by Yvonne Horn, Contributing Editor
Before visiting in September 2011 as a representative of ITN, I’d never considered Macau when planning a trip — even during multiple trips to Hong Kong from which it lies but a hop and a skip away via fast ferry. The reason? Its reputation as a gambling destination.
The cling of slot machines and the flash of casino lights hold zero appeal for me. Without delving deeper, any interest in visiting stopped with my understanding that gaming was the only reason to take the speedy hydrofoil across the South China Sea. My mistake!
What I’d completely ignored was tiny Macau’s compelling history.
A look back
The Portuguese first sailed into the Pearl River estuary in 1513 and were summarily sent on their way. They returned in 1553, and this time they stayed.
What the Portuguese had in mind was to create a settlement, a hub for their hugely profitable trading network. They gathered such products as seasonings from the Spice Islands, cotton from India and clocks and mirrors from Europe for delivery to China, sailing out of Macau with the silk eagerly sought by the Japanese. In short order, Macau became powerful and wealthy, making it the richest port in the world.
Meanwhile, Jesuit priests and missionaries arrived via Portuguese ships with the goal of establishing Macau as the springboard for spreading Christianity throughout much of Asia. European mansions rose beside sculpted Chinese gardens, and Catholic churches became neighbors to Buddhist temples.
However, the golden years didn’t last forever. Decline had long settled in by the time an 1887 treaty recognized Portuguese sovereignty over Macau.
In 1999, with far less fanfare than that which accompanied Hong Kong’s handover 2½ years earlier, Macau became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China.
This long and rich East-meets-West history, in which two quite different cultures lived together harmoniously for centuries, is what most intrigued me during my 5-day visit.
Getting there
From Hong Kong’s airport, seamless underground transport delivered me to the ferry dock of TurboJET Sea Express (phone +852 2307 0880), where I stepped aboard a high-speed catamaran to Macau, 45 minutes away ($30 one way).
The serenity of the Mandarin Oriental hotel (phone +853 8805 8888) awaited our group of six journalists. The wide windows of my Deluxe Lakeview room ($438) invited panoramic water and city views.
Located on the peninsula where Macau’s lion’s share of historical sites are to be found, the Mandarin Oriental served as our headquarters for half our stay.
João Sales from the Macau Government Tourist Office was our guide throughout our stay. A lifelong resident of the city, Sales is Macanese, as the handsome mixture of Chinese and Portuguese descendants are known.
What more festive welcome to a new place could there be than to be greeted by fireworks? Macau’s 23rd annual international fireworks competition, a 5-day event, was under way.
Seated on a mezzanine terrace of the landmark Macau Tower, we feasted on barbecue, enjoyed unlimited pours of French wine and, after our long journeys, tried valiantly to stay awake while the competitors for the evening, Taiwan and Austria, lit up the sky.
Exploring the city
The next morning we stepped out of the hotel and into the Sunday-quiet streets of the Old City. Shuttered stall shops begged for our return another day to see what wares might be had inside; balconies of multistory apartments fluttered with laundry. We passed the soon-to-be-replaced docks on the Inner Harbour to watch a fisherman as he gutted his catch before salting it and hanging it out to dry.
A series of stairs, with stationary exercise equipment for public use on every landing, took us to the hilltop greenery of Camões Garden, dedicated to Portugal’s most famous poet. As we strolled its paths, it became apparent that the garden is treasured by those living in the jam-packed neighborhoods below.
Joggers, young mothers pushing strollers, singers and musicians rehearsing Chinese opera, people practicing tai chi and elderly men walking their birds all were taking advantage of their spacious, outdoor “living room.”
Memorable architecture
For such a small city, Macau boasts an incredible number of museums, 20 in all, ranging in subject from sacred art to pawnshops. I could have spent the good part of a day in the Maritime Museum (1, Largo do Pagode da Barra), built on the site where the first Portuguese landed in 1553. On multiple levels, exhibits cover seafaring Macau from the 15th century to the present. (Entry to most of Macau’s museums costs $2 or less.)
A large square separates the Maritime Museum from A-Ma Temple. There, Portuguese folk dancers regularly give Sunday performances, unfortunately canceled this day due to a light drizzle turned serious rain.
With umbrellas opened, we joined the throngs entering the temple’s gates to make our way via steps, moon gates and paths to tile-roofed prayer halls and pavilions and through courtyards and tiny gardens built into the boulder-strewn hill.
Dedicated to the goddess A-Ma, an enormous boulder in the main courtyard is carved with a model of the ship, painted bright red, said to have carried the goddess from her native Fujian, on the southeast coast of mainland China, to Macau.
It’s easy to find one’s way on the Macau Peninsula. Simply locate the impossible-to-miss Grand Lisboa Hotel, which dominates the cityscape. Finding itself among the top 10 on various “world’s ugliest buildings” lists, Lisboa’s spiky, meant-to-look-like-a-lotus design, which is bad enough in daylight, is highlighted by a million LED lights at night.
Situated directly in back of the hotel, the distinguished colonial architecture of the Clube Militar de Macau (phone +853 2871 4000) is a startling contrast in design. Built in 1870 as a private association for its army officer members, the club opened to the public in 1995, allowing nonmembers the opportunity to dine in colonial style.
Arched windows, wood flooring and tall ceilings with whirring fans set the scene for a beloved Sunday tradition, Cozido à Portuguesa (about $15). Served buffet style and heavy on meats accompanied by platters of vegetables, red beans and rice, this meal is always washed down with plenty of Portuguese red wine and, as João told us, normally followed by a siesta.
City sights
The next day we gathered for a walking tour of Macau’s historic center, classified since 2005 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We began at the Ruins of St. Paul’s, the façade of what was originally the cathedral of Mater Dei, built in the early 17th century and destroyed by fire in 1835. A small temple dedicated to the deity Na Tcha stands nearby.
Monte Fort, built by the Jesuits, includes barracks and storehouses designed to withstand a 2-year siege. It can be reached by foot or elevator from the ruins, and it offers magnificent views.
From the ruins, we descended an imposing flight of 70 granite steps into a street of shops and arcades reflecting the city’s cultural mix. Pastelarias sold mooncakes, and bowed balconies with wrought-iron railings shaded noodle factories. A crescent-shaped street led us to the high, yellow walls and heavy iron gate of St. Dominic, an exquisite 17th-century baroque church.
Next was Senado Square, on Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, with its black-and-white ribbon-pattern pavement reminiscent of Lisbon’s. The seat of Portuguese government and Macau’s urban center for centuries, the square, lined by pastel-colored, neoclassical buildings, remains a popular venue for public events and celebrations.
A gambling mecca
Now it was time for us to take a look at the Cotai Strip, a rapidly growing casino destination doing its best to “out-Vegas” Las Vegas. Cotai connects what was once two separate islands, Taipa and Coloane, and a bridge links this, now, single island to the tip of the peninsula.
Although China officially condemns gambling, casinos were permitted to stay in business in Macau after Portugal’s control was handed back — the only region in China where it is legal. China also deregulated the business, opening the industry to developers outside Macau. A proliferation of resort hotels resulted, with more in the works.
Before crossing the bridge to Cotai, I’d already concluded that even those with zero interest in gambling should not miss Macau’s fabulous casino hotels. While the Mandarin Oriental does not have a casino, the MGM Macau, connected by an upscale mall lined with designer boutiques, does.
The interior of the MGM Macau took my breath away with its grandiose fresh flower displays, tastefully glittering public rooms and displays of American glass artist Dale Chihuly’s sculptures, including an enormous glass sculpture covering the ceiling of the main lobby. Surprisingly, the hotel’s casino was not prominently featured; in fact, I never stumbled across it.
The City of Dreams, a collection of three luxury hotels, features water, representing luck and the flow of fortune, as a recurring architectural theme. The Hard Rock Hotel’s circular tower resembles a water vortex; the cascading lines of the Crown Towers suggest falling rain, and the Grand Hyatt (phone +853 8868 1234), our hotel for the second half of our stay, has twin towers that curve in upward waves.
There was more water at the City of Dreams’ “Dragon’s Treasure” show ($4), a 10-minute adventure viewed in The Bubble theater. Leaning on rails, up to 500 people watch as the Dragon King dives through his aquatic kingdom.
Later that day we took in “The House of Dancing Water” (approximately $60-$100 per adult, depending on seat location), a megashow of watery stunts and high-wire acrobatic acts with a story line having something to do with rescuing a Chinese princess held in a cage, if I caught the drift.
The City of Dreams is surrounded by other hotels, each with its own luxury theme, including the 3,000-suite Venetian, one of the largest casino-resorts in the world.
Touring Taipa
With a morning at leisure, I was curious to see if anything remained of the old fishing village of Taipa. I was delighted to find narrow streets lined with shophouses, a Taoist temple dedicated to the goddess of seafarers and, on the banyan-shaded waterfront, a row of five green-and-white villas, once the summer residences of wealthy Macanese, now restored to their former elegance. One houses the Taipa Houses Museum (phone +853 2882 7103).
As a group, we paid an afternoon visit to the village of Coloane’s Seac Pai Van Park (phone +883 2887 0277), on the western side of the island. Our reason for visiting was Kai Kai and Xin Xin, two roly-poly pandas for whom a special pavilion has been built. Admission to the park is free, but entry to the panda pavilion costs $2.
Macanese cuisine
While fine-dining options abound at the casino-resorts — the dim sum at the City of Dreams’ Treasure Palace (phone +853 8868 6661), at $2-$8 per selection, was especially memorable — João took us to some of his favorite Taipa restaurants. A no-frills lunch of vegetarian fare prepared by the Buddhist monks of Pou Tai Temple (phone +853 2893 0321) was delicious ($7).
Dinner ($20) at the unpretentious, family-run Ó Manel (phone +853 2882 7571) featured Portuguese cuisine with vinho verde, Portugal’s young “green wine.”
António (phone +853 2899 9998), one of Macau’s finest restaurants, was João’s choice for our farewell dinner (about $40 with a starter and main course). In his cozy, mahogany-framed dining room, chef António Coelho took us on a Portuguese culinary journey that included flambéed sausage, gratinéed goat cheese with olive oil and honey and more.
Coelho walks a fine line between theater and fine cuisine, a combination that provided a perfect ending as we toasted our Macau days together.
As TurbotJET Sea Express’ catamaran sped me back across the South China Sea en route to Hong Kong’s airport, I thought about my five days in Macau. Would I travel from the US for the sole purpose of visiting Macau? No. How about tacking it on to a Hong Kong or mainland China trip? Absolutely!
Plan for a stay of two or three days, minimum, with the assurance of not being continually confronted with opportunities to drop a pataca into a slot — unless so inclined, of course.
Yvonne Horn was a guest of the Macau Government Tourist Office (866/656-2228).