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Macau is many things. It’s colonial, it’s crass, and it’s that old word travel writers love – contradictory. It has enough casinos to compete with Las Vegas and just the right amount of Portuguese architecture to give the brief illusion that you might be in the back streets of Lisbon. Perhaps more importantly still, Macau is far more interesting than it’s paltry size would otherwise suggest.
Navigating from one point on the globe to another sparks quiet satisfaction, but the journey itself kindles a series of other odd side effects, too. You feel in a condition of eternal transit – as if you belong no where but the mid reaches of the atmosphere with ambient music droning quietly into your semi-receptible, often half-deaf ears. As if the destination always alludes you.
Already without a wink of sleep since the day previous, I stand in an eerily silent hotel foyer, waiting for my taxi to the airport. The inner city roads of Bangkok are still quite busy for 4 am, but the freeway to Suvarnabhumi International Airport is like a 10 mile long runway, waiting to be attacked as if it’s a Top Gear speed test. And we’ve just been given permission to roll.
Daybreak comes, and for a cloudy moment or two I consign to dream-like fiction my impending departure. But the snooze button can only be pressed so many times before I begin missing my connections altogether – and so it’s time for the first – a bus from outside our flat along the South Lantau Road to Mui Wo ferry port, followed by a boat journey over riotous waves into Central.
It’s early morning. Melody is supposed to be in University, but instead we find ourselves prowling around Tuen Mun on the hunt for some breakfast. Walking the semi-empty streets, I still manage to get more stares than normal – perhaps it’s my shirt. After filling our faces we take the bus to Tsim Sha Tsui. Today isn’t any old day. Today is glorious. We are heading for Macau.
