Well, its not really that we joined amazing race, but that was how we felt during this trip in March 2008. From Singapore we went to Malaysia to catch a budget airline. We left at around 4 am because we were worried about getting stuck at the border due to heavy traffic (long weekend and tightened security checks). When we got to the airport in Johore Bahru, we slept because everything was still closed (it ws 5am!). Woke up and took our time eating breakfats around 7am when the plane was in fact departing at 730am. Talk about crazy. I suppose we got carried away talking about various ways to survive a plane crash. Someone suggetsed using guns to shoot the water to lessen impact when you hit the water. Great idea! Except, they don't really allow big guns on planes these days.
So as we took our time checking in, we realized that the immigration counter has already closed. What?!? They took us to another office where our passport are to be processed. While the rest were waiting for the passport stamps, i went ahead to the gate to sort off hold off the plane. No, I didn't have to lie on the runway in front of the plane. Nothing dramatic.
After arriving in Macau, we walked from the tip of the island to the bottom, where the port to HK is located. My friends love to walk! But it wasn't so bad as Macau is not that big. We had lunch at the nearest restaurant we could find when we got hungry. I had baked pork chop, which was, I was told, a traditional macau favorite.
Of course when you're in Macau what else do you do aside from the usual sight-seeing? We went to the Macau Tower so my friends can try the tallest sky jump in the world. Not me of course, no thanks. But we didn't make it there in time so they had to skip that. I think it was because we stayed a bit more than we planned at the Lisboa Casino. Hey, they had dancers! You know the typical vegas-thong-wearing-leg-raising dancers! There were three guys (Emil, Brian and Koen) and just me and Ozana, we weren't strong enough to drag them out hahaha. Oh and I won 70HK$ in the slot machine. Purely beginner's luck as I didn't even understand how the thing worked!
We bought our tickets to HK island with but a small window of time before the ship was to depart (don't ask me why). So we had to run to immigration then run faster after the immigration to catch the ship. We like lots of excitement!
For dinner, in HK, we went to a noodle house that gives you spicy choices such as hot, very hot, super hot and no hot. So you basically you can order cold noodles served hot but no hot :)
Bedtime. We could stop laughing when we got to our hostel. It was a dorm-type hostel with four double decks and two bathrooms/toilets that are way too small you almost have to stand on the toilet to shower! A few of the things one has to deal with when one travels on a budget ;)
The good thing about staying at a hostel though is that you meet new friends. When we left to watch the symphony of lights the following night and then go clubbing, we have two recruits with us: one from Australia and another from USA.
Then it was time to go home after only two days of walking our feet off. We woke up early because our flight leaves Macau in like three hours?!? and we were still in HK. This meant that we have to take a cab from the hostel to the port, cross immigrations to exit HK, cross yet another immigration to enter Macau, take another cab from macau the airport and then again cross immigration to exit Macau. Crazy huh?
But as crazy and stressful as all these may sound, I really had great time during the trip :)