Pearl River Delta

  Macau, China
Monday, December 18, 2006

The former Portuguese colony of Macau is only a hour away from Hong Kong by ferry, but in many ways it couldn't have felt more different from its neighbour. Neither of us had been there before and we only had what our shiny new guidebook said about it to go on. I certainly had a strange sense of foreboding - my attempts to book a room hadn't gone well, I'd called 4 different places and although they were listed in the Rough Guide, no one spoke English - it got so bad I had to ask a woman in our Hong Kong hostel to come to my aide. We got a room, but it was repeatedly stressed that we had to get there before 4pm. We arrived at six. Luckily the woman was very forgiving and didn't turn us away.

21 Other side of Macau

We were staying on Rua de Felicidade or Happiness Street which used to be in the heart of the red light district - the guidebook did have a habit of dwelling on this seedy aspect of Macau's society by saying things in hotel reviews along the lines of "Once you get past the bevy of mainland prostitutes in the lobby, the rooms are actually quite nice...". That and gambling seem to be what Macau is famous for, but I'm pleased to say we didn't indulge in either and still had a really fantastic time. Once again for us, the food was a highlight - we gorged on delicious fresh bread, Portuguese pork and clams, Macanese crab and prawn curry, custard tarts and port. Traditional Pastelerias or cake shops are everywhere and you can spot the queues of Hong Kongers buying toffee and peanut brittle to take home - you have to be careful though as some of the things they sell are not sweets in the true sense, but made of bits of pig. Which bits we're not sure, but the reddish sheets of stuff for sale looked like they could be skin of some sort.

23 Old church

The weather in Macau was wonderful - clear blue skies and a perfect temperature for sightseeing, it seemed a shame to spend time indoors, but we made an exception for the Maritime Museum. This fascinating place was opened in 1990 and charts the seafaring history of China and Portugal. We've both just read a thought provoking book entitled: "1421: The Year China Discovered The World". It's written by Gavin Menzies a retired Royal Navy submarine commander who argues that in the early years of the Ming dynasty China sent fleets around the world. Under the command of the emperor's favourite eunuch Zheng He, the Chinese circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, travelled to South America seventy years before Columbus and discovered Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook. His argument is controversial, but it's interesting to see that the museum's line was pretty much as expected - the Portuguese were the great mariners of their day - only fleeting reference was made to Zheng He and his treasure voyages.

19 Macau Tower

After spending time in the museum we wandered around the adjacent A-Ma Temple - this is the oldest site on Macau and the story goes that it was built to honour A-Ma, the patron saint to fishermen, by some Fujianese sailors who were guided safely to shore at this spot during a storm. It slightly pre-dates the Portuguese landing at the same spot in the early 16th century and has been said to give Macau it's name from the local A-Ma Kok. The temple is really a sprawling mass of incense burners arranged around big rocks with calligraphy etched into them.

15 More incense

The place is alive with bossy guardians who sell incense to worshippers, allow them to light it and place it in the troughs in front of the altar, it remains there momentarily before the shopkeepers sweep them all up and throw them into a furnace to make way for more visitors wanting to say a pray and plant some joss-sticks. Very enterprising we thought. Our book also told us to look out for bowls of water with turtles in them - worshippers were supposed to throw in some money and try and balance it on their shells for good luck. The only

13 Incense coils

thing we saw were washing-up bowls full of water and paper money - clearly the gamblers in Macau didn't like the

16 A-Ma Monetary offerings

odds on a coin and thought they had more chance of hitting their target if they lobbed in a note instead.

The historic centre of Macau was recognised as a World Heritage site by Unesco in 2005 and you can see why. The beautiful colonial architecture around the main square, Largo do Senado, is very grand - the blues, whites, yellows and pinks of the buildings are lit up at

19 Macau Tower

night by tasteful (and some less than tasteful) Christmas lights. The streets around are alive with hundreds of mopeds - very Portuguese we thought and cars that stop at traffic lights (still a novelty after weeks in China!). We were intrigued to see that in Macau they drive on the left, the same as Hong Kong, but different to Portugal. We couldn't imagine the British being that laid back about their traffic arrangements in any colony, no matter how small.

06 Mopeds

As we walked the streets we kept marvelling that this lovely, clean oasis was now part of China;we read that Portugal had actually offered to withdraw unilaterally from the region in the 1970s, but China refused to take it back and judging by how proud the locals seemed of their Macanese culture (on display in the Macau

25 That's China over there

Museum as well as on the streets and restaurants) they didn't much want to go back to the motherland either. On the subject of the museum they had great displays illustrating traditional ways of life and crafts from fishing to firecracker and match making. They also had a cabinet dedicated to the local sport of cricket fighting, which included tiny feeding bowls and most bizarrely a cricket coffin!

24 Facade

On the square down the hill to the west of the museum is Macau's most famous landmark - the ruins of St Paul's Jesuit college. It was built from 1582 to 1602 and destroyed by fire in 1835, so that all that remains today is a wide flight of steps leading up to an intricately carved façade. It was created by Japanese craftsmen and combines Christian carvings with Chinese script and Japanese motifs. Today a small museum at the back contains the skeletal remains of 23 of the 26 Nagasaki Martyrs who were cruxified in Japan for their faith in 1597.  Gruesome, but interesting I thought and goes someway to explaining the seige mentality of the early missionaries in the region when they built the nearby Jesuit Guia Fortress (1617 - 1626) whose canons still face out to sea warning would-be mauraders to keep their distance.

01 Rua de Felicidade

Anyway that's all on Macau, the second former Portugese colony we've visited after Goa. Loved it but now we're back to China briefly on a whistlestop tour of various towns on our way all the way down to Saigon to meet Jim's parents who are there for one day only on Christmas Eve while on a cruise. It involves many different trains and buses over several days so wish us luck!