Day Ten - Macau or Cash Cow?

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After a day of being lazy again - which followed a day of mountain climbing - I decided I would get up and head to Macau for the day.

I left the house around 09:00 and headed to Shueng Wan - not sure if that's the right spelling - but the Macau Ferry port anyway. I arrived a little before 10:00, and purchased my ticket for the 10:30 boat, and then waited for a little while to see if the German guys from the mountain would show up. After about 10 - 15 minutes they hadn't so I went to get breakfast before I got on the boat. $26 got a Sausage McMuffin, Hash Brown and a half decent coffee... $26 is just over 2pounds... very tastee in deed! I munched that, and headed for the ferry. Macau, like Hong Kong is a "Special Administrative Region", due to the nature of their respective Portugues and English heritage, so I would need to take my passport and go through airport style checks. I apporached the gate to passport control, then realised I hadn't filled out one of the silly departure cards, as I did this half of Hong Kong came down the escalator in the form of a tour group and they litterally ran, pushed and shoved their way to the passport gates. The room that had been largely empty 30 seconds before was no full of middle to old ladies shouting and shrieking at eachother, and yes, I got caught in it. Luckily not too bad, and I didn't sustain any injuries... although it nearly brought on an episode of Vehicular Terror. :o)

Soon enough I was sat on the upper deck, waiting for the ferry to leave and closing my eyes in preparation for the customed 'sleep while travelling' routine. But I didn't sleep straight away. Roughly 15 minutes into the journey the ferry goes past the south side of Lantau Island and its quiet easy to see Buddha sat at the top of his mountain, and next to that is Lantau Peak, where I had climbed two days before! Very high! After this I went to sleep, its pretty dull looking at water.

I arrived in Macau a little before 12:00, and had to go through more passport procedures at Macau, but I was off the boat pretty quick and not too far back in the line. As I walked through the customs and declaration points I spotted to familiar looking German chaps waiting for me. Very welcoming. We said our hellos, and then I told them what we were doing.

The plan was to get one of the many free casino shuttles that opertate at the ferry port. My dad had said to me that the Vanetian is the largest single building enclosed space on earth, so must be seen, and as its on the south Island - Laipa - it would be a good place to start. So we went and it is huge! It has a huge hotel on top of the lower levels, which comprise of a very expensive range of shops, the casino floor and resturants. But its wasn't till a later trip back to the Ferry port that we saw all around the building, it has another may two hotels attached on to it. In either case, the place is Fing enourmous, and must cost billions to build and millions to keep running. Of course we went in and played some roulette, but it was expensive, the actual tables were $50 minimum bet, so thats about 4pound a chip, but, they had electroic tables with real roulette wheel in the middle, and they were $25 and we stuck to the 1/1 or 2/1 bets. We all left about even. Ish.

From the casino we left and headed to Old Town for some lunch, the Old Taipa Tavern was recommended and easy to find. The town itself was a world appart from the giant casinos that were being thrown up around it, the buildings were two or three stories at most and had a genuine rustic and classic look to them, eventhough many now contained such delights as McDonalds and 7Eleven. At the Old Taipa Tavern (OTT) we had a beer and some food and a good chat, bearing in Mind we'd only met a couple of days before and then we were climbing and climbing down a mounting we didn't know all that much about eachother - well, they knew eachother obviously. The food was excellent, and the Carlsberg on tap wasn't too shabby either, I imagine the place gets much busier at night as it was pretty quiet in lunchtime. Although, it was closer to 14:30 by the time we left.

From there we headed back to The Vanetian to get the free bus back to the Ferry terminal, and from there we had a brief look around The Fishermans Wharf, which is a collection of tourist and childrens activites built into fake styled buildings, a cave, a fort, a smaller scale housing building and so on. The place was largely empty, I'm not sure many kids go to Macau, it seems more like a gamblers retreat then a holiday destination, the majority of it punters arrive and leave in a day from Hong Kong (if their money lasts till the evening), others that fly in stay in the Hotels above the casino floors.

After the Fishermans Wharf, we stopped in another casino, the Sands which is a huge cube like shape, with a giant 'neon' light telling you the name on the side of the building. After a quick stop, we headed down to the south coast of the island and to see the statue of some lady, I'm not sure what she was all about. Time seemed to have escaped us here, it was now getting close to 17:00, I suggested we should grab a cab to get to St Pauls Church, or the Ruins of St Pauls Church and also Macau Museum which is next to it, but Mathias said we should walk, as it didn't look far on the map. The walk itself was very entertaining, the streets of Macau don't seem built for function, and to make it worse, next weekend 19 - 22 Nov is the Macau Grand Prix which is four days of different motor sports being showcased with practice, qualifying and 10 lap grand pric races. This is made possible by major city centre roads being closed, re-tarmaced and grandstands errected. It also means that people trying to get from the south of Macau Island to the anywhere north of the south, has to zig zag across the island. Once past the GP roads we then found ourselves back in the hustle and bustle of Casino lands, the Lisboa Casino and the Grand Lisboa are two slightly smaller yet shiner and flasher casino with classic vegas style light displays on the front of their hotels beaming out across the skyline and making star seeing virtually impossible to do. Once past the mele of people outside each of these we walked up a very busy road, and found a small shopping district that's principle trades were sports clothes, ladies fashion, cured meats and convience stores. Through these street, past the hustle and bustle of little oriental typles pushing through oneanother and then the foreground opens up to a large church front, with nothing else behind it. the Ruins of St Pauls church are delightful to see, they have a large wide stair front leading up to the facia, which is decorative and pretty. Strong street light have been put in place to ensure the building can be viewed adequatley, and as it was now approaching 18:00 it was getting dark quickly. Sadly, due to the time, the Mueseum was closed. I suggested we grab a cab and head to one of the restuarants that are suggested by the lonely planet, we can stop there, get some food have a drink and then get our 21:00 ferry. Mathias again disagreed, and said we should find a bar nearby and just have a few beers. An hour and a half of walking busy, dense, car/van/motorbike filled roads and we had not seen a bar, I had explained this to Mathias but he thought we still could find one. Eventually, we walked past before entering a small resturant/diner. We ordered food and a large beer each. They didn't eat their food, where as I obviously gobbled mine up sharpish. From there we headed back to the Ferry port and back to Hong Kong.

Once back in Hong Kong, the boys went for their MTR and I headed for the bus stop, upon finding my bus stop, and looking around the buildings in the street light darkness, I suddenly felt very aware of where I was, and the drunken memories of running around the area at 04:30 last Friday morning returned to me. the building I had been charging and jumping through was the lower levels of the ferry terminal - most likely the taxi rank level, and I realised why. The bus stop I was at, was the stop for the E11, the bus I needed, it had next to it a sign saying the N11 would not stop there, as at the time is was 04:30 or so, I needed the N11 so I was confused and heaed to the nearby bus terminal next to the Ferry building. From there I got a bus to a bus stop and so on went the adventure. I was glad ot know where I had been and that I had generally made it to the right place-ish. I got on my bus and the day was done.

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Photos

The Vannetian
This is just the side of the 'building', its massive, encompasses a couple of hotels and a huge casino.

MGM Grand
Coming back to Macau Island a view from the bridge

The Sands behind Fishermans Wharf
The Wharf is a small tourist attraction and Hotel, small scale buildings with amusements and games.