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Note: The following entry was originally written over Chinese New Year.
One of the must-see attractions of any visit to Hong Kong isn't part of Hong Kong at all, but a small island thirty-five miles off the coast called Macau. Although close enough for visitors to just nip across for a day trip, Macau is a world apart from anything the rest of China has to offer and is quite spread out - so plan for a long weekend if you really want to see much of it. Previously a colony of Portugal, the island was handed back to the Chinese government in 1999 as Hong Kong had been two years previously - at the time of my visit in 1997, however, it was still under Portuguese control. The first thing I had to do after arriving on the island was get used to a whole new language and currency - unlike Hong Kong, many of the people you meet on a day to day basis in Macau don't speak any English at all, and the local currency is the Macanese Pataca. However, due to the low value of the local currency, I was pleased to discover that the people of Macau are generally more than happy to accept Hong Kong dollars in exchange for goods - so there really isn't any need to change all your money up before arriving.
Macau is easy enough to get to - a Jet Cat from Sheung Wan in Kowloon takes about an hour and provides the equivalent for the locals of us Brits popping over to France for the day. It is, however, still a necessity to go through customs at either end despite the fact that both Hong Kong and Macau are now under Chinese control - the obvious assumption being that somebody wants to know where everybody is at any one time! At the time of my visit in 1997, the local tourist authority on the island was going crazy putting out all sorts of TV commercials for Beautiful Macau in the wake of a number of recent gangland shootings which had been keeping people away, but things seem to have moved on quite a lot since then. In fact, since the Chinese government removed certain gambling monopolies which had, until the takeover, been tightly controlled by individuals, Macau has moved rather successfully away from its gangland past and instead embraced the Las Vegas "everyone owns a casino" mentality. But more of that in a moment.
I hadn't even heard of Macau when I arrived in Hong Kong, and probably wouldn't have discovered it at all if it hadn't been for Simon recommending that I should head over there for a weekend while I was in the area. Looking back on it now, I wouldn't have missed it for all the tea in China - it's hard to believe that I could've gone to Hong Kong and come away without even knowing that Macau existed. I think I can safely say that my whole experience of the island was something bordering on insane - but then, I did choose to visit at probably the most insane time of the year, Chinese New Year. Nothing I've read about Macau while researching this book, however, gives me any reason to believe that things are any less crazy at any other time.
Coming out of the ferry terminal in Macau, I was immediately accosted by a rather hyperactive bicycle rickshaw driver who was very keen to show me around the sights. The fact that I was carrying a fairly large bag and that he was going to have to peddle me and my luggage around town on the back of a three wheeled bicycle didn't seem to be a problem - as long as I could cough up the equivalent of about ten quid then he was happy to lose a few pounds making the first hour or so of my visit something to remember. And believe me, Macau isn't exactly a flat island - rickshaw drivers have to spend much of their time taking passengers up steep hills, which only made things that little bit more exciting whenever we got to a valley and my driver decided he could take a rest and let us shoot down the hill at six thousand miles per hour! Mr rickshaw didn't seem too bothered about asking me what I wanted to see, either - and if, on our journey around town, I ever pointed at something and suggested that I might like to have a closer look, he would just wave a hand dismissively over his shoulder and say in broken English: "You no see. Is no good. I show somewhere else." Clearly, he knew exactly where he wanted to go.
We stopped off - or slowed down, anyway, since the driver obviously didn't want to stop too often in case his legs refused to work again when I wanted to leave - at various temples and casinos around the town. Even if I wasn't allowed to actually get off and look around, at least I was able to find out where everything was so that I could return later. Because it was actually Chinese New Years Day, the driver finally dropped me at the waterfront to witness a fireworks display that was going on, probably assuming that my main reason for visiting his island was to witness the celebrations. Actually, I use the expression "fireworks display" very loosely here - I wouldn't want to suggest that any planning had gone into the event, or anything. It seemed as though most of the population of Macau had gone out and bought as many industrial fireworks as they could lay their hands on, and then all turned up at once at the waterfront to set them off in an impromptu display of madness. There seemed to be no officials around to oversee the event - in fact, there seemed to be no organisation at all. On one side of the square, hundreds of people were crowded into the courtyard at the front of a temple and were literally throwing handfuls of fireworks onto a blazing fire. I'm not making this up - they were just throwing rockets and roman candles and whatever else they could get hold of onto the fire and then running like mad in the opposite direction while they all went off at once and the crowd was covered in smoke and flames and bits of debris. I'm sure there must've been some sort of method in the madness, but I sure as hell couldn't see it.
The waterfront square itself was pretty much covered in smoke. Family groups were running around the cobbles chucking lit fireworks at each other without a care in the world. Small children were throwing rockets into the path of oncoming vehicles who had to swerve to avoid being blown up. I have never seen anything quite so insanely dangerous in my life. In the UK, none of these people would've been allowed to even take the fireworks out of the packets without an order signed in triplicate by the police. It was like this throughout the time I was on Macau - every street I went down, children seemed to be lighting handfuls of fireworks and throwing them into the middle of the road, laughing as they shot off in every direction and dogs took cover behind dustbins. While on the waterfront, I actually tried to walk away from a group of kids who seemed to be about to kill themselves quite dramatically, but it didn't take long to realise that there was nowhere I could escape to - everywhere, the same thing was going on. Clearly, the east doesn't subscribe to the same stringent safety rules that we do - or if they do, then nobody takes the blindest bit of notice. The order of the day seems to be to have as much fun as possible and then count the bodies afterwards. Nevertheless, after I calmed down a bit and realised that I couldn't escape the madness, I began to accept that my fate was to be blown up by a small child with a rocket and started to enjoy myself. In the end, I couldn't have had a better time - Macau during Chinese New Year was exhilarating, it was mad, it was dangerous... but it was fun.
Managing to extract myself from the mayhem for a moment, I remembered that I still needed to find my hotel. Being Chinese New Year, booking a hotel on Macau hadn't exactly been easy, and I had almost given up on the idea of visiting the island at all before suddenly and unexpectedly coming across somewhere with a room while making several hundred phone calls to every hotel within miles of the harbour. In fact, as soon as I had booked the room, I had found myself wondering what was wrong with it - why would anyone still have a room available during such an important holiday? Before I could even find out what the hotel was like, however, I still had to get there - and Taxi drivers in Macau aren't exactly known for their excellent grasp of the English language. Trying to explain where you want to go to a Taxi driver in Macau is a bit like trying to have a conversation about philosophy with Manuel from Fawlty Towers. I actually think many of them do it on purpose - after spending quite some time trying patiently to explain where you want to go, spelling out the name of the hotel for them, speaking slowly, speaking phonetically, and just generally making yourself look like a complete moron, the driver generally ends up producing a special card on which the names of all the local landmarks and hotels are printed in English, along with translations. You just point at where you want to go, and the driver sets off - or at least, that's the theory. This is probably okay if you want to go to any of the big name hotels or to any number of seedy massage parlours where the taxi driver probably gets a commission, but if you want to go anywhere else then no amount of little cards are going to help you.
After finally managing to find my way to the hotel, more by luck than judgement, I simply dropped off my bag and headed straight out again. The hotel was on a quiet side street, and didn't seem to have anything wrong with it other than being right next door to a seedy massage parlour - but then, everywhere in Macau seems to be right next door to a seedy massage parlour. It wasn't too difficult to find my way back to the waterfront by following the direction the Taxi had brought me in reverse, and I was impressed to find that the crowd still hadn't run out of either energy or fireworks. Fighting my way through groups of homicidal toddlers with boxes of matches at the ready, I made my way to the pier and booked myself onto a Chinese Junk tour of the harbour, foolishly imagining that sailing off into the sunset would allow me to leave the madness of Chinese New Year behind for a moment and seewhat Macau looked like from the bay. In the event, what Macau looked like from the bay, of course, was a strip of land to which somebody had set fire. The sky was awash with exploding fireworks, every small piece of land was covered in bonfires or flashing lights, and the air was thick with smoke and the sound of car alarms going off all over the island... At least I had the opportunity to see the Chinese fishing fleet moored along the harbour, hundreds of Junks lined up in neat rows as is the tradition at New Year - it would've made a perfect kodak moment, had my pre-digital film camera not chosen this particular moment to stop working for no particular reason.
About Simon and Burfords Travels:
Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.
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