Macao Summer Holiday 2007

Holiday Number 1 of 3 Different Holidays

Since nothing spectacular happened to me in Macao, except for the amount of money I lost gambling, this particular story focuses on the trials and tribulations of organizing the trip.  From my front door to my hotel (almost 12 hours) I used:

• 1 Train
• 1 Taxi
• 1 Plane
• 2 Buses
• 1 Ferry

Looking From the Cemetery on Taipa to Macao Island

Apart from one week in May of 2006 to attend a family wedding, I have not been home to Australia for holidays since January of 2005.  Although I had thought to go home this Summer, I ended up deciding not to bother. As I wrote in Finding Myself in China: Shan Tang Sheng Ji

• I love my life so much, that returning once a year just to spend an hour or two in polite conversation with whomever can get free from their busy schedules (they all live in different cities), is simply not what I want to do.

Ruins of St. Paul's Church. They Lock that Ediface. Don't understand why?

But this decision not to go home left me with the problem of what to do.

Originally I had thought I might return to Paris and even duck across to Italy to visit Chiara. 

Then I thought I might go to Japan. I had even thought of going back to Hong Hu to see the relatives there, and visit with Mingxing, (friend and former student) but he told me that he was going to be working throughout the Summer in Chengdu (where he studies).

Finally I decided that since I had never been to Macao, and given that they have one attraction that I just love to death (playing pokie / slot machines) that that was what I would do.

Having made the decision, all I had to do was make the arrangements - not always as simple as it sounds in China. (See: Around the Bund - Shanghai) My first problem was to find a hotel. 

This was simple enough. I just went to the Ctrip website, found one and booked it. Having worked that small detail out, (I booked into the Best Western Hotel Taipa), I had to organize the journey.

A-Ma Temple Macao Island

Of course I was going to fly, and that naturally being from Shanghai, but that's when I discovered something strange.  While Macao and Hong Kong are 'a part of China', if you want to travel there from the mainland, it is 'an international destination', and places like Ctrip may only sell domestic air tickets, not international air tickets. mmm?

Opposite the Street going up to 'Monte Fort'

Not a problem though, I could just use my credit card and book through some other travel agency.  That's when I got a new shock. 

Already knowing the approximate price of the air ticket, all those travel agencies advertised prices (for the American market) at up to 4 times the regular fee. 

I gave that away as a joke!

In the end I decided to book a domestic ticket through Ctrip and go to Shenzhen, from whence I could go to Macao by Ferry.  Oh no! Another Problem. 

The nice high speed ferries travel regularly only between Hong Kong and Macau, not Shenzhen and Macao. 

The ordinary ferry from Shenzhen wouldn't get me to Macao until sometime in the evening, and I was already scheduled to leave my home in SuZhou very early in the morning. 

Finally I found that there were in fact 3 high speed ferries each day from Shenzhen, and my plane was due to arrive in Shenzhen one hour prior to the Ferry departure.  Note that I said 'Due'.  You will understand my trepidation a little later in this story. (Macao Website - Ferry from Shenzhen and Hong Kong)

Street going up to 'Monte Fort'

So now I have a hotel booked in Macao, with an arrival time at 4 pm, provided that the Ferry arrives in Macao on time, and provided I can find the hotel bus to take me from Macao Island to Taipa; and provided my plane arrives on time in Shenzhen to meet the shuttle bus to the Ferry port.  Beginning to get the picture?

From St. Paul's Church Ruins you can see the wall of the fort.

So now I have a plane ticket to Shenzhen, a Ferry ticket to Macao, and a hotel to stay in when I get there.  My plane is due to leave Shanghai Pudong airport (provided they don't change location at the last minute as they did when I flew from Wuhan to Shanghai), at 9:30 am.  This just leaves me the problem of getting from SuZhou to Shanghai.

From the top of the fort you can walk down these stairs to the interior (or go inside the buidling and take the escalators)

This was, or so I thought, the least of my worries, because I had already checked out the details for catching an hourly express service originating from up near the 'walking street' (mall), and it was only going to cost me 50 rmb and would only take 90 minutes to get there.

Next problem!  Now that I have organised everything, I went to get the bus ticket.

That was when I discovered that the 90 minute journey from Suzhou was to Hongqiao airport, and that it would take another hour to get to Pudong Airport.  (SuZhou to Shanghai Express Bus)

Since the earliest bus was scheduled to leave at 6am, this meant that I would not arrive at the airport until at least 8:30am - provided there were no hold ups. This would leave me just 30 minutes to go through check-in and security. I didn't like my chances!

Ok!  Well, I can catch the train from SuZhou to Shanghai - only takes about an hour.  This will not be a problem! (Sure!) The real question was whether I could get to the airport on time.  So I checked out the bus times.  (Travel tips in Shanghai)

It turned out that there was a No. 5 bus leaving from Shanghai railway station, that would take only 70 minutes to get to Pudong airport.  So that meant that I needed to allow for a 20 minute search and wait for the bus to leave; 70 minutes + for the trip, and an arrival at the airport at least 1.5 hours prior to 9.30am. 

Another view of St. Paul's Ruins.

So I needed to be at the railway station at the latest by 6.30am.  Ahh!  I could do it! 

There were two trains leaving SuZhou that would get me there by that time.  So I set off for the railway station to buy a ticket.

Life is always difficult for the foreigner in China.  You see - while I knew exactly where to go to pay for an advanced reserved train ticket, the SuZhou rail authorities decided to move that sales point to another location.

So imagine my surprise when the ticket seller would not sell me a ticket, but instead tells me to go 'over there' to buy it.  Where is 'over there'?

I returned to the entrance and asked a policeman.  He, pointing off in the distance, tells me it is 'over there'!  There is nothing 'over there' except a few shops, behind which is the road, behind which they are digging up the ground in preparation for something.

Looking toward Zhuhai on the Mainland, from the Fort.

I walked a little further and told someone my plight and said I couldn't find the place 'over there'.  Not a problem though, because that man knew where I should go, and pointing off into the distance, told me to 'go over there'!. I walked a little further and got mobbed by taxi drivers. 

So I told them my problem, and they understood it exactly.  They carefully explained that the ticket office is moved, and that I must 'go over there'! I looked at the guy, looked 'over there' and said: 'There's nothing @#$%^ over there!' 

Cemetery up the hill from the Best Western Hotel - Taipa

He laughed and said: 'Come! I'll show you!'  And he did.  'Over there' was a place a couple of hundred metres 'over there where they are digging' and you could get 'over there', by a little walkway that they had prepared.  Ah!

Hac Sa (Cantonese) Beach (Hei Sa Wan)at Coloane - Lu Huan

I went back and got my bicycle and headed off to go 'over there', but when I got 'over there', I found myself on a main road, and had to ask a policemen where to go.  Finally someone who could help me.  He kindly pointed out that the ticket office was 'over there'!

Inside the fort - going down the escalaotrs ; and the exterior shot.

I crossed the road and started walking.  I went a little way and encountered a driveway down and up which people were walking, at the bottom of which was some sort of big shed.  I thought: 'This can't be it.'  But as I continued to walk, I realised that there was nothing ahead that even remotely resembled any type of business or office. 

Senado Square Macao Island

I turned around.  Just then a man standing on the footpath asked me if I was looking for the ticket office, and advised me it was to be found 'down there'!Well - at last!  I went into the shed-like building, and found the queues very short and in no time at all, I was at the counter to buy my ticket.

Government administration building on Macao at Senado Square

Church at the Museum on Taipa

"Ticket to Shanghai on the 11th at 5:20 am!" I announced.

Which type of ticket?" he asked. 

And that's when my overworked brain decided not to function.  I could not for the life of me remember how to order a soft or hard seat ticket. 

Not to worry though, I decided to say: 'Ordinary ticket!' That should cover it, and it did.  The ticket cost be just 15 rmb.  That was not a good sign!

When I got home I checked the dictionary to see what 'Wu zuo' meant, and found it was a ticket for a 'no seat' journey!

What this meant, was that I was going to be standing between the carriages beside the toilets for the whole of the journey.

'Oh golly gosh - darn it!' I thought! (well it was more like: I've got a @#$%^&* ticket and @#$%^ have to stand for the whole @#$%^& journey. #$%^& this trip I don't want to go!)

Statue of another famous person at the Museum garden on Taipa

Well, as things turned out, this foul up turned out to be the most blessed event in all the organisation of my multiple journeys. 

But first, I still had a problem.  How was I going to get from Home to the railway station?  Taxi of course!  What if I couldn't find a taxi?  I'd have to walk. 

How long would it take to walk to the station?  About an hour!  So I figured that I needed to leave home by 4.15 am so that if I couldn't find a taxi, I could walk to the station by 5:20am.

Come the morning of July 11th, I walked out the gates of my school (fortunately the Guard was awake) and immediately a taxi pulled up in front of me.  Wow! What luck.  Ten minutes later I was at the station. 35 minutes early!.

I sat outside the station for 20 minutes, drinking a coke, smoking cigarettes and talking to all the locals who had slept out during the night so that they could get an early morning ticket. With 15 minutes to go, I entered the station, to be confronted by a sign that said the first train (my train) was running 90 minutes late!  How lovely!

Museum building Taipa

Turning on my heels I bolted for the ticket office and explained that I needed to be on the first train. I didn't care about the cost.  Just give me a ticket.  The lady asked to see my other ticket, and after scribbling something on it, stamped it with an official stamp and sent me back to the station.  I was now booked for a 'standing ride' on the second train at 5:36 am. and at no extra cost.  Had I purchased a soft or hard seat ticket the day I went to book the ticket, this would not have been possible.

Fountain at the Taipa Museum

The train came in, I got on, and together with all the others crowding between the carriages, I stood all the way to Shanghai.  Not a soul spoke to me - just about me!  As we arrived at Shanghai, a guard passing through the train stopped and in Chinese asked me where I had boarded.  When I announced that I had boarded in SuZhou, all those lovely people who had spent the last hour talking about me - fainted!

Down at the Museum on Taipa

Once outside the Shanghai railway station I had difficulty finding the No. 5 bus to the airport, and when a female taxi driver started to pester me I told her I would not pay such money. 

 

Gardens and buildings at the Museum on Taipa

She asked me to name a price.  Already knowing that it was between 160 and 200 rmb, I told her that I would pay 100 rmb. 

Ferry from Shenzhen

She immediately accepted the price, and, without using the meter, set off for the airport. 

Along the way she told me that I was the first foreigner in her 15 years of driving, to enter her cab - hence the special price.(Website for Taxi pickup / delivery - Shanghai Airport)

Well I made it to Pudong airport on time; the plane left on time; arrived on time; the ferry left on time; the shuttle bus to the hotel arrived on time; and about 11 hours after I set out from Shanghai China, I arrived in Macao China.

Wonderful staff from Best Western Taipa Hotel

I stayed in Macao from July 11th to 20th.  During that time Mingxing contacted me and informed me that his job fell through.  So on July 20th I headed off to Chengdu Sichuan. 

Remember how earlier I drew attention to the word 'Due'?

While my trip from SuZhou to Macao went off without a hitch, when it came time to fly from Shenzhen to Chengdu, that word 'due' took on real significance. 

But for that story you will have to wait until I write about my trip to LeShan in Chengdu Sichuan.

The Old Macao - Zhuhai border crossing.

Lao's photo and house on Macao. Famous man.

SEE: Larger and Different Photos from Macao

R.P.Bendedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com
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R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (www.kingscalendar.com), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China.

Photographic Stories From China

"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls.