Oriental Odyssey – Day 1– Macau

After almost 18 hours of travelling, filling countless embarkation-disembarkation forms, standing in snaking queues, walking across miles of airport floor, and most painfully, lugging my heavy luggage around with my bare hands – and all this on zero sleep – our tour group reached Macau at about 3:30 PM local time. By which point my sleep-starved-and-exhausted-by-all-the-travails-I’d-put-it-through body was on the brink of collapse.

Well, not really.

But yes, it was kind of a tough journey despite the excellent in-flight entertainment options and good food aboard Kingfisher Airlines and the sterile yet comforting efficiency of Hong Kong International Airport – largely due to lack of sleep, cramped cattle class seats, undisciplined crowds at Hong Kong Jetty (it’s not just Indians who can be accused of line-cutting and creating crowded chaos – the Chinese are better at it than us!) and most importantly, the horror of having too-many-steep-escalators-and-no luggage-trolleys-at-all at the HK jetty. We all had to lug around our heavy baggage ourselves across several floors at the jetty and aboard the swaying boat. This is fine for youngsters but truly torture for senior citizens – especially since it involved lugging around the bags with you on the numerous escalators. Our Naana-Naanis are barely comfortable getting on and off escalators (especially ladies with flowing sarees) so stepping atop a steep moving staircase with 2 heavy bags is not really a viable option for them! This was one of my biggest pain-points of the trip – and one of the most easily solvable! Is it really so difficult to provide luggage trolleys at the jetty? Or have luggage checked in right at the entrance, like we do at airports?

Anyhow, so after this…ahem….scintillating trip, I was ready to drop with fatigue aboard the jetfoil (powerboat from HK to Macau). The jetfoil was immensely comfortable though – an expanse of comfy leather seats, and a swift and powerful one-hour ride over the waves which was not too rough. Only the most delicate tummies would complain of sea sickness! :)

The jetfoil to Macau is spacious and comfortable

At Macau jetty, we had to unload our cargo ourselves (no surprises here!), but there were trolleys to push your bags across the miles of jetty to go through yet another round of immigration. Which brings us to an interesting point about HK, Macau and Shenzhen. All three are legally parts of the PRC (People’s Republic of China). Yet all three have different visa policies, which stand apart not only from each other but also from mainland China. You need different visas for all 3 territories (most are easy on-arrival ones), and consequently, need to go through rounds of immigration every time you leave/enter either territory. Not only this, HK and Macau have different currencies and laws than mainland China. This is to preserve their distinct cultural identity and sovereignty which stands apart from China. Personally I think communist China has let these territories be semi-autonomous and not imposed Chinese laws and identity on them since they are money-pullers and economy-drivers. Interfering with their laws and stamping out their individual identity would adversely affect their money-spinning USPs (HK is a powerful hub for banking & finance and logistics, while Macau is a gambler’s – hence tourists’ heaven) I doubt if sympathy towards HK and Macau’s inherited cultural identity from their colonizers (British for HK and Portuguese for Macau)is the driving point for this autonomy given to the erstwhile European colonies which are now part of the Republic of China.

Anyhow, after the landing formalities at the jetty we took a coach to the island of Taipa, which is like a surburb of the main city of Macau. Macau territory consists of 3 parts – peninsular Macau city where all the glitz, glitter and glamour of casinos abounds, and the two islands of Taipa and Coloane, which were the locals live.

One of the many over-the-top casinos in Macau city

We were lucky to be put up at the Regency Hotel on Taipa – which not only gave our rooms spectacular views of the Macau skyline across the Pearl River Delta but also a peek into the real Macau, where locals live and work and pray.


Taipa is connected to Macau city by 2 superb bridges - one, with European style arches, and the other with undulating waves as a shape. They kind of dimmed the glory of our Bandra-Worli Sea Link a bit. :P



After a quick freshening-up break, we set off for Macau city to explore the Venetian, which is a copy of the Venetian Hotel and Casino at Las Vegas. Since I’m not into gambling, I didn’t enter the casino area at all – and since I’d seen the Villagio Mall at Qatar last year, which, too, is a copy of the Venetian at Vegas, the evening stroll through the opulent arcades and palazzos and courtyards, the fake canals with gondolas and bridges, and cathedral-type painted ceilings – all under a rose-tinted, cloud-littered blue sky (fake, kind of like the ceiling of the Great Hall in Harry Potter) was not an eye-opener and felt more like a déjà vu. And since I don’t have the kind of money required to shop at the stores which line the streets of this make-believe Venice (Ferrari, Van Cleef and Arpels, Dior, Chanel, Ferragamo etc etc etc), I only took in the sights. :) With me was K, an irrepressible 16-year old who was part of our tour group and who immediately felt like a long-lost-and-now-reunited little sister. I enjoyed seeing the same old sights once again, because she was with me and it was new for her. :)

The opulence of the Venetian

The Venetian (like all good casinos) is designed in such a way that once inside, the lighting and décor give no clue about the time of the day outside. Punters are supposed to lose track of time and place and just keep gambling. :) So, after a good hour-long walk in the perpetual golden Venice evening that is the Venetian, we headed back to our hotel – and to glorious nighttime views of neon-lit colourful Macau across the dark waters of the Pearl River.