Macau 2009 – Images by Jamie McDonald

The Guandong Province Bus Terminal is the lucky location of this update whilst we wait for a night bus to Yangshuo.

To get everyone up to speed we went to Macau on Friday for a day-trip. I found the town to be a fun place and it was great to see the fusion of east meeting west, where west is Portugal rather than Britain. Divine Egg Tarts and Shortbread on every corner ensured Macau was a gastronomic discovery as much as a sight for the eyes.

The ferry terminal leaves you in little doubt that you’ve arrived in the Las Vegas of the East with posters, billboards, touts, buses and even ferries covered in the livery of MGM Grand, Wynns, Casino Lisboa along with dozens of smaller sparkling money makers.

The art-deco of Hotel Lisboa is a reminder that Macau was a casino town long before the developers came to the Portuguese enclave. Though I wasn’t one to go gamble it was great to watch the water show and the display of lights that the casino puts on for tourists, and frustratingly I’m sure, for the residents.

After arriving back to Hong Kong late Friday evening the reality of having to make room in our packs for our belongings sank in and we chose to delay that job until the next morning.  Coinciding that tedium with the farewells to Bec, Ryan, Jordan and Maddy meant the time flew by and before we knew it we were waving goodbye to our doorman and jumping in the cab to Central Station to jump on the MTR to Kowloon.

We grabbed a couple of economy seats on the train from Hong Hum Station to Guangzhou and after our temperature test to ensure we weren’t suffering from swine flu (or fever or any kind related to anything whatsoever) we were through immigration and in mainland China.

How such a simple departure from Hong Kong and arrival into China descended into drama is a guess for anyone, but chaos ensued. For one thing nobody seemed to know how to get into the city in Guangzhou despite the new railway station having existed for a couple of years and has a subway attached. Nobody knew any landmarks for us to get our bearings at and no one knew where internet was available. And it was raining, heavily.

After getting a chicken burger at McDonald’s to discover they didn’t have wifi we grabbed a hot chocolate at Starbucks for some much needed wifi. Now I know Starbucks was in some financial difficulty, but charging the equivalent of AU$5 for a coffee is a bit steep, considering at any 7-Eleven I can convert $5 into at least a six-pack of 640mL Tsing Tao beers.

Nearly three hours after arriving we found a hotel that we deemed decent enough for the price (AU$30) but the smoke riddled room and clientele suggested that we might be in a facility that has no qualms with charging by the hour. Guangzhou seems to be one of the victims of China modernising – huge ugly concrete buildings one after another with no order nor charm. Understandably housing all of Guangzhou’s residents is a massive job for the government but building public housing towers that dwarf the estates in London and Washington seem to be a sure recipe for creating a ghetto in the near future.

To wake up to the trains on the Guangzhou to Shenzen line at our window and see that the rain was still falling out of the sky at a considerable pace sold us on leaving today for Yangshuo, a small city in Guangxi Province, to the West of Guangzhou eight hours away by night bus. Arriving at the bus station at 2pm today we were offered the chance to get on a 7.30pm bus, but the eight hour commute meant we would arrive in a foreign city at 3.30am, so we opted for the 10.30pm, with arrival time being a much more manageable 6.30am. Only drama is that after getting a cab to the bus station we didn’t really see any sense in leaving it, so we’ve settled in for 8 hours of cards, gin, music, take away and some blog updating (though that should read typing, because there is no internet here…)

With some knocking of wood and praying the gin should knock me out once I get on that bus and Yangshuo will feel like a ten minute ride. We’re really looking forward to the outdoor activities on offer from Yangshuo including rock climbing, horseback riding, cormorant fishing and cruising on the Li River.