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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.
Already without a wink of sleep since the day previous, I stand in an eerily silent hotel foyer, waiting for my taxi. The inner city roads are still quite busy for 4 a.m, but the freeway to Suvarnabhumi International Airport is like a 10 mile long runway, waiting to be attacked like 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 back to Mui Wo ferry port.
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. I get even more stares than normal – perhaps it’s my shirt. Yeah, that’s it. After a while we bus it to Tsim Sha Tsui. Today isn’t any old day. Today is glorious. We are heading for Macau.
An hour by ferry from Hong Kong is the truly bizarre Special Administrative Region of Macau – a rather out of the way, out of place, casino obsessed enclave of China. It’s impossible to describe, mainly because of the mix of Portuguese, Chinese and Cantonese architecture and population. The result? An extremely odd hybrid.
