Even though Macau is trying to be the Las Vegas of the East, don’t let it fool you. There are a few parts of Macau that are still very rural and exotic.
After a plentiful hotel breakfast (free with the room), the Farr Family set out to Coloane, a no-name village on the far end of Macau. This little island has a colorful history. The Song Dynasty extracted most of the salt for China in Coloane from the 900’s until the Portuguese arrived in 1864. They utilized Macau as a trading port but left Coloane untouched. Mostly pirates used it for a base until the early 1900’s. Lucky for us, all the pirates have left and now the island is inhabited by a very small population. This is in great contrast to downtown Macau, which has the second highest population density in the world.
Three bridges connect Coloane and Macau. We got there by way of bus #25, which took less than an hour. This is the first bus we’ve experienced in Asia. I’ve always observed the buses from the street and never really wanted to take part in the constant bobbing of heads and jam packed feeling. We were lucky enough to score some seats for most of the journey.
Coloane is a sleepy little fishing town with beautiful architecture left by the Portuguese. Of course the Chinese have their marks too, by way of Daoist temples and such. We saw no high-rise anything in Coloane, only winding streets and quiet little neighborhoods.
We made our way around one of the mountains. The scaling road gave an excellent view of the surrounding islands. I spotted a rough trail that led to the beach. After soothing Aaron with stories of much rougher paths that I’ve taken Maeli on, he agreed to take the downward descent to the secluded beach.
We were greeted by a beach full of washed-up garbage and a dying dog.
“See honey, aren’t you glad we came this way,” was my response.
After we got past a rough start, the beach turned out to be exceptionally beautiful. It was a tremendous feeling to gaze into the never-ending Pacific contrasting the cramped city living of these last four weeks.
As we took bus 25 back into downtown, with its cramped spaces and unbreathable air, we both hoped we’d have good reasons to escape to the village again. With our time in Macau now coming to a close, that means we need one of you to visit us so we can take you there!
§Commentary
Dying dog…really? That’s awful, you mean dead dog. It was dead already right? Ok, dead dog isn’t much better but, at least we know it’s no longer suffering. You were just trying to tell a better story right? Boy, I can’t wait to come visit!!!!!!!!!!