Macau

Day 09- 29th Dec 2014 (I Continue from here...Dragon's Back Trek )

We started a little late this day expecting a long day and night ahead of us in Macau. So when we reached the Macau ferry station on the HK island side, it was around 11:30 AM. The Macau ferry terminal are different from he star ferry. You can easily tell the Macau ferry terminal with the red strips on the building. Here you have couple of options; A few ferry operators and a helicopter ride. The most popular however seems to be Turbojet. As Stefan had warned me this place was heavily crowded. And already tickets upto o 12:45 was sold. Hurriedly we stood in a queue and got tickets for 1:50 PM. 

The ride was of exactly one hour and you could hardly feel a jerk, it was that smooth. An economy ticket would cost you HK$164 for one way. We also booked out return for 10:15 PM. Make sure you do that if you are returning on the same day as it can be easily sold out and you might get stuck in Macau.

While leaving Hong Kong, you return the immigration form. 

At Macau you get a fresh permit. At the ferry station I got withdrew some cash. Many places accept HK$ but it is advisable to have some Macanese Patacas. Here, at the bus station, opposite the ferry stop are free buses from each casino. There are free rides around the city in them. So instead of paying for transportation make sure you plan your ride in these buses. We took the bus to Grand Lisbon; a very big casino in the centre of the city. We saw some of the action there and walked directly to see the ruins of the church of St Paul. There are signboards here too so its easily to find places. The streets are narrow and the architecture has a very european feel to it due to the Portuguese rule here for a long time. The tiled paths leading to the ruins of the church of St Paul was filled with tourists and shops selling baked biscuits. They were offering free ones for taste. All most everything was served free for tourists. We passed by the church of St Dominic.

Result of a fire, all that is left of St Paul Church are its impressive main facade and staircase. 

Towards one side of it is the Monte fort.

We walked on the narrow streets filled with shops and boutiques. We chanced upon an art gallery where an exhibition was in process. It was interesting to see some fresh and good work of art in display.

We also stopped at the church of St Augustine (Igreja de Santo Agostinho) where the mass was in progress.

There are quiet a few interesting ancient architecture to visit here but I think the most interesting now would be the casinos. The income here is said to be more than in Vegas. But unlike Vegas, here the casinos are not all in a street they are spread across the island. We walked to some of them and then headed back to the main stop near Ferry station and boarded the bus to Venetian, a casino not to be missed. This sis in another side of the island and takes 20 minutes to reach there. The interiors of Venetian are very interesting to resemble venice but what we missed is the cafe at the top which is believed to have false roofing to resemble a day sky similar to that in Casino Paris in Vegas. There was interesting laser light show here displaying winter in Venice. We walked to some other casinos through free bus rides between each of them before heading back to the ferry station to catch the 10:15 turbo jet back to HK. 

At HK we got another 14 day permit as we entered again. It was almost midnight so we ran towards the MTR station. The last train was waiting of us. You could also choose to ride from Kowloon but the Kowloon Macau ferry station is 1km away from MTR station and also the frequencies are less as compared to Central. Macau, another special administration of China, is again a very different kind of a place. Narrow tiled roads and the architecture took us close to Europe.

While taking the subway from MTR station to get to hostel we were stopped by a group of youngsters as there was a movie shooting in progress. It was a Ghost movie and many girls had dressed in traditional chinese attire but had a scary face makeup. They were supposedly attacking a human. One of the locals got really angry and walked while the team took a short break between repeated shots. It was interesting to get a glimpse of this from nowhere.

Continued Here  - Kowloon And Hong Kong Island