There are several ways for visitors to get around Macau. Some may choose to take public buses, catch a taxi or even hop on the city’s Light Rapid Transit (LRT), while information on how to get around is available around the city and its different tourist attractions. For foreign tourists, what has the experience been like for them as they navigate Macau? To find out, the Post interviewed several of them in the city centre yesterday.
Visitors in their twenties John and Eugene, who are from the Netherlands, are on a trip to see different parts of the mainland, but also want to see Macau as they were curious to know more about the city, a place they had visited when they were younger. Remarking on their experience with transport, both said that they have so far found it to be easy and that the bus ride they took to the city centre was okay, with Eugene noting that the only downsides they had experienced was that there wasn’t too much air conditioning while the bus ride was slow at times. “We had to stop a lot of times, [but] the rest was pretty good, very cheap, [and it is] easy to get by”, Eugene noted.
John can speak Cantonese, while Eugene speaks Putonghua, underlining that they can get around Macau just fine. Though some information is not available in English, Eugene said he found general information in English in places like buses and the airport to be sufficient. John added that there was enough information in English at the airport, but “the more we got into the city, the less English there was”. Overall, he said it was adequate to navigate the city, which Eugene, who looked forward to visiting some of the city’s integrated resorts, echoed.
Meanwhile, a 36-year-old visitor named Johan said that upon arriving in Macau from Hong Kong yesterday, he found it easy to catch a cab. “There might be a language barrier, but it was quite quick [for the cabbie] to see where I wanted to go, so it’s easy”, he said. But he also noted that from his research that people might sometimes struggle to get a taxi, especially at peak hours.
He also mentioned that he initially did not know about Macau’s Light Rapid Transit (LRT), but would love to learn more about it and see how it works as he explores the city, where he said he looked forward to seeing places like Jardim de Luís de Camões.
Claudine, a Filipino who works in Dubai, was satisfied with her trip to Macau, remarking that she was in awe of its infrastructure and the mix of Portuguese and Chinese cultures that make the city unique. Travelling to Macau with her mum for a day, the 30-year-old said that they had someone show them around the city, which made navigating it easier.
“That’s why we found it easy, but maybe if it were only us [her and her mum], I don’t know if I could do it”, she said, noting that some places can get a bit confusing, and she did not know if Macau had any dedicated apps for getting around like Hong Kong. However, she said that if there was more time to explore, they would try to do so on their own and see “the beauty of Macau”.
Portuguese visitors Ana and Pedro, aged 35 and 44 respectively, travelled to Macau from Vietnam. Though their first impression of the city was that it is noisy and chaotic, Pedro said that he loved Macau. Both praised the city’s cleanliness and the street art present in certain areas, while also finding the city’s Chinese and Portuguese influences interesting, along with the city being multicultural. They did not have an opinion on getting around using public transport yet, but pointed out that they found it easy to move around given how everything seemed “relatively close”.
Meanwhile, unlike other interviewees, Joshin and Manny, aged 17 and 18, found that although Macau is a nice place to go around, moving from attraction to attraction may not always be that easy. “When we came here, we didn’t know where to go and the transportation was really hard because it’s all in Chinese and we got lost a lot”, Joshin said, with Manny adding that their family got lost five times.
Visiting from Hong Kong, the siblings recommended that there could be more posters in English that could also specify how to get to main attractions that tourists want to go to. “They could include more directions, that could help them [visitors] out better”, while Manny emphasised that putting more pictures of tourist attractions on maps on buses could also help those who may not know the specific name of an attraction.
Tourists take photos on the steps of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ruins of St. Paul’s yesterday afternoon. – Photo: Rui Pastorin
