It was day 3 of our trip to Hong Kong. Our destination for the day was Macau – we had planned to do a day-trip covering most of the must-visit places in the city.

Starting the day with 3 breakfasts

As you make your way down the Central-Mid-levels escalator in the morning, the smell of freshly baked goodies would drag you into the bakery called Bakehouse. There was a line at 8 am itself! I have a weakness for bakeries and wanted to eat everything! Since that wasn’t possible, we went for the beef rendang pie, vanilla custard doughnut and egg tart. Everything was delicious! The egg tart felt like a warm hug with a crispy flaky outer cover.

Next stop was a tiny place called Fineprint. It had a very unique vibe – dimly lit, a long table in the center and people sitting all around. Most of them were occupied with their own laptops or books. We ordered a half and half – avocado toast on one side and tomato with feta on the other. It was too good – I had never tasted avocado like this before – it was the perfect combination with the buttered crispy sourdough bread!

Our third breakfast was a small one – pineapple bun with BBQ pork and wife cake (one story goes that a baker loved his wife’s creation of wintermelon pastry so much that he named it “Wife cake”) at Hang Heung bakery. All these places were on our way to the Macau ferry terminal – so we could just keep eating without any deviations. 

The ferry terminal at Sheung Wan

Google maps showed us that the ferry terminal was right across the road. But there was no way to cross it – and Maps told us to go half a kilometer down the road and then cross. We stood there for a minute eating our pineapple bun – the bun helped slow us down. That’s when we noticed the metro station entrance right there – and it had an exit on the other side!

Pro tip: don’t always be in a rush. Sometimes it helps to slow down – it opens up new options.

As soon as we entered the ferry terminal, we realised that we hadn’t carried our Hong Kong PAR form. But we felt safe as we had the entry slips which we got at immigration. They asked for neither as we exited immigration to board our ferry. They just looked at the passport and let us go. Huge sigh of relief!

The two ferries to Macau

There are two companies that operate ferries from Hong Kong to Macau. The rates are fixed for both. One of them, Cotai Water Jet, goes to the Taipa ferry terminal in Macau while the other, Turbojet, goes to the Outer Harbour ferry terminal. We had taken the ticket on Turbojet as we wanted to go to the north island first. Our return was from the south. We got both the tickets from Klook as they had some good deals running. The ferry started exactly on time.

The water was very choppy near the pier and became smoother as we went into the open sea. We crossed Lantau island from its south and reached Macau in exactly 1 hour. We cleared immigration smoothly and went in.

Enter Portuguese!

As soon as we entered the ferry terminal, we realised that we were in a different world now. All the English signboards were replaced by Portuguese! Our SIM card was not working anymore. It actually felt more European. 

We spoke to the folks at the tourist information desk and they told us that HKD was accepted everywhere. So, we didn’t need to convert any currency. The buses charged 6 HKD per person for one trip (anywhere to anywhere). But we needed exact change as it was a drop-box system. No change would be given back if you have a higher denomination. The Macau pass would cut down the rate to half but it didn’t make sense to get it for a single day trip.

Starting at Senado square

We used offline Google Maps and the bus maps to figure out the bus number that would take us to Senado square. As soon as we got down, we were face-to-face with a Portuguese egg tart. It wasn’t great for 2 reasons – we had eaten the original one in Belem, Portugal which was in a different league. Second, the egg tart we ate in the morning from Bakehouse was a lot better.

We walked along Rua de Felicidade, posed with the Panda statues and tried freshly baked almond cookies at a local shop (didn’t like them at all!). We crossed the Senado square which had beautiful tiled mosaic floors.

The patterned floor showed us the way to the ruins of St Paul cathedral. Christmas decorations were everywhere!

Ending at St. Paul’s cathedral

As we walked, we picked up a matcha and lemon ice-cream – the flag colours of Macau. We noticed that almost every single shop was selling beef and pork jerky – sheets of them were displayed in front of all of them. St. Paul’s ruins were exactly that – just the front facade remained. We took pics from the viewpoint, bought a fridge magnet and continued walking.

A-Ma temple

This time we really struggled to find the next bus. There was no one around to ask as well. While scanning the maps, we found a sign asking us to walk 350 m to another road to get the bus we were looking for. And finally we were on our way. We had kept aside all the change we had to drop them into the bus boxes. Luckily, I was wearing pants with many pockets – so that came in handy to keep the change.

We got down at the bus stop near the temple and sat on a bench to enjoy the surroundings. There was a bright green building right next to it. The eclectic architecture of Macau continued to amaze us. On the other side of the courtyard was the A-Ma temple – a temple dedicated to the sea-goddess.

The size of incense sticks here was crazy – some were even bigger than an average person! There were coil-shaped incense hanging from the ceilings after they were offered to the gods. There were different halls for different deities – similar to how we have it in Hindu temples.

Views of Taipa

The best strategy that we could figure out for Macau – find a bus stop somewhere near the intended destination and walk. Better than standing paralysed at the bus stop trying to figure out the exact bus stop. This strategy led us to a random bus stop which had an inclined elevator. It looked more like a funicular and it was free of charge!

We went up and got really amazing panoramic views of the casinos – the Big Ben and Eiffel Tower in one view. A nice unexpected discovery!

Colours and tastes of Taipa

The Taipa houses museum consists of five houses made in the Portuguese style and exhibits artefacts from Macau’s colonial past.

There were many tour groups here, so we moved quickly to the famous Lord Stow bakery. There was a line there but it moved fast and we got our hands on the piping hot egg tarts.

These lived up to the hype – nice and flaky and the custard inside was amazing. We had to get some cold coffee to cool our burning tongues. 

We followed this with a simple yet amazing item – a pork chop bun at Tai Lei Loi Kei. It was exactly what the name suggested – a piece of pork chop inside a warm bun. This is a must-eat!

There were some places serving tapas – Portuguese style. But these were super expensive and didn’t seem crowded enough – so we decided to give it a skip. 

We doubled our money in the Casino!

There were plenty of covered travel-ators on the footpath leading up to the Venetian. This made our walk much simpler. We saw buses full of tourists getting into the hotel.

We went straight into the casino halls. Our IDs were checked to validate our age – most of the security and bouncers were Indians and south Asians. The hall was gigantic! There were thousands of people sitting in front of screens and playing. We walked around trying to understand what was going on. Mostly people were playing card games. Only players were allowed in the poker section. We saw the roulette and slot machines but couldn’t figure out how to operate them. People seemed transfixed in front of their machines and there was no indication of what time of day it was. 

Finally, we picked the simplest game we could find – craps – basically, guessing the outcome of 3 dice thrown together. We played with 50 HKD. After 7-8 turns, it doubled to 100. That seemed to be the best time to cash out and leave – which is exactly what we did! So, that is our story of how we doubled our money at the Venetian!

Gondolas, London buses and the Eiffel Tower

The Venetian has a functioning canal inside complete with a boatman rowing a gondola – they were even wearing the same dress as the boatmen in Venice! The ceilings had paintings of blue skies and it felt like we were outdoors (similar to the Ibn Battutta mall in Dubai).

As we crossed over to the Londoner, we saw installations of the underground metro, iconic London phone booths and double-decker London buses. From the balconies, we could see the Eiffel Tower replica outside the Parisian. Macau was basically a living example of the fact that money could buy anything!

Harry Potter experience

On the third floor of the Londoner is the Harry Potter experience. It was a wonderfully curated experiential journey where we played Quidditch, replanted mandrakes and made digital potions. It’s a good place to add to the list for a Harry Potter fan. We ended the tour with souvenirs and butterbeer.

The return journey debacle

We took a bus to the Taipa ferry terminal. We had pre-booked the 7 pm ferry. As soon as we entered and showed our ticket, we knew that we were in trouble. The guy at the counter asked for the PAR. We only had the soft copy – he scanned it on his phone and let us in. He seemed a bit annoyed that we didn’t have the printout. 

The ferry took exactly one hour on the way back as well. We saw the Symphony of Lights start as our ferry docked at the terminal in Hong Kong. At the immigration counter, they again asked for the PAR. And they insisted on the physical copy.

They made us stand aside along with only other Indian families on the boat. All of us had forgotten to carry the physical PAR. Since we had all received the small stub at the time of entry, we felt that would suffice. We later realised that the reason for them insisting on the hard copy was that they did not have a mobile scanner like the guy in Macau had. So the only way for them to scan the QR code on our form was by placing the printout on their desk machine. Of all the places in the city, this place was running way behind in terms of technology.

We were quizzed on everything that was written on the form, we had to show photos of our travel in HK and Macau, exit flight tickets, proof of local address, everything! After 25-30 mins, once they were convinced, they took a printout on our behalf and let us through.

Moral: Always carry the physical PAR form along with the passport! 

Night market shopping

We walked all the way from Sheung Wan to the Central Piers to take the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui. From here, we went to the Temple Street night market. There were Chinese lanterns covering the entire street. We took 2 full length walks of the street and bought souvenirs. It was almost 11 pm and shops started shutting.

We decided to skip the Dai Pai Dong there and instead walked into a small restaurant with only Chinese boards – they didn’t have any English boards. We got beef brisket noodles (without soup) and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was served in the same tall steel glass that we’d seen earlier at Sister Wah’s and it was basically Milo in hot milk. It was really nice, warm and simple food – perfect to end the day after that immigration scare!

Completely out of energy, we booked an Uber to get back to the room – this time we got a BMW!

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Check out all the Hong Kong blogs here:

• The Hong Kong Itinerary (with Macau) – plan your perfect trip to HK!
• Lantau Island Hong Kong – Day 1 of the HK Trip
• Hong Kong’s Urban Oasis – Peaks & Parks
• Incense and Neon – Hong Kong’s culture
• East Meets West – the Macau Mosaic
• Feast for the Senses – the Hong Kong Foodie