Trip to Macau Episode 3 – The Return of my Stake [never happened]

And so, the Macau trip reaches its third and final part.

Macau is most famed not for the lovely historical sights; not for the beautiful, weirdly European looking old-town, that Claire swears is just like Lisbon if you squint a bit; nor for the lovely beaches that Claire and I visited in the afternoon. Its principal source of local infamy is that it is, arguably, the gambling capital of Asia.

Pictured is the ridiculously ostentatious, architecturally preposterous Grand Lisbon. We didn’t actually do our small gambling stint in here, but we did go in for a look, and its exterior was the most unashamedly gaudy, glitzy Vegas-y nonsense we saw, so I thought I’d put it up.

Our foray into gambling came at the Venetian, which is part of the Vegas-strip proper in the southern island of Taipa in Macau. It is based on the Vegas casino of the same name, and gobsmacking in its scale and surreality. A fake bridge of sighs, Marks Square, set of canals and even proper, singing gondoliers.

The gambling area was fun and intoxicating, but with our meagre sum to bet and touristy air we felt like country bumpkins. We lost half our tiny stake on one foolish bet, and the rest over a series of piddling, ill-advised flits from pontoon to craps to roulette. We will certainly go again, but with a little more money, more savvy and in full knowledge that whilst this is what Macau is famous for, the beaches and the history knock the socks off this Vegas-lite any day of the week.

PS – in my first double picture bonus, given how many fans of the nescafe photos I’ve had, here is Claire in the entrance hall of the Venetian, can in hand…