Beyond Taiwan

Our flight to Macau was straightforward. Macau is a small satellite State which once belonged to Portugal but now is part of China. However, it is still a separate State with its own currency. You will find Macau on the coast of China on the edge of a bay opposite Hong Kong. When you arrive there they casually look at your passport and enter the details on their computer and that's it. No landing card to fill in or stamp in your passport – but if want to travel on and to enter China proper, then you do need a visa and will face all the other usual formalities.

When arriving at a foreign airport it is always best to go to the tourist information desk and get a city map and ask the position of your first location. Doing so, we were given a bus number and bus stop location where to get off. When the first bus arrived I showed the driver the address and immediately he barked "No! No!" and pointed back to the street and drove off. We checked the information on the pole and did see that we seemed to be waiting for the correct bus. When the next bus arrived we just got in and ended up going somewhere, but not to our destination. In the end, we were the only ones left when the driver indicated that he was at the end of the line. He just looked at us and said something in Chinese and just walked off. Luckily, within 5 minutes a taxi drove past and we were delivered to our hotel, a drive of about 45 minutes.

We are in the old part of town with lots of neon signs and narrow streets – it has a nice feel to it.

If you are anywhere in the world and only have a short time, there is often a way to see most of the city by booking a hop on/hop off bus. They usually follow the routes going past the most interesting sights.

Within a decade, Macau changed from a sleepy town to a modern city and became the gambling capital of the region. I think that most planners don’t have much of an idea and just copy something they have seen elsewhere and then… go one better! The gambling capital of the world is Las Vegas. In Macau, the have created what I immediately labeled as “ Vas Legas” Everything is Mega and Mega bling. Some buildings appear to have been made of gold. Others are copies of what is found in the USA.

So in Macau, you find the Venetian Hotel, as is built in Vegas, including the tower, canals and gondolas. Inside you think you are… well see for yourself and be amazed. All of this can be enjoyed while listening to softly played Vivaldi music.

Just down the road a slightly smaller copy of the Eiffel tower has been constructed. Some hotels are larger than city blocks. Of course, all have casinos as their main source of income. Large courtesy buses drive back and forth from the airport and ferry terminal to Hong Kong and one even has a fleet of Rolls Royces to take care of their guests. Wherever you enter one of these place you are greeted by immaculately dressed and groomed staff. These people are well trained and very helpful. Later in the afternoon we walked through an area where all the buildings were copies of typical foreign buildings including copies of several Amsterdam Canal houses. We walked past another large Casino and asked if they could tell us where the bus stop was. One of the staff walked with us several hundred meters to check with the staff of another Hotel. We were introduced to a lady who took us another 60 meters down the road and said, “The bus will stop here”. So we walked over, then she came back and said: “No just a few meters back and you have to hail the bus”. She left and then she came back again and checked to see if we had the right tickets.

A while later, at another location, we asked for information from a young police officer who said: “Just wait here and I will check”. She took my ticket and disappeared inside a Casino to ask at the desk where we needed to wait. She handed the ticket back to me and said: ”This is the right place the bus should stop here” and then even checked what time that would be. One of the stops was the main ferry terminal where we had the opportunity to check out the ferries going to Hong Kong and purchase tickets as that will be the next destination.