The History Tour

Simon was born in Zomba in Malawi, grew up in Rhodesia, then Zimbabwe, studied in South Africa - so perhaps that is why he decided that his party tour should have an African safari theme.  So people had African safari clothes - except for the historian who led the tour, whose arm is on the right.  We all met in the central plaza of Macau, and the tour left from there on foot.  Fiona (McDonald) didn't really have an African safari outfit, but she did have a very weird and delightful mask, which she dutifully wore for the whole tour - it might have come from a dancing girl outfit at one of the casinos which Macau is famous for (and interestingly, which take more money now than Vegas).  A part of the immense interest of the place seems locked in this grey zone role it has played over time; gambling, vice, drug-trade (opium, heroin - but also crucially during the war years, quinine - essential for fighting jungle warfare) and place where people could meet and interact pretty freely of interference.  While Hong Kong was over-run by the Japanese during the War, and bombed, and people interred - Macau remained neutral and had, right through the war, functioning British and Japanese embassies in adjacent buildings (which is pretty bizarre).

The coolest thing about Fiona's mask was just how beautifully insane it rendered any picture - so you'll be seeing more of it in the pages that follow.  I liked this photo a lot - the mask, Kevin's pith helmet and bandolier - cracker stuff.

There are amazing buildings and churches, some of which are very grand (this green one is the old theatre), some of which are very old (1600's), but for me it was in the small details and back alleys that the real fascination lay.  You would never see these places if you didn't have a guide - and to have one with this sort of knowledge (he is an historian, writer, researcher, and storyteller of absolute note).

These sorts of amazing back alleys, huge coils of incense burning, labyrinthine

And amidst it all, this incredible history, mixed in with modern living.

Like this old arched alleyway, with it's shuttered window above, going past a Harley Davidson, and then a courtyard with people burning paper money for the ancestors...

... and tiny cobbled courtyards, with tiny houses, hundreds of years old.  It's amazing.

The town is full of little fountain and treed plazas

This is the red-light district, which has been operating since time immemorial, and still is.

This is the old Dutch East Indies Company cemetery, from what was described as Macau's second great period of prosperity, when the Dutch took over the trading routes to Japan from the Portuguese.  The earliest grave in here that I saw was from the 1700's - which is interesting in the context of South Africa, in that the same company arrived in the Cape in 1652 - and it was in the years just before that in which the Dutch rose to prominence in Macau - their ship technology is what fueled their trading success.

In the very old library, there were also much more modern books - surprisingly, Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was spotted by Robyn on one of the shelves.  This is not a book that one commonly finds in public libraries - for good reason - but also highlights Macau's existence in the grey zone between what is ruled against by others.  The guide mentioned that it had its fair share of fascists, and this is simply reflective of that.

This photo is taken from one of the forts built (if I remember correctly) in the mid 1500's, you can see the density of the place down below.

Angie, framed by the door of an old Chinse style house

Inside the newer parts of the city the buildings look like this. Tight for a big car.

Loved this photo - another little plaza, with the beautiful old yellow building, with the lady sitting on the bench in front of it, and the much grimmer modern stuff on either side.  The town is full of this very groovy patterned paving - which as it turns out is a modern addition (maybe 20 years old).