I arrived in Macau on 14th January. My interest in the Chinese Special Administrative Region (similar to Hong Kong) is linked to my fascination with Las Vegas (I’m more intrigued with what you can do with a ridiculous amount of money and no taste than the actual gambling). Anyway I finally had an opportunity to visit the Las Vegas of the East.   It is just 40 miles west of Hong Kong which takes just under an hour in one of the high speed ferries. Having spent nearly 3 weeks in Hostels, I decided it was time for a couple nights in a nice hotel. Like Las Vegas, hotel rooms are much cheaper here to lure in the gamblers. I chose the Hotel Royal in the old city.

Macau has a similar history to Hong Kong, except it was a Portuguese stayed neutral during the second world war. It was handed back to China in 1999. The Portuguese influence can be seen in the architecture.

With lots of Buddhist and Taoist temples.

My favourite parts of the old city were the theatre:

Also the Mandarin’s House which dates back to 1869. It was inhabited by the same wealthy family until the 1960’s. It was then rented and there were once more than 300 tenants living in the complex. In 2005 it became a UNESCO world heritage site.

I preferred the Mandarin’s House to the latest mansions in the City.

Another UNESCO site is the ruins of St Paul’s College, of which only the front façade remains.

The Fortaleza do Monte (Mount Fortress) is also part of the same site. They started building it in 1626 and it remained in use up until 1965.

The site is joined to the old city by a popular set of steps.

A lot of the old city is made up of alleyways.

Like Hong Kong, the local cuisine is very fresh.

The locals like to take their birds out to the local parks.

Macau has a large Filipino population and they were celebrating the Sinulog festival during my visit. This involved a lot of pageantry,  colourful costumes and drums.

Finally, onto the gambling. Like Las Vegas, it is split into two different areas. The original casinos are located on the island of Coloane, south of the old city. The most recent casino here was the Wynn which opened in 2006.

The newest and biggest casinos are being built on over 5km² of reclaimed land between the islands of Coloane and Taipa called Cotai.

I visited 2 of the huge casinos in Cotai. The newest is The Parisian which just opened in September 2016. It has its own mini Eifel Tower.

My favourite was The Venetian which is very similar to the Las Vegas hotel with its indoor canals.

There are lots of plots left for more super casinos, in addition to the new stadium and monorail currently under construction.

I was very good and only gambled 100 MOP (Macau Pataca) which is approximately £10. I lost it all in about 5 minutes. I left Macau on 17th January and returned to Hong Kong.