Macau - Not quite Viva Las Vegas

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Macau - 3rd December to 5th December

From the bible (the lonely planet) we arrived expecting the Asian version of Vegas. A glitzy, glamourous gambling paradise. It didn't quite turn out like that, I think losing money on the first night always puts a downer on things! Plus the fact that I was cheated out of some winnings playing roulette by a big casino, i won't name names in case they sue me ! I don't play roulette normally, but Gill likes to, so we had a little gamble. Gill was playing the numbers and I decided to lump on black. As the ball was spinning and 'no more bets' had been called , the croupier moved my bet to the side with a "sorry sir". The ball then dropped into black as it was being explained to me that my bet wasn't large enough for the 50-50 area. I can't remember this being the case when I have played it elsewhere, any roulette experts agree with me? We stormed out of there and refused to spend any money in Prada or Gucci just to make a point!

We had a nice look around Macau the next morning. It has a real portugese influence in areas and you felt like you could be in Lisbon. We had lunch in that Portugese influenced Chinese resturant called 'Pizza Hut'. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The money had to be won back I thought as we had the afternoon on a beach just outside Macau. Unfortunately the sun wasn't out, I was hoping for a swin but instead we played table tennis and basket ball, which Gill annoyingly was quite good at.

That night we headed to the Venetian, the worlds biggest casino. It is absolutely massive and getting lost is quite easy. We found a bar which had a stage with a really cheesy but likeable, half aussie half phillipino cover band. In Vegas we were in a bar also featuring a cover band and had requested ( Jayne and Bertie will remeber ! ) Hotel California by The Eagles and it was superb. So we requested it again.........it was more comedy than good !

I sneaked away to the toilet/black jack table at one point and surprisingly won back the money we had lost the night before. A lesson learned....... never play roulette!

Macau isn't Hong Kong but is well worth a look, it is never going to have the atmosphere of Vegas though. We were looking forward to Beijing so leaving didn't seem so bad, we crossed into China the next day and made our way ( on the best bus we had in China) to Guangzhou. We only had one night in Guangzhou which is a shame as it is massive place with a really nice riverfront with lots of restaurants and bars. We stayed in a hostel that was about 6 quid but a better standard than most cheap hotels at home. The following morning we headed to the airport to go to Beijing.

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Photos

The cheesy but good band
Hidden behind the bar we were sat at !