🇲🇴 Macau
China, Portugal, and Vegas walked into a bar
I’ve been curious about Macau for the longest time, despite it being tiny. Inadvertently, visiting it has become one of the highlights of my trip so far.
Macau shares commonalities with Hong Kong, having been a European colony (Portuguese as opposed to British). However, it was leased instead of being seized by force, which results in a less complex political landscape that is evident while visiting.
Macau is also the gambling capital of the world, with its gambling volume amounting to about 5 times as much as Las Vegas’s. I visited Vegas last year for a work conference, and liked it much more than I thought I would. It was fascinating to see what people are capable of doing with disgusting levels of wealth and lack of taste, creating a hedonistic theme park for the rich. I wanted to see China’s twist on this, as I imagined it would be much more sensible.
Leaving Mainland China
I feel like a weight has lifted after leaving mainland China. I no longer needed to use a VPN all the time, which would randomly not work and slow everything down. I could use Google Maps again, allowing me to plan my days easily. And also, no more squatty potties and having to carry toilet paper around all the time. Delightful.
Before I got to Macau, I could also see why it’s not super popular, especially with backpackers - it’s a very expensive place. I ended up staying in one of the only hostels in Macau, which cost me £25 a night - about 5 times more than I was paying in the mainland for a frankly better standard. Most people go to Macau as a day trip from Hong Kong, and I think I’d have recommended that instead - buses go between the regions 24 hours a day for £6 each way, taking about an hour.
You can also get a helicopter from the mainland or Hong Kong if you want to cut your trip from one hour to 15 minutes. It comes in at an attractive £450, which should tell you enough about Macau’s clientele.
Macau Peninsula
I crammed everything mostly into a day in Macau. There are 3 somewhat distinct parts - the peninsula (fancy hotels and Portuguese squares), Taipa (casinos), and Coloane (a Portuguese village). I started in the Peninsula.
Right away, Macau felt somewhat disorienting. There were colourful buildings everywhere, the pavements were adorned with mosaics, and yet all the signs were in Chinese. With me lucking out on the weather too, it genuinely felt like being in Lisbon in the summer. I didn’t think this would feel so refreshing after being in Asia for 5 months.
I explored a bunch of ruins and old Portuguese buildings here, which was a great time. I also started a little self-guided pastel de nata tour from this point. While I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, egg tarts are hard to pass up, and I was curious how they compared to the ones in Portugal. Overall, I found them to be much greasier than I remember the ones in Portugal being, but the differences were minimal. I couldn’t complain.
An interesting quirk in Macau is its currency, the Pataca. It’s pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, and most places take Hong Kong dollars except for buses. If you get some change in Patacas, though, exchanging them for Hong Kong dollars incurs a 3% convenience fee. Strange.
Coloane
Completely drenched after exploring the peninsula in peak humidity, I went to Coloane. The old Portuguese village was small and full of gems of Portuguese architecture. Seemingly, everyone else was in the casinos, leaving the place entirely for me to explore. With the seafront right next to the village, it felt like being in a quiet European town.
Taipa
Finally, Taipa - the Las Vegas of Asia. This part felt like a completely different place from the rest of the region, more or less like Vegas. Many casinos were trying to look as opulent as possible, but I was more interested in the themed ones. There are two I’ve seen in Vegas already - the Parisian and Venetian. The Parisian is complete with its own Eiffel tower, and the inside of the Venetian looks more like Venice than Venice does.
They were as ridiculous as I remember the ones in Vegas being. You can grab a gondola ride inside the Venetian, and even go up the Eiffel Tower to an observation deck. The interiors looked like replicas of the ones in Vegas.
There was one casino and hotel that’s not present in Vegas, though - the Londoner. It’s a London-themed hotel and casino with a facade that replicates the Houses of Parliament, complete with a 1:1 copy of Big Ben. Actually insane.
The inside was made to look like Covent Garden, and they even hired a few white boys to imitate the King’s guards. As the cherry on top, there were swathes of young Asian girls having serious-looking photo shoots in front of Large Benjamin. Why you’d want a serious-looking photo here, I have no idea.
I popped into one of the casinos to see what they’re like. The casinos looked pretty much the same as Vegas, but were a lot busier, full of exclusively old Asians, and they actually checked my age on entry (booooring!). I also walked past a few slot machines loaded with tens of thousands of US dollars. If the one-child policy and gambling bans have left you with too much wealth in China, you can blow it all on the slotty here.
Food
Other than the egg tarts, I also tried Macanese curry. It tasted very similar to other curry noodle soups I’ve had before, except it was really spicy. I was reminded of it a few times the following day. Nothing remarkable.
A much nicer experience was going to a tiny vegetarian restaurant. I’ve been using Happy Cow to find vegetarian restaurants while travelling, and sometimes it has taken me to places that are only visited by locals and don’t have many Google Maps reviews. That’s exactly where I ended up this time - shortly after I walked in, other guests were asking me how I even found the place. There wasn’t really a menu, and the non-English-speaking staff kept bringing out and feeding me additional things.
The best part of this was that it felt like a community in the restaurant, and I spent most of my time talking to the other guests via an older Macanese lady who knew English. Even when people left, they’d say bye to everyone. Incredibly wholesome.
I spent my last night in Macau in some old Portuguese square, surrounded by pastel buildings, with a Coca-Cola Plus (a Coke Zero with extra fibre to help flush out the curry). It was very calm, a perfect contrast to the clash of worlds surrounding me. It was also an ideal environment to dream about how I’ll spend my millions when I win big next time.
