Visiting Macau

Today was all about visiting Macau. These days Macau is known for it’s casinos and a Grand Prix in a couple of weeks time, however it has quite a long history of about 6,000 years. The Portuguese sailors first came to Macau in the early 1500s and established it as a trading port, but it wasn’t until the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 that Portugal established sovereignty over Macau. The Chinese, though always regarded Macau as a Chinese territory under foreign administration. After the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974, the Portuguese really looked to exit all their colonial commitments including East Timor, Malacca and Macau, eventually handing Macau back to China in 1999. On the streets of Macau the Portuguese influence is unmistakable.

We caught a Jet boat ferry from Hong Kong, which takes about an hour, and there is passport control at each end. I’m not really sure why, because both are administered by China these days. Once we arrived we caught a taxi to the old part of the city and followed a UNESCO walk through some of the old sights and heritage listed buildings. Of course, the Portuguese brought their Catholic faith with them.

We found the main shopping district and the walked up the hill to the ‘Ruins of St Pauls’. This is the front facade of a large church built by the Jesuits that was largely destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835. It was in danger of collapse in the 1990s, however it is now buttressed by a steel frame that doubles as a tourist walkway.

Following some lunch in a Portuguese restaurant, we then went to the Macau Tower. I know … another city … another observation deck. It is quite amazing to see the amount of development happening across the city as well as getting an elevated view of the region.

Again, we caught a taxi to to old village of Coloane, which is another area that the Portuguese settled and established port facilities. The are a number of notable heritage listed sites to see, which we took in during a leisurely walk.

Those of you who know us, may recall that we did enjoy the Portuguese egg tarts when we went to Portugal in 2011. We noted when planning this trip that these same tarts were available in Macau. The twist in this tale is that the Portuguese egg tart as we now know it was ‘invented’ by an englishman, Lord Stow, (called Lord because he was the only Englishman in the district), added cream to a traditional recipe. His original bakery was here in Coloane.

From here it was another short taxi ride to Taipa. This is the new Casino district of Macau, nicknamed the Vegas of Asia. I’ve not been to Las Vegas, but I suspect it is like this… hotels, shopping and gaming rooms that never end. Outrageous and excessive were the words that kept coming to mind. The gaming area was full of people at 4 in the afternoon on a Tuesday and was at least 4 times the size of Crown Casino. Here’s a few pictures … I’ll let them tell the story.

 

We had googled the best restaurants in Macau and there is one called North which features northern Chinese food that is situated in ‘The Venetian’, so we had dinner there. We had Peking Duck … which now seems to have been renamed Beijing Duck and some Sichuan Lamb which was barely within the spiciness threshold… thanks goodness for lots of rice!

After dinner it was back on the boat to Hong Kong and then the Metro back to the hotel. We crammed a lot of things into the day, but it was a great contrast of the old and new.

Until tomorrow!