld Hotel, this person was amazing. He listened to where we wanted to go, showed us on the map where we were, and then gestured down a street for where we needed to be heading. We arrived at the ferry terminal safe and sound, wet patch and all.

As we sat in the air-conditioned deck of the jetfoil, my sweat patch at last began to recede, leaving behind a cruel sting in the tail. As the moisture evaporated, it was leaving behind tiny salt crystals which were clinging to my delicate upper thigh areas. Once back at the ferry terminal in Hong Kong, I was about to experience new realms of pain. In fact the resulting chafing was pure agony, like a set of razor blades cutting into my legs. With a long hike to the tube station, I either had to walk wide-legged (like an exaggerated John Wayne) or else shuffle along using tiny steps like a broken robot. In the end I did a mixture of these until we finally got back to the hotel.

Worse was to come the next day when I couldn't walk without howling in pain. “I need socks,” I said to Angela. “Two of them tied together.” Since we possessed no bandages, and a quick trip to the local supermarket had yielded none either, I was forced to improvise, and so like a member of the A-Team, I fashioned a sock bandage which I wrapped around my upper thighs. Disturbingly, it looked like I was wearing suspenders. God help me if I was involved in some sort of accident and had to be taken to hospital, I thought. Somehow I managed to tie the sock lengths around my chafed areas and then put my clothes on around them.

“And now for the moment of truth,” I said to Angela as I nervously took a step forward, ready to halt the instant any pain was felt, but I felt nothing. I was a new man! Later, when we ventured outside, I confidently strode about like a man with no chafing, even taking lolloping strides to show off my new found freedom of movement.

“Shit!” I said. We were out in the streets of Hong Kong and I had just felt the socks on my right leg come undone and could feel them slipping down. I caught it just in time (by placing my hand over my pocket area) but was then presented with a further dilemma. Should I let it slide out of my trouser leg, and then pull it out like a demented snake charmer, or was it better to hold it in the position it was now in? In the crowds, I had to act quickly, and so elected to hold it in position, until Angela pointed out that it looked like I was massaging my member. I hurried to the hotel to adjust myself. What a legacy from our trip to Macau had brought: pink thighs and sweaty socks.

Strengths:
-A relatively small city to see the sights
-Easy to get to from Hong Kong
-Casinos (if you like that sort of thing)

Weaknesses:
-Unfriendly staff working outside the SkyWorld Hotel
-Easy to get lost
-A little bit dirty
-Chafing - ooh it's so nasty!

---

Part of trip: South East Asia II

---