Two Macaos, ten minutes apart

Macao gets sold as one thing: the Cotai strip, the casinos, the lights, the shows. Fair enough, it is a spectacle. But ten minutes away, on the island of Taipa, there is a village of narrow lanes lined with pastel colonial houses, and it is where I would spend my own afternoon.

Taipa Village is small. You can walk the whole thing in twenty minutes if you are rude about it. Give it three hours and eat twice.

How it got like this

Macao was a Portuguese trading settlement from the mid-sixteenth century, and Portuguese administration continued until 1999. Taipa and Coloane were separate islands then, joined by reclaimed land that is now Cotai. The old village centres kept their scale: low buildings, tiled facades, shutters, and a grid of lanes too narrow for the traffic that surrounds them.

The result is a small pocket of Mediterranean-ish streets with Chinese temples tucked in between, and it feels nothing like the twenty-first-century city that grew up around it.

Getting there and starting

Take the light rail or a bus to Taipa, or walk across from Cotai, which is what I usually do. Start at the Largo do Carmo, the square in front of the Carmelite church, which is pale yellow and one of the prettiest buildings in Macao. From there you are already inside the lanes.

• Light rail: Taipa line, several stops on the edge of the village
• From Cotai: 15 to 25 minutes on foot from most of the big resorts
• From the Macao peninsula: buses over the bridge, roughly 20 minutes plus traffic

What to see, without rushing

The village is not a checklist destination, but a few things are worth the stop:

• The Carmelite church and its square, best in the late afternoon light
• Rua do Cunha, the main lane, which is now mostly food shops but still pleasant early in the day
• Small Chinese temples in the side lanes, easy to walk past if you are not looking
• The Taipa Houses Museum, four colonial villas on the waterfront, and the wetland in front of them

If you go to the Taipa Houses at the right time of year, the mangroves in front are full of birds, including black-faced spoonbills in winter.

Eating: the main event

Taipa is where you should be eating in Macao. Not on the strip.

• Portuguese egg tarts, straight from the oven, with a burnt top. Eat them standing up.
• Pork chop bun, a fried pork chop in a crusty roll, no sauce needed. Cheap and enormous.
• Serradura, the sawdust pudding made with crushed biscuits and cream. Simple and very good.
• Minchi, minced meat and potato with a fried egg on top, which is Macanese home cooking at its best.
• Portuguese-style baked duck rice, richer than you expect

Portions are generous and prices are gentler than on the Cotai strip. Two people can eat extremely well for well under 300 patacas.

Practical notes

• Currency: Macanese pataca, pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, and Hong Kong dollars are accepted almost everywhere at one to one. Do not overthink it.
• Language: Cantonese and Portuguese are official, but English is widely spoken in shops and restaurants here, more so than in many parts of the mainland.
• Timing: arrive before 11am or after 3pm. Midday is when the tour groups come through Rua do Cunha.
• Getting back: buses and the light rail run late, and taxis are scarce after 11pm in the village lanes.

If you have a weekend in Macao, give one evening to Cotai and one afternoon to Taipa. Most visitors do the first and skip the second, which is a shame, because the village is the part of Macao you would actually want to live in.

Originally published on 71Asia Tours blog.