7NNT25: Day 32 – Macau to Singapore

Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M.

Of course I was up before the alarm, at least an hour before. The whole travel day body clock thing is good, I guess, but when I’m setting an alarm to give me more time than I need, and then a second alarm in case anything goes wrong with the first, surely I’ve got enough conscious measures in place I don’t need my unconscious joining the party. I was showered, packed, heading out the door and down to the hotel breakfast at around about the time the alarm would have gone off.

I’m not looking to dump on the hotel breakfast, I mean there are some really good ones, some really bad ones, but this one just seemed strange. I get the fried rice, and the mystery meat sausages, buy corn on the cob simmered in cream? A random slightly tomato flavoured pasta dish with more mystery meat? I just didn’t quite work out the combination, it’s like 4 people all got to pick something independently of each other. Winner of the strangest hotel breakfast this trip.

I got the hotel to call me a taxi to get to where it seemed the bus to HKIA would leave. I was then handed a piece of paper that had the plate number of the taxi that would come, and a second number that I’d have to quote, along with the destination in Chinese. That’s how taxis work in Macau. They also charge you 3 MOP if you want to put a suitcase in the back. We seemed to be going a bit of a weird route to the HZMB Macao Port (another reason I was so confused as to where the bus would be leaving from, because it’s not a port, exactly, unless you count it a contraction of “busport”, as there aren’t any boats here) but the weirdness was likely just the crazy one way streets.

I hadn’t booked a bus ticket as I read that these are single use for the time booked, so if I had booked and then for any reason been to late to get to the check-in and missed the booked bus, I’d have to buy another ticket. I headed to what I thought was the correct ticket counter, but they pointed me straight to the security screening, even though I’m sure it said that I’d need to have a valid ticket to go through. On the other side of the screening I approached one of the desks ready to be pointed in another direction or back to the first counter, but it turned out I was in the right place. They must get a lot of confused tourists as I was handed a little sheet that had all of the directions I needed to follow from here, including pictures.

The bus ride from Macau to Hong Kong comprises one very long bridge, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (hence HZMB) which is apparently the longest open sea bridge in the world, before it then disappears under the ocean for about 6km, emerging and going over a series of artificial islands until we get to HK. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, I think it’s possibly a road where access is controlled, I noticed we passed a Chinese checkpoint, so I think I was technically travelling through China for part of the trip (my phone roaming thought so too as I swapped me to a Chinese network briefly).

At HK airport, I was somehow able to check into my flight straight after getting off the bus, even though my flight wa with Singapore Airlines and all the guides said I couldn’t, but there was a SIA counter there who gladly took my suitcase and gave me a boarding pass. I was running quite early, they couldn’t confirm which gate the plane would be, which is a bit annoying when trying to navigate HK airport, as you’re directed to a skytrain whose destinations are all about gate numbers. Figuring I had plenty of time, I just hopped off around the middle and hoped.

Hong Kong airport is nice, but for me still not as good as Changi. It requires a lot of walking, and could use some better shops before it gets to becoming a favourite. After some wandering I hit the Gordon Ramsay fast-food place, figuring a burger would be something different, and surely a burger tied to a big name chef would be decent, right? To be honest, it’s a bit of a daft place. When you order a burger and chips you get a free beverage, as long as that beverage is black coffee or tea. Not water, not soft drink, black coffee or tea. What the actual Gordon? The kindest thing I can say about the burger were the chips were good. All the right crunch, good chips. The burger, well it had enough iceberg lettuce to sink the Titanic, a fairly average meat pattie (to be honest, my simply seasoned pork chop had more going for it than the burger), and I don’t know where in the entirety of South East Asia they managed to source pickles that were so incredibly flavourless. If it wasn’t for the slight texture change, I wouldn’t have been aware that the burger had any pickles. And the final price tag was about $30 AUD. Next time Ramsay visits Australia, someone needs to do him a favour and drag his swearing arse to Alfred’s in Guildford and show him how to make a burger. The chips were good though.

Also my love for Macau continued in the airport, as I’d ended up with a couple of hundred MOP leftover. Macau treats MOP and HKD as the same, so your change from anywhere could really be either currency, or a mix of both. HK can’t care less about MOP, so even airport vendors won’t take it and when I went to Travelex to exchange it, they’d only give me 75 HKD per 100 MOP, which as far as exchange rates go is practically theft. So travel tip for Macau, dump your currency before you leave.

Flight was fine, we ran early, exactly the sort of thing busy airports like Changi don’t like, so our plane had to do some extra zooming before we could land. Made it through customs, got my suitcase and headed to the hotel, am happy to report that Grab in Singapore likes my travel visa debit card, the one that stopped working in the Philippines.

Noodle 11: Ban Mian (Ng Kuan Chilli Pan Mee)

Just up the road from the hotel is a little restaurant that seems to be open until very late, and I’ve grabbed a late night bowl of noodles at before. They’ve upgraded their ordering system to a touchscreen since my last visit. Fortunately the food hasn’t changed, wonderful and cheap dry flat noodles with fried pork mince, chilli oil, and egg. Wonderful texture on the noodles, a good chew, and the chilli and egg yolk clings wonderfully to them. Add the pork for a bit of extra flavour and it’s easy to see why this place is so popular.

Stomach suitably lined, it was time to head to the Auld Alliance Whisky bar, otherwise known as my meditation room. It’s a staple of every visit to Singapore for me, and part of the reason I’ve chosen hotels in Bencoolen (it’s also a reasonably convenient area to get around from, and not as expensive as other places). As it’s only been 8 months since my last visit, the staff recognised me (even with the mutilated facial hair). First whisky was an independent bottling of Ben Nevis (Whisky Sponge, 23 year old, 55% abv, refill sherry hogshead) and it was a delight, hints of wax and tropical fruits on the nose, and a lingering finish full of dark fruit and chocolate: I’ve never had a Ben Nevis that was less than awesome. Second whisky was chosen to tie in with my travels, a Glenfarclas distillery bottling with City Hunter themed packaging (9 year old, 60.4% abv, first fill sherry cask #1497), giving wonderful aromas of stone fruits, peaches, and chocolate, and was well balanced, smooth, and dry on the finish like a good sherried whisky should be. The final whisky was a staff suggestion, an independent bottling of Ben Nevis done especially for the Auld Alliance (Auld ALliance and Ad Astra, 26 year old, 52.2% abv, PX cask), and it was stunning, from the beautiful label to the contents, full of flavour, lush and smooth, a delightful whisky hug. I responsibly stopped at three drams, and headed back to the hotel to rest my weary carcass.

Tomorrow’s missions involve laundry, shoe shopping (replacing the skechers that wore out in Macau), and, of course, food. I’ll likely squeeze in some shopping too.