Macau

Macau (literally "trading gate" in Chinese) Is one of the oldest colonial concerns in China, it was occupied by the Portuguese for over 400 years and it shows in everything, from the architecture, to street names (try "Avenue Gonaza Gonza Gomes") to the attitudes of the locals. It's a strange expereince, stepping off from the ferry in Hong Kong, to find everything chiefly in Portuguese and Cantonese, with some English here and there.

Macau feels very much like a European city, much mroe than Hong Kong does. Although there are not too many cafes, there are plenty of sun drenched boulivards and cozy medditerranian alleyways, beautiful catholic churches, and oddly enough (and slightly out of place) about 20 enormous Las Vegas style casinos. Which is where the Chinese side of things shows it's face most strongly.

A test of every city or village I visit is the "smile test" and that involves awarding great big beaming smiles to strangers as you walk past to see what their reaction is. Hong Kong did not score highly on this test at all. In fact of all the places I've visited I've not found a place where people smile less than Hong Kong, even in Tokyo you can probe a smile off of a cute girl if you try hard enough. But Hong Kongers are either extremely miserable or very bored and unhappy with their lives, as after 12 days I still couldn't seem to raise a smile off of anyone (except in Chunking Mansions, and isn't that a surprise?)

Macau by contrast scores very highly with all the locals offering such glowing smiles that I haven't seen since Thailand and Laos.

In fact Macau reminds of Thailand in some less impress ways too, namly the sleaze industry. After a fantastic night out at a casino in Macau, I returned to my very reasonable16 pounds a night room at the central hotel (which although the cheapest, even the tout had warned me that it was maybe "not the best choice" and I was about to find out why) Upon arriving in the lobby two very bored prostitutes were waiting on the seats, seemingly waiting to snap up some poor weak witted disgraceful guy. After a few half-hearted calls of "massage?" I ignored them and instead tried to negotiate with the lobby staff (who were turning a totally blind eye to this behaviour all around them) a wake up call for myself. While doing this, a much more persistant prostitute comes up to me and starts the usual rubbish about being lonely and wanting to give me a massage, etc etc. This one actually has the cheek to follow me up to my room on the seventh floor, and stand stubbonly in the doorway trying to convinve me of her services, after about 10 miniutes of smiles and polite "no" on my part, I decide that she really isn't going to go away, and change my tone to as close to menacing as I can get and start grumbling something about flying to Vietnam, and whether the Macau police would be interested to know about her work at the hotel. This seemed to work, and she finally buggered off after pestering me for over 10 minutes at my door. Every where I have gone in Asia there has been a sleaze and sex industry, it's just that in some places it's more covered up than others. Even squeaky clean places such as Central in Hong Kong have a dark underbelly.

After being raised to think such behaviour is unacceptable and downright exploitive and cruel on the women's part, in many cases. It's really depressing to see how popular this kind of Sex industry is everywhere in Asia. No smoke without fire as they say, the amount of tourists sexploiting this beautiful part of the world was initially quite shocking to me, but I suppose I was naive to think that was any other way.

Some fo you may have raised eyebrows when you read I visited a casino. After meeting with a french friend who I met at Chunking Mansions in Hong Kong, her first suggestion for entertainment in Macau was a casino, I immediatly mentioned that I'm not a gambler, and she laughed this off, stating that casino's in Macau are more of all in one entertainment centres. She was right.

Upon arriving at "The Venetian" the first thing I saw was a life size (probably plastic but I'm not sure as it was very realistic) replica of Saint Mark's Square. Inside it truly was the playground of the rich, with thousands upon thousands of gaming tables, unlimited free drinks, caberet shows, enormous hotel suites, high end department stores, beautiful women and whatever else you can possibly imagine.

Taking advantage of other's misfortune by getting many free drinks, and watching others win big (and lose big) by the end of the night I did decide that I would have to try a small bet on Roulette (50 HK, about 3 pound fifty) just to see if I could cover my taxi ride for the next day. Unfortunately lady luck was not smiling at me, and I lost. It was another "ticked box" on the my imaginary "list of things to do in asia" list. It was easy to see how one could be sucked into the deadly gambling cycle however, as the temptation to withdraw more money to continue playing was surprisingly strong. My friend said that several people per year "mysteriously disappear" as a result of unpaid gambling debts. After hearing that, it seemed that the glamorous veneer that this Casino presented, was perhaps hiding something much more sinister underneath.

Despite this however, if you can control your spending, then there's no reason why a casino would not be a fun place to hang out for a couple of days, especially with some good friends. Although it's not the number one reason I would come back to Macau. The ancient churches and building are the most beautiful thing about this city, and in a way I wish I had another day, as I sit here in the airport looking mournfully our the window at the crap weather that's hit us suddenly (another Amber Rainstorm alert was issued this morning) In any case it's back to Vietnam now, the land of killer roads, where I have to prepare myself for the rather intensive battering I'm going to receive once I get off the plane. It'll go something like this:

Tout 1 (screaming) : "You want moto-taxi?!"

Me: "No"

Tout 2 (screaming): "You need room??!, MANY GIRLS!!"

Me: "No"

Tout 3 (whispering): "You want Hashish?"

Me (loudly): "No I don't want Weed in the airport"

Tout 3: *Vanishes*

Unfortunately as I've said many times before having a backback is the ultimate I'm-a-tourist-and-have-just-arrived-and-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing look. And also the sign of a soft target, as you can't get away quickly, because you have the dexterity of a turtle. Fortunately I'm meeting Chao on Sunday so I won't have to suffer the madness alone for long. It's only 17 days now until my flight home. This one which I will not be changing at the last minute. But I don't really want to think about that right now.

Anyway I must go now as my flight departs in 15 minutes.