Day 14 - Macau, here we come!

After packing up all our belongings, we headed on the Metro (surprise surprise) to the main bus station, where Liv used her Chinese skills once again to purchase us two tickets to Zhuhai (a city on the border of Macau). This was the first time Liv communicated completely in Chinese and it worked! She's feeling very proud!

After 2 and a half hours we arrived at Zhuhai with no idea which was the border the Macau was - we thought we'd just walk - but locals soon informed us it would be a long walk and pointed us to a bus! After a bus change-over, we were looking quite lost (which is becoming the norm!), another local asked if they could help and escorted us to the border for customs!

On arrival, we once again thought we'd walk to the hostel, but after yet another friendly local's advice we ended on a bus for the half hour trip to the town centre! This trip was longer than required as we didn't get off the bus when we should have - lesson learnt: get off the bus when you at least know where you are!

Once again walking, and looking lost, we were approached by the hostel-owner, of all people, who lead us to a much cheaper and more basic hostel (that happens to be one of the historic buildings of Macau, i.e. old) than we were heading towards! It's our first hostel with no air-con, so we'll see how that goes tonight - it's well into the 30s here, and we're losing water as fast as we can put it in!

We headed into town for a wander, and found ourselves at lots of historical sites including the ruins of the Church of St Paul (which is the very symbol of Macau) and the Monte Fort built in 1617 where we checked out the cannons which have only been fired once (1622). From here we continued to wander, realising we were on the Largo do Senado, famous for its swirling black and white tiled streets. We found an Indian restaurant for dinner (much to Liv's delight) - though our most expensive meal yet, it was the first that we totally devoured! Feeling revived we headed home to change and set off for the Casinos! Macau is the Las Vegas of the East, turning over more money than Las Vegas itself!

We first went to the original Casino Lisboa, where we found a lot of smoking old men and not much excitement! We then went to the Grand Lisboa, which lived up to its name, entertaining us with lights, shows, and much more glamour - so it was here Adam placed his one bet on the Wheel of Fortune, which he lost - just! We left with our only gains being a free bottle of water and headed home to sleep (hopefully). Adlibing it, without aircon.