Day #141: Day trip to Macau

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Macau is only an hour's ferry journey from Hong Kong and easy to get there and away in a day, so it is easy to forget it is a separate country (when you buy the ferry ticket, they are very clear that you need your passport). Because of its proximity I was expecting it to be similar to Hong Kong, but it could be a different continent, never mind a different country: because of its history as a Portuguese trading post the architecture of the old centre is in the European colonial style, reminiscent of South America. Portuguese and Mandarin are the official languages, so all signage is in those two languages and then (sometimes) English, and the people look different to those in Hong Kong due to historical and current Portuguese and Goan (another Portuguese trading port) immigration and intermarriage. The pleasantest part of the city is this old preserved colonial centre, with its cobbled streets, churches and stalls selling Portuguese tarts and biscuits. The most iconic sight is the facade of the Sao Paolo cathedral (the rest of it burnt down). It was strange to go into the churches and see the Catholic icons, priests' robes, and so on, which seem very out of place in this part of the world, particularly as the Portuguese area is only a couple of kilometres square and the rest of Macau is much more like Hong Kong, with tall, decrepit apartment blocks.

When you mention in Hong Kong that you are going to Macau, the reply is always, "do you like gambling?", as over the past decade Macau has become famous for its casino scene, which is concentrated in one area of the town, alongside numerous luxury stores, so high rollers can exit the casinos and immediately spend their winning in Rolex, Prada and Balenciaga. I walked around this part of town and it is rather grim and seedy. One other effect of the casinos is that the trendy way to get to Macau from Hong Kong is by helicopter, which you can see land as the ferry arrives and departs from the port.

People said that it is not worth spending more than a day in Macau, but I wished I'd had time to explore the other islands that make up the country, where there are supposed to be very attractive beaches.

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