Let's make lots of money!

---

This old Portuguese settlement about 60km, and one very rough boat trip, west of Hong Kong is the Las Vegas of China. Originally a Portuguese trading concession and the first trading area between Europeans and Chinese, the settlement is the only place in China where gambling is legal and it dedicated to fulfilling this Chinese passion. There are at least 17 major Casinos and almost every hotel has a small Casino of its own. Each casino is themed with pseudo Egyptian, Medieval or Venetian architecture. Wondering round the casino area is a bit like some kind of giant theme park. More than half of the Casino are owned by Stanley Ho or members of his considerable family (he has had at least 3 wives) to make matters even more confusing the political governor of the territory is Edmund Ho, no relation. Of course as a big casino owner Mr S. Ho has no mob connections at all m'kay.

As well as the gaudy Casinos Macau does have a very pleasant historic centre with a castle containing a interesting history museum, the front of a very fine church which burned down so often they gave up and just left it and some nice winding old fashioned looking street which would not appear out of place in the south of Europe.

We were in Macau for St Valentine's day and having given up on trying to eat in a restaurant, who were all trying to charge 3-4x their normal price, we had a very pleasant evening dressed up to the nines in the Sands and MGM Grand casinoes eating, drinking and watching people throw money away. It was quite staggering to watch the amounts involved, the minimum average bet was about 100 HKD dollars (I'm not even really sure why Macau bothers having the Macau Dollar as noone seems to actually use it, prefering the more freely exchangable Hong Kong version. Both are valued approximately the same as the RMB). The Chinese were arranged in a big hall full of tables, each betting 1000s of dollars an hour, all night. Baring in mind the average Chinese wage is just over 10,000 rmb a year it was a bit obscene to watch someone lose this in an hour.

I regret to say I managed t lose the $100 I had allocated to spend in the slot machines which was all I wanted to afford.

We did manage to find something more worthwhile to spend our money on. Macau's Portuguese connections have let to it being the best place in China to by port and we very much enjoyed a rather nice bottle over the following few weeks.

---

Photos

Statue of Kun Iam
Tho Buddist godess of mercy, a gift of the Portugese goverment on handback in 1999

The Governers House
The current head of Macau Mr Edmund Ho refuses to live there as he says pink is unlucky

The Skyways tower
not overcompensating in any way ok. It is possible to bungee jump off which would be kinda cool

Skyways in lego
nuff said

Light the blue touch paper
Mwahahaahaha taken from Forteleza Do Monte the Portugese Fort in the centre of Macau

Sao Paulo Churh
Front only, back missing presumed burned down

The temple to A-Ma
A famous Buddhist temple to the Goddess of the sea/ Queen of heaven. Many very small attractive alters on the side of a steep hill facing the sea, also Banana trees.

Old and the new
Buildings looking out from the steps of San Paulo