What I Didn't Tell You about Macau
Traveling necessarily involves some risk, and inevitably results in some frustration. Take, for example, what happened to Matt and I from about 6pm onwards.*
Rookie Mistake #1. Trying to leave from somewhere other than where you came in.
I thought that the "China Ferry Terminal" was a perfectly legitimate port of entry/departure for Hong Kong, and suggested that perhaps we should leave from there, as it was closer to the attractions we'd be visiting later in the day. Turns out, after wandering for about half a mile trying to get there (past abandoned hotels and general sketchiness), it was actually just a big stretch of concrete near the water with some metal barriers. Note: this part of town smells like the Indian River in summer. Yecch. No ferries here. At least, none you'd want to get on.
Rookie Mistake #2: Realizing that you've spent all your coins just in time to catch the bus.
Luckily, there happened to be a bus which went to the other side of town (read: the other ferry port, which we probably should have just gone to in the first place) right across from where we were standing. Too bad we didn't have any change, though. And no, Macau doesn't accept Octopus. So Matt, being the gentleman that he is, went to get some coins, and we caught the next bus.
Rookie Mistake #3: Buying tickets at the first window you see.
We got to the original ferry port around 8pm, only to find that the TurboJet (fancy!) we had taken on the way over only had tickets available for the return journey leaving at 11:45pm or later. This was not desirable, seeing as how we'd been hauling it all over the place since about 8am. We asked the guy if there was ANYTHING that left earlier, but he just shrugged and told us that they were all sold out. We bought the tickets anyway, thinking we had basically no other option. Then we turned around and there was ANOTHER PERFECTLY LEGIT FERRY COMPANY selling tickets for a boat leaving at 8:30.
Rookie Mistake #4: Trying to scalp your tickets at the same window you bought them.
Once we figured out that we could have left at 8:30, we weren't about to sit around for 4 hours. After a few unsuccessful attempts at pleading with just-as-unlucky customers who were about to buy 11:45 tickets, trying to get them to buy ours, I ended up just making a scene. A woman in line told me that she heard you could get earlier tickets, so naturally I was pretty upset. I figured our clerk at the window was just being a jerk, forcing us to buy non-refundable tickets... When the security guard came over to ask me what the problem was, I finally got the truth from another guy at the desk-- you can go and wait in the standby line as long as you have tickets for a boat later that day.
So, we went through customs and got in the standby line... behind about 30 other people. :\
I wasn't convinced we were going to get on that boat, so we eventually moved to another line.
SUCCESS! We left Macau at 8:45pm.
Rookie Mistake #5: Forgetting the essentials.
The ride home took about an hour, but felt about twice that long because neither of us had eaten and we happened to be sitting in front of the man with the Most Obnoxious Voice Ever. But whatever. We got back to Hong Kong safe, on the same day that we left.
Then, on the way up the escalator, I realized I didn't have my wallet. 0_O
I talked to the nice guy at customs and he radio-ed down, to no avail. I ended up having to go down and search the boat. Luckily, it was right where we were sitting, and had just fallen out of my bag. I go through customs, now that I have my trusty HKID, and we begin the search for dinner.
Rookie Mistake #6: Trying to eat a reasonable meal at 11pm on a Sunday night.
Everything is closed in the Ferry building mega-complex. Naturally.
We ended up just getting on the train to Central and eating Kebabs and curry at Ebeneezer's in Lan Kwai Fong, the one place I knew HAD to be open.
I think we finally made it back to Tai Po at like midnight or so.
Moral of the story: Buy round-trip?
*Or that time we almost got eaten in the jungle by angry cannibal natives.
