Everyday practical information for Macao

The basics

• 230 V, 50 Hz, and the plug is the British three-pin type G in most places - though round three-pin sockets survive in older buildings, so check before you plug in.
• Chinese and Portuguese are the official languages. Street signs are in both. Cantonese is what people speak; Portuguese is almost never heard.
• English works in hotels, casinos and restaurants and much less well on a bus or in a market.
• The dialling code is +853, and 00 gets you out.
• UTC+8 all year, no daylight saving.

Small things that help

• Carry the address in Chinese. Any hotel front desk will write it. Macao's Portuguese street names are beautiful and useless to a taxi driver.
• Coins for the bus, or a Macau Pass. This is one of the last places where exact change still matters.
• Everything is closer than it looks. Macao is 33 square kilometres; a taxi ride you expected to take 20 minutes takes six.
• The historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site made up of about 25 separate listed sites within walking distance of each other, not one monument.

Food and hours

• Portuguese-Macanese food is the point and is not the same thing as Portuguese food. Try it on the peninsula or in Taipa Village rather than in a resort.
• Restaurants close between lunch and dinner, roughly 15:00 to 18:00, which catches out visitors on an afternoon walk.
• Casinos never close, and neither do the food courts inside them - which is the fallback at 04:00.