Silk Route

Day 13 - Fri 28 Mar 08

Hong Kong -> Macau -> Hong Kong

Up at about 09:00 for breakfast in the hotel, expensive, but it is quite a spread. By the time we'd got down town and found the Macau ferry terminal the next boat leaving was 11:45. Cleared HK immigration quickly and got sent aboard the 11:35 ferry. There's a boat every 10 minutes at peak periods. The trip over was very smooth, but immigration at Macau was painfully slow, with our queue being the slowest.

It was 14:00 by the time we'd caught the bus downtown. I'd changed some HK$ but I needn't have bothered, as the bus takes HK$!

Macau ferry ticket

Walked up to the top of Battery Hill and got some good views over Macau. It's changed a lot since I was last here. There are a lot more hi-rise buildings. I remember that the road down to the tower was empty, now there's a casino and a theme park!

Revisited St Paul's and stuck my nose into a couple of casino's - it has exactly the same (awful) feeling as Las Vegas. There seem to be far fewer 'meat on stick' sellers here than when I was here last. Then it was the bus back to the ferry terminal, grabbed something to eat before heading back. Immigration was speedy (!) and we were the last two stand-by customers aboard the boat. Back to HK by 17:00

Found a place in the IFC tower that would give you Internet access if you brought some cake - tough call! Some more hi-tech shopping took us to about 20:00 and then to the waterfront to see the daily light show. A long walk back to the metro station and then back to the hotel for a shower and out to the local shopping mall and a Japanese restaurant. Back to the hotel via a 7-11 for an ice-cream and a bottle of Pocari Sweat. Phil headed off to find a bar, I headed for bed!