Hong Kong & Macau travel guide

Travel to Hong Kong & Macau between Oct – Dec. Those are the months the weather, the crowds and the airfare line up — outside them you trade one of the three.

Currency

Hong Kong Dollar (Macau uses the pataca, but HKD is accepted everywhere) (HKD)

Language

Cantonese first, Mandarin and English widely understood; Portuguese survives on Macau street signs.

Time zone

HKT (UTC+8) — 2½ hours ahead of India

Plug type

Type G, 220V — the same three-pin as the UK

Flight time from India

6 hrs

Flying from

Mumbai · Delhi

• 

  Victoria Peak by the 1888 tram

  The funicular has been climbing the same impossibly steep track since 1888, and the buildings appear to lean as you rise. From the Sky Terrace at the top the whole harbour lays itself out — go an hour before sunset and stay until the towers light up, which they all do, every night.

• 

  The Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour

  For less than the price of a cup of chai, a green-and-white ferry that has run since 1888 carries you between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island with the best skyline in the world sliding past on both sides. Ride it once by day and once after dark for the Symphony of Lights.

• Ngong Ping 360 and the Big Buddha

  A 5.7 km cable car glides over the sea and the green ridges of Lantau to the Tian Tan Buddha, thirty-four metres of seated bronze reached by 268 steps. The Po Lin monastery below serves a proper vegetarian lunch, and Tai O fishing village on stilts is a short bus ride further.

• Disneyland, the compact one

  Hong Kong Disneyland is the smallest in the world, which for a family is the feature, not the flaw: short walks, shorter queues than Tokyo or Paris, and the only Frozen-themed land in Asia. One full day covers it comfortably, fireworks included, and the park has its own MTR station.

• 

  Temple Street and the Mong Kok markets

  When the sun drops, Temple Street fills with hawker stalls, fortune tellers and open-air kitchens under strings of bulbs. Around Mong Kok the markets specialise absurdly — one street for goldfish, one for flowers, one for sneakers — and the neon is the photograph you came for.

• 

  Macau: the Ruins of St Paul’s and the old town

  Of the great 1602 church only the carved stone facade survives, standing at the top of its staircase like a stage set. Below it, Senado Square’s wave-patterned pavement leads through a UNESCO-listed old town of pastel Portuguese houses, temples and bakeries — walk it, don’t drive it.

• Dim sumVegetarian

  Small steamed and fried plates ordered round after round with tea — the meal Hong Kong invented the word “yum cha” for. Every teahouse keeps vegetarian baskets: steamed vegetable dumplings, turnip cake without the sausage if you ask, and sweet custard buns to finish.

• Egg tarts and pineapple bunsVegetarian

  The two great bakery items, eaten warm and standing up. The tart came via Macau from Portugal’s pastel de nata; the pineapple bun contains no pineapple at all — the name is for the cracked sugar crust. Both are vegetarian, both cost pocket change, both disappear by noon at the good shops.

• Macanese cooking

  Macau’s own cuisine, four centuries of Portuguese and Cantonese kitchens intermarrying: minchi, African chicken, and the serradura pudding. It may be the world’s first fusion food, and the old tascas in Taipa village are where it survives best.

• For the vegetarian and Jain travellerJain friendly

  Buddhist vegetarian restaurants are a real tradition here — the Po Lin monastery kitchen is the famous one, and Kowloon has several where the entire menu is meat-free. Fish sauce and oyster sauce hide in much Cantonese cooking, so say “jai” (Buddhist vegetarian) rather than just “vegetable”. Tsim Sha Tsui has a row of Indian restaurants that cook Jain with a day’s notice; for the Macau day we carry packed options because the old town has none.

• Milk tea, the Hong Kong way

  Strong black tea pulled through a cloth filter and poured over evaporated milk — closer to a good Indian cutting chai than anything else abroad, and the cha chaan teng diners that serve it are an experience in themselves: formica tables, shared seating, service at a sprint.

Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.

• Electronics and cameras in Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po — genuine, but insist on the international warranty card
• Sneakers on Fa Yuen Street, a whole road of nothing else
• Chinese tea and teaware from the old shops of Sheung Wan, vacuum-packed for the flight
• Jade at the Kowloon jade market — bargain hard and buy for beauty, not investment
• Portuguese wine, sardine tins and almond biscuits from Macau’s old-town grocers
• Tailoring in Tsim Sha Tsui — a made-to-measure suit in 48 hours is still a real Hong Kong trade

The MTR metro is the spine — fast, spotless, signed in English, and it reaches the airport, Disneyland and the cable car terminal. Buy an Octopus card on arrival: it pays for the metro, buses, trams, ferries, convenience stores and half the food stalls, and children travel at half fare. The double-decker trams on Hong Kong Island are the cheapest sightseeing in the city, and the Star Ferry is the cheapest cruise. For Macau, TurboJET and Cotai Water Jet ferries take about an hour and run all day, or the 55 km sea bridge crossing by coach is the budget route; inside Macau the casino resorts run free shuttle buses from the ferry terminal that anyone may board.

• Hong Kong and Macau are among the safest big cities anywhere; petty theft in market crowds is the realistic worst case, so keep the phone in a front pocket on Temple Street.
• The Hong Kong PAR paper must be carried on every entry, including the return ferry from Macau. Travellers have been sent to the slow secondary queue for showing a phone screen instead of the printout.
• Typhoon signals T8 and above shut ferries, the cable car and the Peak Tram within hours. The system is rare in Oct–Dec but not impossible — build the Macau day at least one day before your return flight.
• Casinos admit only visitors aged 21 and over and photography inside gaming floors is prohibited. Children are fine everywhere else in the resorts.
• Escalators run fast and locals stand on the right; the Mid-Levels escalator reverses direction by time of day — check the arrows before stepping on.
• Roads follow the British side. Look right first, and obey the red man at crossings — jaywalking fines are enforced.

Per person, per day, on the ground — meals, local transport and entry tickets. Flights and hotels sit in the package price, not here.