C & C globetrotting around the world…

Yes, Macau makes more money than Las Vegas, but there is so much more to Macau than its casinos.

It was the first and last European colony in China. Portuguese traders first settled here in the 16th century and Portugal administered the city until the handover to China in 1999. Now Macau has a status similar to Hong Kong, with its own systems. It also has its own currency (patacas), but actually Hong Kong dollars are widely used. In most casinos you can actually only play with HKD.  The first inhabitants are said to have moved to Macau when fleeing the Mongols (around 1000AD), but it didn’t actually develop into a major settlement until the Portuguese settled there. First Portuguese traders were just allowed to anchor there and trade, not actually stay onshore, but slowly slowly they acquired more rights and in 1557 they were renting land and had built houses. They used the port as a hub on their trading routes with their other colonies and trading partners, such as Mozambique, Goa and Indonesia.

Unfortunately its Portuguese past is only seen by the buildings and the official names of everything, but Portuguese is hardly spoken anymore, with 95% of the population being Chinese and only 2% being Macanese (of Portuguese descent or mixed Portuguese descent). Along with Cantonese, Portuguese is still an official language though. Since Macau’s industry heavily relies on tourism and gambling, 25% of the workforce works either in hotels and restaurants (15%) or in the gambling industry (10%). There are also many immigrants working in Macau, many of whom come from the Philippines and speak better English than the Macanese.

From Hong Kong we took the ferry to Macau. The ferries go every 15 minutes, one to Macau and another to the Cotai Strip (also on Macau, where the casinos are), which is crazy. Not to mention the Sky Shuttle, a helicoter that costs 300USD per person and also flies every 15-30 minutes. This is only for Hong Kong. There is another ferry to Shenzhen and a bridge to mainland China. That is a lot of people gambling!

Upon arrival in Macau, we went to the “travel agencies” in the ferry terminal to ask about hostels and hotel specials. The people there didn’t speak Portuguese, or English or Mandarin!!! Luckily the hostel where we had reserved the first night was available for 2 more nights as well. After dinner, we walked a bit around and went to the Grand Lisboa Casino and the MGM Casino. The MGM, which is really nice inside, also hosted an Oktoberfest while we were there, but we didn’t go to it.

Our room was tiny with bunk beds, but clean and good enough since we didn’t want to pay 1,000HKD per night. We had brunch at a Portuguese restaurant: pasteis de bacalhau and grilled chorizo sandwiches. Afterwards we started the Historic Walk suggested by the Tourism Office through the old Portuguese settlement. Our first stop was Largo de Senado, Macao’s urban centre for centuries and still popular today. The neo-classical pastel-coloured buildings surrounding it are nicely renovated and create a nice Mediterranean atmosphere. We explored more of the Portuguese sights, mainly churches, such as the Cathedral, the St-Augustine and St-Lawrence churches, but also the Dom Pedro V Theatre and the Moorish Barracks. The barracks were constructed to house an Indian regiment from Goa (then a Potuguese colony as well) appointed to reinforce Macao’s police force. At the tip of the Macao Peninsula we passed in front of the A-Ma Temple, which existed before the city of Macao came into being. It is said that when the Portuguese first arrived on this spot and asked for the name of the place, they were told “A-Ma Gau” (bay of A-Ma), and hence the name of Macao. There is a legend that A-Ma, a poor girl looking for passage to Canton (now Guangzhou) was turned away by wealthy junk owners. A poor fisherman took her on board and shortly after a storm blew up, wrecking all the junks but leaving the fishing boat unscathed. When it returned to the Inner Harbour, A-Ma walked to the top of nearby Barra Hill and ascended to Heaven. In her honour, the fisherman built a temple on the spot where they had landed safely.

We then hurried to the Macao Tower, where Ben and Maayan were going to bungee jump. It is the highest jump in the world at 233m and we watched them from the bottom. Just seeing them jump our hearts were racing! After a coffee and cake break, we went to the Grand Prix F3 Museum and the Wine Museum. Both were free, completely empty and really well made. In the F3 Museum, we got to race on the Macao circuit, which was lots of fun. In the Wine Museum we had a little wine tasting, also very good.

In the evening we went to the Lusofonia Festival. The timing of our Macao visit was really good since the Lusofonia Festival took place exactly those few days. All Portuguese-speaking countries had their stands, selling artifacts, food and presenting their countries. We had dinner which was delicious and walked around, having small bites here and there and drinking free sangria from the stand of Portugal. Christoph got to talk in Portuguese with some people and we had a good time.

The next morning we hopped on the bus to Coloane Island and Coloane village. It was nice with mostly Portuguese architecture and we walked around and had lunch at a famous bakery. Afterwards we took the bus to Taipa Island (these 2 islands used to be separate, but have now become one due to landfill). It was really hot outside and we welcomed the cool of the casino when we went into the Venetian Casino. Unlike the other ones, the Venetian really looks like that inside as well and has gondoliers on its canals.

We then went to watch the Lusofonia Parade in Taipa village, which was lots of fun. As the groups were preparing, some were dancing, some chanting and it was great to see. Especially the group from Mozambique, they seemed to have the most fun and Christoph found the little Indian guy totally hilarious. And let’s not forget the Brazilian chicks! Christoph felt lucky so we went to the Galaxy Casino. We had fun playing and even came out with a small profit. Happy, we returned to the Lusofonia festival for dinner and had great food again. There was a show as well, which we enjoyed (great performances by the Goa, Damau & Diu groups) with more free sangria.

On our last day in Macau, we went to the A-Ma Temple to watch a Portuguese Folk Dancing group in front of it. Some of the performers were Chinese, but everyone knew the songs and sang along. We suspect that some were of Portuguese descent. The dances were really cool and we joined in the dancing as well. Lots of fun! We then walked back North through the small winding streets and back to the Historic Centre where it was really crowded. It was Sunday, when there are even more tourists (hotel prices more than double on week-ends). We walked in the small street with lots of shops giving out dried meat and cookie samples. We tried many different kinds and finally also bought 1, but after all that nibbling, we didn’t need to have lunch anymore, hehe. We passed by the Lu Kou Mansion, pointed out in the “Historic Walk” as an example of Chinese and Portuguese history coexisting, but it wasn’t very impressive. Then we arrived at the Ruins of St-Paul, the remains of a Jesuit church from the 17^th century that burned down 3 times. The 3^rd time they decided not to rebuild it and have left the facade standing. Right beside it is Fortaleza da Monte (Mount Fort), also built by Jesuits to defend Macau against foreign invasion by sea. Now the Macau Museum displaying the history of Macau (Portuguese & Chinese influence) is also housed there. One cool thing that we learnt there is why some languages say “tea” while others say “cha”. The countries that imported tea from Fujian province say “tea” because in their dialect it sounds like that (ex. Germany, England, France). The countries that imported tea from Canton say “cha” because it sounds like that in Cantonese (India, Russia, Portugal).

The museum was our last stop in Macau and then we picked up our stuff at the hostel before taking the ferry to Shenzhen. We really enjoyed the days in Macau as it was a good mix between culture, history, food and fun.