After several days in Hong Kong, I decided to make a day trip to Macao. And just like travelling between Hong Kong and Mainland China, going to Macao means another border crossing, another passport check and another Special Administrative Region.
I chose to travel there by ferry from Hong Kong Island and return by bus across the spectacular Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge. That way, even the journey itself became part of the experience.
From Hong Kong to the casinos of Macao
The trip started at the Hong Kong–Macau Ferry Terminal on Hong Kong Island.
Before boarding, I officially had to exit Hong Kong, including another passport check. The ferry was completely full, and I was surprised by how many of my fellow passengers were elderly Chinese travellers. I spent my last Kongkong cash on it - 192 Hongkong Dollars.
The journey takes about an hour, and on arrival in Macao it was time for yet another immigration procedure before I officially entered the territory.
And then I encountered my first problem: money.
Macao has its own currency, the Macao pataca (MOP), although Hong Kong dollars are also widely accepted. My plan was simple: withdraw some cash, use it to pay for transport, food and souvenirs—and gamble away whatever was left.
The ATM had other ideas. No money.
Fortunately, I could pay directly by card for food and souvenirs, so the lack of cash wasn't initially a major problem. And Macao's casinos provided the solution to my first transport challenge.
Many of Macao's large casinos operate free shuttle buses connecting the ferry terminals, border crossings and casino resorts. Rather than looking for the most direct connection into the historic centre, I simply boarded one of the casino buses. It wasn't necessarily the fastest way to get where I wanted to go, but it had one advantage: I got to see more of Macao along the way.
Casino buses
And eventually, of course, I had to go inside one of the casinos.
Before visiting Macao, most of my images of casinos came from movies: glamorous gaming tables, elegantly dressed guests, crowds gathered around roulette wheels and dramatic poker games. The reality looked rather different. The casino I visited was huge, modern and surprisingly automated. Technology seemed to be everywhere, and many of the games involved far less interaction than I'd expected.
The crowd wasn't particularly glamorous either. Instead, I saw lots of elderly, very ordinary-looking people sitting at the machines and tables. It felt much more like an everyday activity than the glamorous night out portrayed in movies.
At some stations, free food and drinks were available for gamblers, adding even more to the impression of a highly organised operation designed to keep people playing. Photography wasn't allowed inside, so this is one part of my Macao trip that exists only in my memory rather than my photo collection.
And thanks to the ATM, I hadn't even managed to withdraw the money I'd planned to gamble away.
Portuguese Macao – And another attempt to get money
Outside the casinos, Macao looks completely different. For more than four centuries, Macao was under Portuguese administration, and that history is still clearly visible in its architecture, street names, churches and public squares. Unfortunately, by this point it was also raining.
I walked through the historic centre towards the famous Ruins of St. Paul's, probably Macao's most recognizable landmark. What remains today is primarily the elaborate stone façade and staircase of the Church of Mater Dei, which was largely destroyed by fire in 1835.
Even in the rain, the combination of Portuguese architecture and Chinese surroundings made central Macao feel completely different from both Hong Kong and Mainland China.
I wandered around the surrounding streets, browsed souvenir shops and picked up a few things to take home. Fortunately, paying directly by card worked without any problems, both for souvenirs and food.
Then I tried another ATM. This time things got more interesting. My phone told me that I had withdrawn money, while the ATM itself gave me a rejection message—and no cash came out. Not exactly the combination of notifications you want to see. I spoke to the staff about it, and they gave me their contact details. If the money really had been debited from my account, I could contact them afterwards to sort it out. So I still had no cash, but now I also had the possibility that I'd paid for cash I hadn't received.
By late afternoon, it was time to think about getting back to Hong Kong. I decided to return by bus rather than ferry because I wanted to cross the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge.
There was just one problem. For food and souvenirs, my credit card had worked perfectly well. But when I wanted to buy the bus ticket, I discovered that they accepted only local currency or Weixin Pay (WeChat Pay). Local currency was precisely what two different ATMs had failed to give me.
I had used WeChat Pay throughout Mainland China without any problems, but getting it to work in Macao turned out to be another story. So after travelling around Macao without really needing cash all day, I suddenly found myself trying to persuade a payment system that had worked perfectly well in China to cooperate again.
After some experimenting, I finally managed to get WeChat Pay working in Macao and bought my ticket. Problem solved.
At least I could get back to Hong Kong—even if I never did get the cash I'd originally planned to gamble away.
55 kilometres across the sea
The journey back to Hong Kong was more complicated than simply boarding one bus in Macao and getting off in Hong Kong.
I caught the bus at one of the casinos, and we first drove around collecting more passengers. Eventually, we reached the Macao border terminal. Here, everyone gets off the bus with their belongings and goes inside to complete Macao exit formalities. You enter the terminal on one side, pass through immigration and emerge on the other. And here's something worth knowing: don't be surprised if the bus waiting for you afterwards isn't the same one you arrived on.
The system is designed to move passengers rather than keep everyone attached to one particular vehicle. Once everyone was through immigration, it was finally time for the part of the journey I had been looking forward to: crossing the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge.
The entire system stretches for around 55 kilometres, linking Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai across the Pearl River Estuary. It is the longest bridge-and-tunnel sea crossing in the world. And it isn't actually one continuous bridge. The main crossing combines approximately 23 kilometres of bridge with a 6.7-kilometre undersea tunnel. Two artificial islands connect the bridge and tunnel sections. The tunnel allows major shipping routes across the Pearl River Estuary to remain open for some of the world's largest vessels. The whole project took years to construct and finally opened in 2018.
Driving across it gives you a much better impression of its scale than looking at it on a map. For long stretches, you're surrounded almost entirely by sea before the road eventually disappears into the tunnel and then emerges again towards Hong Kong.
For someone who finds major infrastructure projects fascinating, this was definitely one of the highlights of the day. Reaching Hong Kong didn't mean simply driving straight into the city. At the Hong Kong Port, it was time to get off the bus again and take everything through Hong Kong immigration.
The process was remarkably similar to the one in Macao: enter the border terminal on one side, complete the immigration procedures and emerge on the other. And once again, don't become too attached to your bus. After immigration, passengers were sorted onto different buses depending on their final destination in Hong Kong.
Eventually, I was back in the city.
Macao – Was it worth the day trip?
Yes—but not necessarily for the reasons I had expected.
The casinos were interesting to see, although the modern, automated reality was very different from my movie-inspired expectations. The Portuguese heritage and the Ruins of St. Paul's gave Macao a character completely different from nearby Hong Kong.
But some of my strongest memories are actually about getting around: using free casino buses, failing repeatedly to get cash, finally making WeChat Pay work in Macao, passing through multiple immigration controls and crossing 55 kilometres of sea on one of the world's most extraordinary pieces of transport infrastructure.
Macao is only about an hour from Hong Kong, but crossing between the two makes you very aware that you're moving between two separate Special Administrative Regions, each with its own immigration system and currency.
And doing the journey as a loop—ferry to Macao and bridge back to Hong Kong—turned out to be a great choice. Instead of simply visiting another city, the journey itself became part of the sightseeing.
