Macau Wow!

I don’t care what anybody says, Macau rules. Just avoid the gambler’s gutter and the Macau Tower (world’s 10th tallest tower? Who gives a ****?) type attractions.
For me, I didn’t really know that Macau was a famous gambling mecca, Asia’s Vegas or Monte Carlo even. For me, I just knew it as this old port city formerly governed by the Portuguese. That’s why I went there, and that’s what I loved about it!

Macau is only about an hour away from Hong Kong by high speed ferry, so that’s what I took, buying a set of return tickets in advance as I was told, by Lonely Planet once again, that I would only need a day in Macau. The ferry ride was uneventful, though a little rocky and I would have liked to have had an open deck where I could have gotten at least some fresh air, but oh well, I’d get plenty once I reached my destination.

Walking through the old part of the city of Macau, you can still see the old colonial structures, including churches, forts, and marketplaces, all donned with signs in Chinese and Portuguese giving you the impression you’ve stepped into Chinatown Rio De Janiero. The churches here are beautiful, the squares are beautiful, hell even the Macau Museum is beautiful (its built into one of the fort ruins). Possibly one of the best Museums I’ve been too, it used 3 languages (English, Portuguese, and Chinese) to compare Western and Eastern history throughout the legacy of the world’s favourite Freeport from it’s birth in piracy, to the Portuguese period of power, to the final hand-back to the “motherland” of China (like Hong Kong, I’m not exactly sure if the Macanese actually voted to rejoin China, or if Portugal just wasn’t interested in them anymore).

After the Old Part of town, I headed out for some Portuguese food for lunch, eating something called a feijoada, which is a tasty mix of potatoes, pork knuckles, and various vegetables and Portuguese flavourings. The restaurant had a nice décor to it, and I took a picture of it, unaware of the once-in-a-lifetime experience that awaited me on the Macanese islands.

So next I went to the Macanese islands of Coloane and Taipa, which thanks to a landbridge are now the same island. First I went to Coloane, to enjoy its small village atmosphere and Sino-Latin American feel (I also went to a village in Hong Kong’s New Territories that was supposed to be surrounded by a wall and whatnot, but it didn’t have so much charm as just dilapidation and piles of garbage, though it did have an interesting pizza restaurant that was clearly ripping of Papa John’s, calling itself Papa’s John pizza, and a traditional Hakka woman who let me take her picture, after asking for 20 Hong Kong bucks).

I soon managed to walk out of the village and found myself walking along the ocean, seeing marvelous cliffviews and secluded beaches, but I didn’t really fancy taking a dip in frigid foreign waters unless there was some reason to believe Captain Undertow was not a regular.

So instead I hiked along until I found the public beach, covered in brown and “naturally” black sand (they were adamant that it was not polluted), and after dipping my toes in the water there, I decided it was time to head to Taipa, the other village, for supper.

However, by this point I was not sure how I was going to get a bus, and the sign said that there was a bus-stop at the opposite end of this trail through the mountains, so I figured, despite it getting dark, that I could surely make it right?

Wrong! Ah the pleasures of traveling alone, you don’t have that rational, usually female, voice of reason beside you to say, no, trying to reach a bus-stop by climbing an unknown mountain covered in jungle is a stupid idea. But no, that person wasn’t there, so instead I celebrated, to quote the Cynical Traveller from http://www.cynicaltravel.com/blog/ the “triumph of determination and sense of adventure over common sense.”

So here I am, alone somewhere high up in the mountain jungles of Coloane, in the dark and without a clue as to where that damn bus-stop is, and what that thing I feel crawling on my leg is, when I behold a white flash in the trees. Is it a ghost, an albino tiger? NO! It is a Frenchman.

The Frenchman wonders what the hell I’m doing, but suggests if I’m still idiotic enough to go on in the dark, I should take a right up ahead. Apparently, the Frenchman, had a sense of humour, because taking a route effectively set me on THE longest hiking trail the mountain had to offer (in the dark or at any other time). Fortunately, through the power of squinting at signs, I was able to determine that I was not going the right way, that my bus-stop was likely at the end of the trail that went straight at the last cross-roads, but that it was too damn dark and that I should just go back the way I came.

So back I went, crawling out of the trail to encounter a pack of dogs and an elderly Portuguese gentleman who smiles at me and greets me in his native language. Speaking no Portuguese, but assuming its just the same thing as Spanish, I say “Hola!” and he nods, somewhat confused. It soon becomes clear his English is about as strong as my Portuguese, and so we engage in a patchwork of Spanish, French, and body language learned from games of Charades and Taboo, in order to communicate. He realizes I’m lost, and suggests I follow him back to his bar where I can catch a bus. Normally I’d be a little suspicious of strange old men in the middle of nowhere, but as I was in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t much else in terms of options.

So I followed him back. It turns out he owned, or at least frequented, a little restaurant on the beach called Fernando’s which I later realized had been recommended by the Lonely Planet. The dogs disappeared, but either they weren’t actually his or he wasn’t overly concerned with them. We sat at the bar hidden in the back, with some Macanese waitresses who greeted him with a familiar smile, almost like unto a grandfather and gave him his usual. I opted for some Portuguese wine. With the waves flapping the shore nearby, we shot the shit, talking about life, women, the possibilities of youth, and wisdom of old age, all with our broken method of communication. Apparently, at least I gathered, he had some health problems and some tragedy back in Portugal, like his wife died or something, and had moved to Macau to retire, living out the rest of this days in this sleepy but picture-esque village. He was a nice fellow, and after drinking with him for a while, bid him a fond farewell, caught a bus to Taipa.

Taipa is a lot more developed than Coloane, probably owing it to its being just across the straight from Macau’s core and connected by a bridge or three. Still it has its old quarter, including an famous restaurant district reknown for its Macanese food and its character. Based on the recommendations of the Lonely Planet, I became hellbent on finding some Macanese specialty called gahlina Africana (African chicken), but after finding trouble finding an actual Macanese restaurant somebody referred me to a side alley where in the distance flickered a small sign that read “Café Amagao.”

Getting pretty hungry at this point, I entered, deciding to eat there whether they had this famous Chicken or not.

They didn’t have the African Chicken. They DID however have the Portuguese Chicken, which ironically can only be found in Macau, and was just as Macanese as the African Chicken which probably cannot be found in Africa (or even Macau for that matter).

Because it was a small family restaurant they had me seated with a Macanese family, two members of which where young men who just returned from studying in Canada of all places (and thus spoke strong Canadian English). One of them even came from one of the universities I had applied to for grad school and he gave the institution a glowing review. Soon however, the father was feeding sample after sample of Macanese food that they had ordered and all of it was quite delicious, kinda hard to explain though. Its seasoned with something that has the consistency of a bread crumb, but not quite, and tasted a little spicy but in some respects reminds me of my Grandma’s cooking. While most of it was seafood, and I can never seem to be a fan of seafood, I did enjoy what I ate, and really enjoyed the comraderie and friendship of the family and the store-owner/cook who came and chatted me up in perfect English about his restaurant, his family (that ran it), his Macanese background in culture (he said his bloodline was mixed with Chinese, African, Portuguese, Malay, you name-it, he’s descended from it, which gave an interesting set of a features, though I wouldn’t think he’d have too much trouble getting the ladies even at his age—except for his being married and whatnot, but hey I’ve heard that that can sometimes improves a guy’s chances)

At the end of the evening the father and the store-owner headed upstairs to play some Mah Jongg and I asked how I was to pay my bill (I had a ferry to catch back to Hong Kong you see, I was only in Hong Kong for the day) and the family told me I needed worry about it, the dinner was on them. Surprised by my dumb luck of stumbling on a free meal, I offered to pay again, but then graciously accepted their kindness.

Going home on the ferry that night, I figured, all in all, I couldn’t have had a better day in Macau.

And I didn’t go to the casino once!