Asia > China > Macau > Macau > Articles > Last Orders In the Vegas of the East

Everything is a one-eyed blur thanks to an earlier accident with a contact lens but the sensory input is still high. The flashing lights are saying nightclub, my watch says 4am, the music is Cantonese techno, and the chili crab claw in my hand is the hottest thing I've ever tasted. Another night out in Macau.

Macau's been pretty lively ever since the Portuguese sailed into what the locals called A-Ma-Gao (the Bay of A-Ma, Taoist goddess of seafarers) in the early 1500s and began turning it into Med-meets-the-Orient-on-Sea.

There's been tussles with the Chinese and several attempted invasions by the Dutch, while pirates lurked in the coves of Coloane (one of Macau's two sister islands, along with Taipa) until as recently as 1910, when the locals finally kicked them out - a victory commemorated with a fine memorial in front of the ravishing Chapel of St Francis Xavier in Coloane village.

Though it may have long ago conceded the shopping crown to Hong Kong, Macau has never faltered when it comes to general partying, from the 19th century pleasures of opium, prostitution and gambling which drew Canton's taipans ("great traders") to its present day temptations - which still include prostitution and gambling just to show some things don't change.

But Macau's brightest pleasures are simply its wonderful juxtapositions. Mediterranean-style buildings as gaudily coloured as a confectioners' window (and the Portuguese legacy means there are some great confectioners round these parts) mingle with serene Buddhist temples. Alleyways so Oriental they stood in for old Shanghai in Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom lead you towards churches so Baroque you could be in Lisbon.

Stand near the corner of Rua da Palha and look down the street as it winds towards Largo do Senado - the mosaiced central square that's more southern Europe than southern China - and the Orient fills the foreground. A Buddhist street shrine sends wisps of incense into the sky centreframe, "hell money" (for the dead to pay their way in the afterlife) flutters outside a funeral shop to the right, while to the left one of Macau’s dai pai dong (street food stalls) does a brisk trade in red bean paste doughnuts for the very much alive.

But turn and face up the hill and the scene seems suddenly to switch to Europe. At the top of a long flight of broad steps, to the left of the Monte Fort (built to a design by Louis XIV's chief engineer), stands Macau's most famous symbol, the surreal ruins of the church of Sao Paulo.

The honey-coloured stone glows gently in the sun as its carved 17th century facade spells out a warning tale of angels and devils, dragons and Portuguese sailing ships - it hardly seems to matter that there is nothing behind the facade but blue sky thanks to the fire which destroyed the entire body of the church in 1835.

The air of harmonious cultural fusion that hangs over Macau could be down to good feng shui but it's more likely just an easy-going open-mindedness about things. In place of the ants’ nest madness of Hong Kong, people relax here, whether it's dawdling over fried shrimp and vinho verde at a Portuguese restaurant beside the beautiful black volcanic sands of Hac Sa Beach on Coloane, or just quietly watching the chess players in Camoes Gardens or along the harbour wall.

The one frenetic exception - for many Chinese visitors at least - is the gambling. Macau is known as the Vegas of the East, with a dozen casinos, a racecourse and a Canidrome - "the dogs" to you and I - all battling to relieve you of your patacas (the local currency).

The Lisboa is the largest of the casinos, a giant neon palace heaving with punters feeding the "hungry tigers", as the slot machines are known, or trying to guess the value of three hidden dice at dai-sui ("big-small" in Cantonese), the low-rollers' favourite throughout Macau.

But I preferred the charmingly threadbare ambience of the Floating Casino (no-one uses its official name, Casino Macau Palace), an old boat moored by a down-at-heel quayside at the end of Macau's main avenue, Avenida Almeida Ribeiro - more usually called by its Chinese name, San Ma Lou.

While I might not have come away with much from the Floating Casino, I did leave Macau with a fortune, courtesy of the I-Ching.

In the dark interior of Kun Iam - the ancient Buddhist temple where the US signed its first ever treaty with China in 1844 - I knelt in front of a bright red and gold altar, huge coils of slow-burning incense hanging above me from the ceiling, and shook the fortune sticks until, after a couple of failures, just one came out.

At his booth, a soothsayer who could have copyrighted the word 'wizened' gazed at the slender piece of wood, asked whether the prediction was for myself or another, selected a sheet of paper from the wall behind him, and then quietly discussed my daughter's battle against her troubles.

Reassured, I headed for Rua da Felicidade for an early evening bowl of snake soup. Scattered with raspberry vinegar and flower petals, it was a revelation, and remembering the powdered yam balls I'd also acquired a taste for in the previous day's Zhen Zhu milk tea, I was up for anything the locals could throw at me - until I caught sight of a water-filled tank full of beetles having a paddle. A queasy enquiry confirmed my suspicions. "Sea cockroaches," I was told. "You fry them."

While you might need an iron stomach for some of the local food and nerves of steel at the gambling table, all you really need to enjoy Macau is your eyes and a good pair of shoes for walking (and if you forget them, Macau's also famous for shoe-making).

Macau returned to Chinese rule at the beginning of 2000 but no one seems that fussed. Maybe it's not really important who technically rules here. As long as the music plays, the cards turn, the food and drink come, and the colonial buildings glow pastel bright in the sunshine you can just sit and wonder why, with Macau so close, people bother so much about Hong Kong.

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