Day 56-57 10th-11th September – Maccau, Gamblor takes over
Well I arrived in Macau from Guangzhou on the bus and it was pretty painless. It drops you off at the border and you walk across, I think there was a little creek separating the countries but all there seemed to be was buildings so it looks like they have built over it now. Getting into Macau was pretty painless. I knew the place I wanted to stay San Va Hospedaria which was cheap(a bed with four walls) in the middle of town and looked like some fun! So I jumped on a bus that went virtually around the whole Island, it is tiny only 28 square km.
After checking in, if you would call it that I decided to go for a walk and check out the place before a night at the casino. Macau is small so it was easy to walk around. It was surprising to see how built up it was, there was no wasted space and it really reminded me of Europe apart from the lack of Europeans. I walked up the road dropped in my washing off, then it was off to Largo do Senado which is a square in the old part of town. I was already getting a feeling that Macau was really expensive compared to China, then when i added things up it was expensive compared to anywhere i have ever been. Without a word of a lie I saw coffees for 95 Macau dollars that is $15 and it is also insane.
I walked up to the ruins of the church of St Paul (Which was just the front wall), and above that on the hill Monte Fort. This was pretty good, the fort had a great view over the city but the view effect of the view was dampened by the haze hanging over the city. There were some absolutely gargantuan casinos under construction that towered over the city. It truly is the best place for casinos in the world. It is next to over 1 billion gambling addicts. On top of the fort I sat on the wall overlooking the city and finished my book The Damage Done
After this it was time to get cleaned up for a night at the numerous casinos, so I donned my best attire and then started heading to Casino Lisboa probably the most famous in Macau (not nearly the best). It was pretty lame and I was thinking I really don’t want to gamble so it was boring but I still wanted to check out some of the others. I went to the Wynn casino but they didn’t like thongs so it was off to another one, they were all pretty much the same at this point. I decided to check out the most grand and newest of the lot the Venetian, it was meant to be amazing so what they hell. I asked where it was because I was going to walk there they said it is just across the bridge and a bit further, it ended up being about 7kms and was a really long walk after walking about 3kms to the first casino.
On arrival however I was amazed they had recreated half of Venice, they had the San Marco Tower, the Re alto bridge, during the day you can take gondola rides on the lake. Upon entering you walk into the main gaming room which is around 300m X 300m it is insane. The place is all looking Italian, including a cafe that looks as though it is a beautiful blue sky all the time. I know all this is already in Vegas but I have not been there so this was great. After watching a show (some girls singing on stage) and having a $10 beer I decided to head home, there was not much else going on around town but it was still fun to be there. I decided to head off in the morning to Hong Kong.
After I picked up my washing I headed off to the ferry which was really fast about 60km in 80mins.