Macau

(October 24-25)

Macau is a peninsular about an hour west of Hong Kong by fast ferry. It is the world's new Las Vegas with flashy casinos being built on all available turf. Indeed, Macau's gambling revenues are now greater than those of the Las Vegas Strip. However, our guide book which was published three or so years ago failed to mention casinos at all despite gambling providing 50% of the area's GDP! (Note to selves: we still shouldn't trust those pesky guide books!)

Macau has a similar history to Hong Kong in that it was governed by a foreign power for many years, except the Portuguese were invited to move in after helping the Chinese rid the area of pirates; the British just took HK. After a buoyant few years for the Portuguese in Macau, Britain's subsequent move into the region made sure Hong Kong became the dominant trading port. Macau stayed under European rule until 1999 when it was handed back to China although, like Hong Kong, it remains a Special Economic Area, and is likely to stay that way considering the loot it's drawing in.

Here's a little taster of the type of jaw dropping architecture that's gracing the shores of the Pearl River Delta:






It's not all casinos and gambling - there's also some monuments ...


And then there are some more casinos - even themed ones:


The places we have visited over the last 5 months have been very kind and put on events for our arrival and Macau was no different. The second indoor Asian Games started whilst we were there - and here was the team from Tajikistan to greet us:

Joanna preferred the Macau Games Duck:


But what you really want to know is - did we get into the swing of the gambling and lose our fortune at the Blackjack tables? Well, no. In fact, we made a bit of a discovery in Macau: Joanna is tighter with money than Ben. He would have been happy to splash out 6 squid a pop to have a go on the roulette, but Joanna was a big ole killjoy. She puts it down to watching too many Las Vegas films where the only winner is the meanie casino owner like Al Pacino or Andy Garcia who sit in their control rooms counting the pots of money that the punters are throwing away. In other words, if you want to go gambling, don't take Joanna, it's no fun!

But Ben still managed to get into the Las Vegas vibe ...