Macau Travel Guide

A mere 18 sq km of land consisting of a peninsula and two islands, Macau, after more than two centuries of Portuguese occupation, was returned to China in 1999. The city and its people, though basically Chinese, have a distinctly Portuguese side. Many traditions are Portuguese, there are Portuguese buildings and many people speak Portuguese. In fact, the Macanese, of mixed Portuguese-Chinese ancestry, form a significant part of the populace.  

And of course, there is the food - a delightfully intriguing mix of flavours, with everything from Goan to African influences being thrown into the cooking pot. The Portuguese picked up food habits wherever they went, just as they influenced the cultures of these places; Macau’s cuisine benefits from all this giving and taking and comes to today’s traveller as a gastronomic surprise of exceeding pleasantness.

The unfortunate thing about Macau is that after the initial bit of importance as a trade centre, it started to decline, and that trend has continued; economic development isn’t what it could have been. But when did underdevelopment ever deter the traveller? Macau is a mix of cultures as disparate as the Chinese and the Portuguese making it one of the most interesting parts of China.