Boats

To add to our series of motion-sickness inducing devices, today we have a boat! Okay, so we didn’t quite go the 11000 km to Las Vegas, and had to settle with the closest alternative, Macau. But considering that our hotel is actually based on the plans of its Vegas sibling, we might as well be. And I’ve also recognised a few other casino names from various movies in Vegas.

Macau is actually quite small, from border to border, but not quite small enough that you would want to carry your 20kg of luggage from one end to the other. Luckily, our casino (sorry, our hotel) provides a shuttle bus (cough coach). Upon arrival, we could see other coaches on the road, all with the names of other Casino’s, nothing which resembled actual public transport. Though as we got closer to the centre of Macau, there were a few poles which did resemble bus stops, and the taxis also don’t cost a fortune.

Now, if you’re the kind of person who thinks that gold is the best thing on the planet, would never tire of the stuff, would preferably have a solid mattress of the stuff, Macau might still produce an overload. So you can probably image the effect on some poor sod like me. There are entire buildings that reflect the colour, in shapes to make an engineer cry. Which also provide quite a clash to the residential buildings that look like they haven’t seen someone maintaining them since the Portuguese left. And even that seems questionable.

Our Hotel is an experience by itself. Gondola’s going around a canal on the third floor, a large shopping street under a fake blue sky, and enough games to make you lose your money at the blink of an eye. It also has the first clean water, non-chlorine, non-saltwater, crystal-clear swimming pool that I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy. One of the benefits I guess of not being in a country that’s worried whether it has enough water for next week.

This is slowly starting to mark the end of our trip. We’ve a bit more time of relaxation here and there, but the next two days are outlines with basically undoing all of the hops that we’ve done to get to Japan, Hong Kong, and then Macau. Who knows, maybe we get stuck somewhere along the way and have to spend another month travelling. Won’t that be a shame.