The fog of Hong Kong

We arrived to Kowloon, Hong Kong, on a rainy evening and, in the morning, things hadn’t improved that much. The sky was still covered in gray clouds. We walked along Nathan Road, the main drag of Tsim Sha Tshui (the south part of Kowloon) in search for breakfast and, by the time we reached the harbor, we were carrying a couple shopping bags. Forget Singapore! Hong Kong is where the bargains are!

We took the Star Ferry across the water to Hong Kong Island, trying to snap a few pictures of the hazy skyline while we were at it. From there, we took a really long covered walkway that connected the pier to the central escalator, and were amazed by the hundreds of women camping on the floor, having lunch, giving each other pedicures or simply chilling out, sheltered from the rain. When I say camping, I mean it. These ladies looked like they were ready to spend a very long time there, and they had made themselves at home.

Taking the central escalator is a great way to see central Hong Kong. The escalator runs from near the harbor all the way to the so-called mid-levels, halfway to Victoria Peak, passing through different neighborhoods in the process. Sometimes it runs really close to the apartment buildings, and I guess the people who live there, even on the third and fourth floors, don’t have a choice but to keep their curtains shut at all times. As a curiosity, the escalator only runs one way. In the morning, roughly to 10am, it goes down. The rest of the time, it goes up and you’ll have to use the traditional stairs alongside it if you want to descend.

We got out at Hollywood Road, dubbed Antiques Street because of its many antique stores, and made our way to Man Mo temple. It’s very similar to A-Ma temple in Macau, with its cone-shaped incense sticks and several different altars, only smaller and all indoors. Then, figuring that the weather wasn’t going to get any better, we decided to try and go to the Peak. The taxi ride to the Victoria Peak took a long time, as the clouds turned into fog. By the time we got all the way to the top, it was impossible to see anything beyond two or three meters of distance. Hence, all we could see from the viewpoints was white. Not even a glimpse of a building or a tree. Nothing. We had something to eat and, by the time we were done and ready to go back down, the fog had cleared only so slightly. We took the tram down. It was a steep and quick ride.

Back in Central, we walked through the Graham Street Market, an open air market that sells, fruit, vegetables, fish and meat. Then we took the escalator again to Soho (“South of Hollywood Road”, for those who were wondering) and sat at a nice bar, relaxing with a few glasses of beer and sangria. There was still light out, so we rode the escalator all the way to the top and, while coming back down, decided to stop for one more drink and conversation with some expats at a different bar, before we had to go back to Kowloon.

This time we took the subway, which is nice and efficient, but not as modern as Singapore’s, all the way to Jordan, and made our way to Temple Street. We had some local food outside, hawker-style, with toilet paper for napkins – at least there were some kind of napkins! – and proceeded to browse the famous night market. I have to say I was slightly disappointed, because the market had been hyped a lot and it was just a really long row of stands selling your typical souvenirs and junk, like t-shirts, sunglasses, mobile phone charms, lighters, canto-pop CD’s, et cetera. Still, we were able to find a couple of “treasures”. By then it was getting pretty late and we were dead tired, so it was a good thing that the hotel was within walking distance.

The next morning we repacked, took a few pictures around the hotel area, and took the subway down to Tsim Sha Shui again, looking for a very specific pair of sneakers from a very specific store (long story.) The fact is that we managed to get ourselves lost several times, as all the streets around that area are full of shops on all floors and most buildings are connected to form a giant shopping mall. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many bargains to be had here. A few hours passed quickly and we grew tired again, so it was time to refuel at “the best dim-sum in Kowloon”, according to Lonely Planet. The dumplings were pretty unusual, but it was a good meal. After that, we only had the time to get back to the hotel, grab our bags and take the ferry back to Macau, from where we flew back to Singapore.

Views of Macau

The lighthouse and the chapel at Guia's fort, the highest point in the Macau peninsula

A lot of Macau's residential buildings look like this. I find it a cross between Hong Kong and 1950's Lisbon outskirts, which kind of makes sense.

The winding bridge in Lou Lim Ioc garden has nine turns (the evil spirits can't turn, so you're safe here) and is surrounded by lotus plants.

A typical street in Macau, away from the downtown area

A view to Sai Van Lake, with the Macau tower on the left and the Taipa bridge to its right

Near A-Ma temple, a bilingual street sign and a wall that would be at home in Lisbon.

A-Ma temple from the outside. Its architecture is similar to Man Mo's in Hong Kong, but different from several other Chinese temples we've seen.

The interior of A-Ma temple. Those cone-shaped incense sticks were everywhere.

Lotus, Incense and More Rain

It wasn’t raining in Macau the next morning, but the skies were depressingly gray. We gave up on the idea of going to the Macau tower to get an overview of the peninsula and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. Instead, we visited another high spot, the Guia fort, with its lighthouse, chapel and underground tunnels. Later, we went for a stroll in the scenic Lou Lim Ioc garden, with its lotus flowers, its collection of funny-shaped rocks, its several cats, and its winding bridge.

Then we took a taxi to the top of Penha hill, overlooking the man-made lake, the Macau Tower and the Taipa Bridge. From there, we walked downhill to A-Ma temple, a very old Chinese temple built around the 16th century. After observing the curious cone-shaped incense sticks and checking out its several stages (or floors), we came back down, just in time for some delicious, as-real-as-it-gets, Portuguese food, at the nearby restaurant “A Lorcha”.

We still had a couple more hours before we had to leave, so we went to the Monte fort, by St. Paul’s ruins. The Macau Museum, which is housed in the fort, is really interesting and very well organized, displaying both the different areas of the city and its unique culture. While we were there, it began to rain, and, by the time we got out it it had become worse. We couldn’t catch a taxi nearby, so we sort of “slid” downhill to the same bakery that had sheltered us from the rain the previous evening. My feet and legs were soaked and cold, but eventually we were able to get a cab, get to the hotel, grab our bags and go to the ferry that would take us to Hong Kong.

Strolling around downtown Macau

The baroque façade of St. Dominic's church

Steve looks happy to see a familiar-looking place... it's the main square, Largo do Senado.

Another view of the main square

Portuguese tile work inside the Leal Senado building

The Senado square, seen from the mayor's office (Leal Senado)

The Travessa de São Domingos (St. Dominic's lane), off Senado square

The so-so egg tart. Worth trying, anyways.

The ruins of St. Paul's church are Macau's symbol.

A closer look at St. Paul's façade

An incense burner belonging to a small temple, behind the ruins of St. Paul's church

A view of the skyline from St. Paul's. That ugly, enormous building under construction is the Grand Lisboa, a new casino. Did they really need to make it that tall?

Yet another view of St. Paul's and the steps that lead to it. Beautiful, isn't it?

The Senado square at night, after the rain, facing the Leal Senado building.

The "pre-Las Vegas" casino and hotel Lisboa is still a Macau landmark.

Baccarat and Egg Tarts

We landed in Macau on a cloudy afternoon. In general, we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather during our Asia travels, but this time a level 8 typhoon was scheduled to hit Hong Kong that same night, and it didn’t take long for the rain to start. However, we had less than two days to see Macau and, since there were no taxis available, because it was raining, we took the bus downtown to Senado Square. This square is the heart of colonial Macau. Its winding sidewalk, made of black and white cobblestones, leads you to the Portuguese institutional buildings such as the Senado itself (the mayor’s office) and the Santa Casa da Misericórdia (Portugal’s solidarity institution.) We had some homemade noodles at a quaint, traditional Chinese restaurant, and made our way to the baroque church of St. Dominic, which houses a very interesting museum of antique religious objects.

On our way to the ruins of St. Paul’s, we stopped for a “Portuguese egg tart”. Now, I’m a big fan of the real thing and was disappointed by the pudding-like consistency and overall eggy-ness of these tarts. Still, I imagine they can be very popular with foreigners who have never tried the original, but I suggest you look somewhere else -- I found a decent egg tart in downtown Kyoto, Japan, of all places. One thing you must absolutely not miss while in Macau is the ruins of St. Paul’s. This magnificent Jesuit church was built in the 17th century and destroyed by a fire about 200 years later. All that remains is the beautifully ornate façade, which is perched on a hill, at the top of a long flight of steps. We had time for some pictures before it started pouring really, really hard. We waited for about 30 minutes under a bakery’s awning and then gave up. Armed with only a flimsy umbrella, we started to descend the cobblestone-paved streets, looking for some decent Portuguese food.

By the time dinner was over it had stopped raining, so we decided to sample the casino entertainment. The casinos are Macau’s biggest tourism draw right now, since a lot of Chinese from the mainland come to the territory strictly to gamble large sums on baccarat. The Wynn is one of the most recent Las Vegas-style casinos in Macau, and only a 10-minute walk away from our hotel. We made our way there and saw a lot of Chinese people playing mostly baccarat and some dice. There were only a couple of roulettes, as well as blackjack tables and slot-machines (not very popular), and a type of poker that I didn’t recognize. The casino was actually a very elegant place -- as opposed to some cheesier, older ones. We gambled a little (and lost) and went to sleep.

China’s SAR’s (no, not the syndrome)

Since Macau and Hong Kong, China’s Special Administrative Regions, are only about an hour away from each other by ferry, we decided to visit them on the same trip. Everybody knows Hong Kong was a British territory from the 19th century to 1997; what you might not know is that Macau was a Portuguese territory from the 16th century to 1999. However, they couldn’t be more different. Hong Kong is a big city that looks a little like New York’s Chinatown, except that it’s perched on a hill and has an enormous harbor, while Macau is a quaint little place that looks like a Portuguese village, except that there is a huge area filled with casinos, some older, some brand new and Las Vegas-style. All in all, they complement each other and are great visited together.

Sights of Bali

A statue at a roundabout on the main highway

The beach in Seminyak is a lot more crowded than Kubu, but it's huge and there are almost no waves.

The entrance to the temple at Seminyak

A detail of a door in the temple

Steve was required to put on a sarong to enter the temple

A makeshift altar for offerings

Another area of the temple

Candle-lit dinner right on the beach at Jimbaran

Fresh fish for dinner

200+ steps to the water

Being the Ritz-Carlton, there was a small, private, beach, Kubu, which was made even more private by the fact that it was solely accessible by going down 250 or so steps, so only a few people actually ventures down there. We went twice and never had to share the beach with more than 20 people at a time. Unlike Bintan or Sentosa, the water here is on the cold side, which is actually a good thing because it's pretty hot outside and this way you can be refreshed. Steve and I were reminded of the Algarve, namely Vale do Lobo and Praia da Rocha, only with less people and perhaps somewhat cleaner water (you can't get much cleaner that this!)

The coast of the Bukit Peninsula, at the southern tip of Bali, is full of cliffs and the waves are much higher, unlike in the more well-known areas of Kuta or Seminyak. The advantage is that you're a lot more secluded.

Kubu is a small beach between two cliffs. The sand is white and the water is as blue as it gets, but you have to watch out for the waves... It's not your swimming-pool type of sea, though if you 're careful, it's lots of fun.

Steve on the steps towards the beach. If you're not in good shape, don't bother going down; you won't be able to climb back up. Seriously, it's quite the work-out.

Typical boats not too far from the shore

Kecak!

Pronounced "kechack", it is a performance based on the hindu tale Ramayana, performed by silent characters that dance slowly while enacting the actions. A group of twenty or so men provide the music, by singing in a repetitive, non-melodic fashion. Most of them keep repeating chak, chak, chak, while one or two others provide a counterpoint. It's a very magnetic performance, especially when enjoyed at Ulu Watu temple's cliff, at sunset.

Monkeys on the way to the stage at Ulu Watu

A monkey up close

Sunset over the cliff at Ulu Watu

The singers/dancers sit down around the blessed fire and begin chanting. They only stand up a couple of times, during the performance, but move their arms a lot.

Prince Rama and his wife Sita, who's kidnapped later

A closer shot of the "orchestra"

The big bird Garuda (the Indonesian airlines are named after him)

The White Monkey King, a funny character and one of the story's heroes

The White Monkey King is set on fire by the enemies but manages to escape

Two "dancers" perform for us

Going five stars

Back in May, we attended a time-sharing session and came out with vouchers for the Ritz-Carlton in Bali. We already had plans to go there, but the vouchers definitely made the whole experience much more unforgettable. Here are some shots of the hotel...

Down the steps from the lobby, towards breakfast and the swimming pools

The opposite view

The main pool at the resort

The Ocean Pool, between the resort and the beach

The Villa Lobby

A view to the resort and the sea, from the C-Bar