Hong Kong and Macau - July 2012

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong in the morning and, in comparison to India, everything was easy again! Staying in the Tsim Sha Tsui area on the southern tip of Kowloon peninsula facing Hong Kong Island, we had a nice long 9 days to relax back in normal civilisation after the craziness of India!

During our first couple of days, we went to Hong Kong Island by ferry and took the Victoria Peak tram up to the highest point on Hong Kong Island for a stunning view of the central area, harbour and Kowloon peninsula. We also went to the Wan Chai old town area, took in the impressive architecture in Central, visited Happy Valley Race Course and Victoria Park.

Local artist painting the infamous Hong Kong skyline

Bank of China building

People enjoy shopping at the local swanky shops

Super skinny trams

Victoria Peak tram

View from the top of Victoria Peak

Bustling  streets

Lan Kwai Fong street festival

Enjoying the festival

Central on Hong Kong Island

Happy Valley Racecourse

View across the harbour from Hong Kong Island

On Hong Kong Island South we visited Aberdeen fishing village and Ap Lei Chau which is an island connected at Aberdeen and is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, tightly packed with high rise buildings. Repulse Bay and Stanley are smaller towns in the south where we had picnics on the beach and cooled off with a swim in the sea. Being the geek that he is, Steve also went to Arup Hong Kong office and later we wandered through the Temple St Night Market which turned out to be a bit of a letdown after the good reviews.

Boat trip on a local sampan with the famous floating 'Jumbo' restaurant in the background

Repulse Bay

Beach at Stanley

On Lantau Island, we took the cable car up to the Big Buddha which was a very commercialised experience with a Disney-like feel. We took the bus round the island visiting Tai O which is a traditional fishing village on stilts.

Cable car on Lantau up to the Big Buddha

Big Buddha sat on his hill

Say cheese!

Statues surrounding Big Buddha

Amazing fresh seafood at Tai O

Puffer fish comin' atcha! ...from a Tai O market stand

Tai O village on stilts

Other places we visited and things we did whilst in HK included Kowloon Park and a large outdoor pool where we met a guy from Sheffield, ate rubbery cow stomach ('beef omason' on the menu sounded nice!), Cheung Chau Island near Lantau where we watched chubby French guys belly flop off a pontoon in the sea, and Sai Kung in the New Territories where a grade 1 typhoon ended our day at the beach.

Cheung Chau Island

Port at Cheung Chau

A hidden bay at Cheung Chau

Neighbouring island viewed from Cheung Chau

Flamingos at Kowloon Park

Cows on the beach!

Fresh sea food at Sai Kung

Brewing typhoon at Sai Kung

Infamous Hong Kong skyline on Hong Kong Island

After our planned time was up in Hong Kong, we got the hour-long boat west over to Macau early in the morning.

Macau

We hadn’t really looked into Macau much before we booked our accommodation a few days before arriving and were pretty surprised to find ourselves booking to stay in a fairly swanky four-star job with attached casino! As the only place in China where gambling is legal, Macau is known as the Las Vegas of the East and is crammed full of posh casinos and hotels. It’s not really geared towards back-packers and there are not any cheap hostels here. Since we’d only planned to stay one night and two days altogether in Macau because of the cost, we aimed to get round Macau peninsula and the southern island areas of Taipa and Coloane where we were staying in a short time.

We headed straight out into Taipa village, got some traditional Portuguese food then made our way over to the ‘Cotai Strip’ where most of the big hitting casinos are in Taipa. Taipa has the world’s largest casino called the Venetian and several other huge casinos, each impressively decorated inside and out and providing light shows at night. We made use of the free bus shuttles flitting between casinos transport terminals and hotels and got ourselves over to the Avenida da Amizone where the glitzy casino area is in Macau. The Grand Lisboa was probably one of the grandest casinos and we stood and watched one guy in his twenties throw away well over £10,000 in the 10 minutes we were watching him! All the casinos were rammed full of gamblers and we didn’t see any tables with a minimum bet below $300 MOP (£25). No wonder Macau rakes in more money than Las Vegas when people spend like that!

Park in Taipa Village

City of Dreams casino complex

Galaxy Casino complex

Taipa Village - strong Portuguese influence

The world's largest casino - The Venetian 

Posh casino interior!

Macau Tower

Bridge linking Coloane and Taipa

The spectacular interior of Grand Lisboa 

Grand Lisboa casino lit up at night

We were due to fly out of Macau to Bangkok the following day but a strengthening typhoon meant that all flights were cancelled. We still had to go to the airport to book onto a different flight for the following day but because this took so long and the storm had got so bad, there was no transport back to the town so we ended up having to rough it at the airport for the night! That night the storm apparently reached the level 9 signal (level 10 being the highest). The next day we were too tired to do much so we snoozed in a cafe in one of the huge casino complex until our rescheduled flight late that night.

Our flight was delayed until quite a lot later than rescheduled but we eventually got to Bangkok around 3am the next day, shattered.

Typhoon sign at the airport

Our bed for the night at Macau airport