Macau: A Big Win in an Old Portuguese Colony

Macau. We read that this place had a strong Portuguese feel to it, which we certainly felt in some parts of the city. We also felt a bit of Las Vegas, or at least a wannabe Vegas copycat influence, on the city when we passed the casino section of the peninsula that houses the many gaming establishments both in the process of being built or already up and running.

Accommodation was very pricey in Macau, so we opted to do the city in a day, by taking a day trip from Hong Kong via a high-speed catamaran. The journey only took an hour and it was quite comfortable. In order to make the most out of our day, we left Kowloon quite early, arriving in Macau before 10:00am.

Luck was shifting back to the dealer and it was time to go, so we made a quick getaway to the cashier and changed our chips

The weather was completely on our side in Macau - hot and sunny with clear blue skies. Most of the walking we did in Macau took us past several old colonial buildings that have been very well preserved. These, along with many beautiful Catholic churches, were the reason we felt the Portuguese influence during our walk around the city. The style of the buildings was very similar to that in Lisbon, and the pedestrian path in the centre of town was modelled much after the main one in Portugal's capital city.

There were many narrow streets in Macau, giving the place a cosy feel. The people in the city were extremely friendly, and we could even pick out the people who had Portuguese genes somewhere in their ancestry. The city is a greener Chinese city with many parks and squares; these were nice to walk around as we took our time exploring the place.

Churches seemed to be around every corner in the centre of town. There were so many that dated back several hundreds of years that we won't name them all. The ones that we think are a must-see, though, are St. Dominic's, St. Augustine's, St. Lawrence's and, of course, the Ruins of St. Paul's. This last church is not a whole church; instead, the facade is pretty much the only thing still standing from the structure that was built in the early 1600s. This facade is probably the most famous landmark of Macau and is symbolic of its history.

As Macau is a Chinese city, we did attempt to visit a temple there. We still hadn't felt that we had had too many temples thrown at us, so we went to Kun Iam Temple to see what there was on offer, in terms of something different to other Chinese temples we have seen. The temple had a very unusual layout, with many small courtyards and a large garden behind it, with many stone sculptures and fountains. The temple, dating back to 1627, was one of Macau's wealthiest temples and we could understand why, with many staff bustling about cooking for the monks (or themselves) or tending to the temple itself.

Walking around Macau in good weather is a must for any traveller. The colours on the colonial buildings seemed to stand out significantly in the sun and we were presented with a view of the glory days when Portugal ran the place. The Portuguese laid (well, the Chinese probably did the actual work for them) a beautifully patterned pedestrian walkway through the centre of town. This walkway led to Largo do Senado, a town square with many buildings and churches.

In order to see the Ruins of St. Paul's Church from above, we climbed the steps leading up to Monte Fort. This old fortification was built to aide the Portuguese in identifying incoming enemies from afar. From the hilltop the fort is perched upon, we were able to gain a 360 degree view of Macau and we think we could even see Hong Kong off in the distance. Not really, we just wanted to see if you are paying attention to what you are reading.

It was unfortunate that we didn't have more time in Macau, just to eat the delicious food there. We noticed a blend of Chinese food with Portuguese fare in the many cafes and restaurants that we passed. We opted to have lunch at a small cafe opposite the steps leading up to the Ruins of St. Paul's Church. The food we ate was great - dumplings and fried milk which was out of this world. The fried milk was like what we think pieces of deep-fried vanilla pudding would taste like. For dessert we had a warm peanut and almond milk soup that was also really scrumptious.

Let's talk about the casinos in Macau that we visited. We went to two on the day that we travelled there, Emperor Casino and Grand Lisboa Casino. The first casino, Emperor, was built within a really posh hotel. Before going upstairs to look at the casino, nature called, and we had to visit the plush bathrooms. This may sound strange, but we have gained an appreciation for really nice toilet paper since we have spent so much time in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, where they pretty much give you sandpaper on a stick, or tell you to use your hand and the bucket of water next to the filthy hole over which you are squatting. The paper at Emperor Casino must have been made of silk and, with it being so pleasant to the touch, Kyle decided to put a roll in his backpack for future use. Little did he know that the janitor would enter the stall right after he left (with the stolen toilet paper roll),

Emperor Casino had several floors with many electronic slot machines and different card gaming tables. There were many strange games that neither of us had seen before; the only games that we would have felt comfortable playing were blackjack and roulette. Unfortunately, this hotel was a bit too posh and the minimum bet for blackjack was way higher than we wanted to bet. Also, all of the roulette games that we saw were electronically run, and it seemed a bit too easy for them to be "fixed", so we chose not to play that, either.

We left the posh casino with the hope to find a poor man's casino to try our luck at a few games before heading back to Hong Kong. Where did we end up? Another, posher casino called Grand Lisboa. We had previously spotted the building from Monte Fort; it was a large gold building shaped like a tied, golden bag with flames coming out of the top. The top half of the building was unfinished so we had to imagine the flames, but we had some help from a picture of the finished product on the map we had picked up at the tourist office inside the ferry terminal.

The hotel at the top of Grand Lisboa was not complete, but the casino on the lower floors of the building were open and already cashing in big bucks. The stakes were high in this casino, and we had to resort to playing blackjack with a higher minimum bet than we would have wanted to play. Since Kyle tended to have more luck at the game, Dan suggested that Kyle play while he guarded any winnings made, as long as Kyle was willing to split the winnings with him. Kyle agreed to this and Dan chipped in halfway so that Kyle could get his game on.

The minimum bet was $50 Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), which may sound strange since we were in Macau, a city in China that uses the Pataca as its currency. Many, many Hong Kongers go to Macau to gamble in the casinos and the casinos have actually set themselves up to trade in HKD.

The exchange rate when we were in Hong Kong and Macau was £1 GBP = $15 HKD. So, we were betting high on our backpacker budget, and a lot of pressure was on Kyle to do well. By the way, we changed $1000 HKD to play blackjack with (£66 GBP, or $120 USD).

Most of the rules of blackjack in the Macau casinos were similar to those in the US and UK. However, there was one rule that actually saved Kyle from an early defeat. When we placed the initial bet on the table, we had the option of placing an additional bet (minimum $5 HKD) against the blackjack hand, so that if we were dealt two of the same card, like two nines or two kings, we would win 11 times that extra bet.

Luck was not with Kyle at the beginning and he seemed to lose many more hands than he won. In fact, his chips were quickly run down to $50 HKD before his luck turned around. On the last hand that he could have played, he was dealt two fours. The dealer immediately handed over $550 HKD and Kyle's luck turned around from that point onwards, with him winning many hands and also getting hands dealt with the same two cards on many occasions.

Over the next hour or so, Dan had accumulated $4000 HKD in the stash of money made from Kyle's winnings. There were points in the game when Kyle kept winning and winning, building up the stockpile of chips that Dan tended to, and both Kyle's and Dan's palms were sweating with the nervous excitement that was at the table. After quite a long winning streak, Kyle still had a few hundred HKD to play with and he was feeling a bit tired, so he decided to throw it all in and bet all of it. With the money that Dan had put aside, we were up $3000 HKD (£200, or $370 USD) for the day. We both felt, at that point, that we could walk away very happy if we lost the final hand, but we could also keep playing if we won.

We lost the final hand when the dealer was dealt a blackjack, one of many that he seemed to be getting towards the end of our time at the table. Luck was shifting back to the dealer and it was time to go, so we made a quick getaway to the cashier and changed our chips over for 4000 big HKDs. For those of you who have already read our Hong Kong journal entry, you will know that we invested in a laptop to help us keep us with these fascinating stories, and recouping £200 of the money we spent made us very happy campers, indeed.

One day, we plan on going back to Macau's Grand Lisboa Casino, since it was such fun the couple of hours that we spent there. Of course, winning made the experience even better, but it wasn't just that. The dealer and staff at the casino were super friendly and the place was non-smoking, a first for either of us, as all of the casinos we had previously been to were heavy smoking establishments. Kyle even thought that the chips used in the casino were really cool; they were shiny, brand new and very modern. Dan thought they were nice, too, but doesn't know why Kyle wrote that in this journal entry.

When we left Grand Lisboa, we snapped a quick photo of the older Lisboa Casino, which was across the street, and then hopped in a cab to the ferry terminal, to try and catch the last cheap boat of the day. We made it in time, before 5:30pm, and paid a lot less for the return journey than we would have if we stayed longer in Macau that day. When we got back to Hong Kong, we had a final dinner in Kowloon at a place called "Juice Stop". You can read about our delicious meal in the Hong Kong journal, as we aren't going to write any more about it in this one!