Picture: The only source of income: casinos in Macau.
We decided on Easter Sunday to go to Macau, a tiny island one hour northwest of Hong Kong, that is famous for gambling and all the vices connected to it. Because of the Easter Holiday we only got a ride on the hydrojet boat that arrived at 1.15pm and left from Macau at 5.30pm. In fact, three hours was enough to take a scenic rickshaw ride and walk through the massive MGM Grand and Wynn casinos. In three short hours we saw most of Macau's colonial past (it was a Portuguese colony and up to now all the names are in Chinese and Portuguese) with the A-Ma Chinese temple and crumbling high-density houses as well as the prosperous future in gambling. We saw mainland Chinese gambling and shopping and we even spotted some Indonesians (no Russians though). And we missed the famous Venetian Casino as it is across a bridge and we did not find it. Overall we were disappointed by the bleakness of Macau and were happy to leave again.
PS: The ferry ride from Hong Kong Island only takes an hour but I was seriously tempted to take the 16min. helicopter ride for 300 USD.
For more pictures click here: http://easteatswest.typepad.com/photos/macau/
Picture: Old and vanishing Macau.
Picture: Old A-Ma temple that probably gave Macau its name.
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