Magical Macau
Wed, October 01 2008
It is ironic that visitors come to gape and gawk at the chandeliers, the fountains, man-made canals and brand name stores while nearby, narrow lanes with quaint-sounding names like Rua dos Negociantes and Avenida de Carlos da Maia are waiting to be explored.
To say that the year-old Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel (it even needs more hyphens than an ordinary hotel) is massive is like saying Bill Gates is reasonably well-to-do.
This place is so big some rooms have different zip codes. While Gates himself would probably choose to stay at the just-opened Four Seasons Hotel next door (he does own that hotel management company, after all), more than 80,000 others pass through the portals of The Venetian each day, most of them headed for one of the 750 gaming tables and 3,000 slot machines spread across the hotel’s casino floor.
The recreation zone where The Venetian sits is known as the Cotai Strip, on a 5.2 sq km section of reclaimed land that now links the two former islands of Coloane and Taipa in the Pearl River Delta, just across from peninsular Macau and its more well known tourist attractions.
In about the same amount of time it takes to spin a roulette wheel, this once-rural part of Macau — even sleepier than old Macau town — has been transformed into one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world.
It is both interesting and astounding that in close proximity to Cotai — not much further away than the length of The Venetian complex itself — it is possible to venture into a part of this SAR (Special Administrative Region) that provides a glimpse of the way things used to be. You might call it The Real Macau.
In historic Taipa Village (or Tamzhai in Cantonese), on what was once Taipa Island’s southern shoreline, there still remains a section that is a living testament to Macau’s centuries-old cultural heritage and its colonial past. The town, not more than a warren of little streets and tiny pedestrian lanes, still functions on a daily basis as a village rather than as a tourist attraction.
Here, in small, multi-hued buildings with stained walls, peeling paint and laundry hanging out on bamboo poles, lives The Real Macau.
Sitting on benches in the shadow of a $14 billion development that will eventually comprise 14 resorts and 21,000 hotel rooms, locals linger around small square tables, attired in shorts and singlets, chatting and watching the world (literally) pass them by.
In Cotai, there’s not much conversation to speak of, but there’s plenty of noise nevertheless, as players curse or cheer their cards and scream for the dealer to go bust.
\This is the surreal scene at 3 o’clock on a sunny weekday afternoon, so just imagine what it’s like in prime time.
It is somewhat ironic that visitors come to gape and gawk at the chandeliers, the fountains, man-made canals and brand Alternatively, take a walk down Rua do Cunha, a small lane lined on either side with stores selling local snacks and foodstuffs.
It’s worth noting that Taipa’s name is apparently derived from the Cantonese term dai ba — meaning “a lot” — and in this context, it is entirely appropriate because there’s so much to discover.
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