This will be possibly the shortest post ever, but I thought I’d throw it on the site since current information about crossing from Zhuhai to Macau with bicycles isn’t easy to find.
Apparently there are two ways to cross; a ferry, or the main foot-traffic crossing at the border of the two countries (yeah, Macau isn’t technically a country, but I’ll write about that next time).
Option one: Ferry crossing
The two options were vastly reduced when we showed up to the ferry terminal and were told that it was no longer possible to cross there. So we cycled back to the city.
Option two: Land border
This border was absolutely packed at 8.30 a.m. on a Monday morning. We pushed our bikes through the heaving crowd, and had to remove our panniers to have them scanned. Once that was done we walked to Chinese immigration, wheeled our bikes down the aisle with no trouble, and got stamped out of China. Immediately after that we had to take off the panniers again to have them scanned.
We walked through to Macau immigration, didn’t have to fill out any paperwork whatsoever, lined up in the queue with our bikes, and got stamped in.
Perhaps at borders between other countries some happy bureaucrat might have started prancing around and made us do something ridiculous, like remove the font wheel or have the bikes wrapped up in plastic. My guess is that this crossing was easy simply because of the sheer number of people, and that trying to make us jump through hoops would have caused too much hassle.
Easy peasy.
~~~
Now that you have google maps, you can do this:
Open google maps.
Zoom out to maximum.
LOOK AT HOW MUCH OF THE WORLD YOU JUST CYCLED UNDER YOUR OWN POWER!!!
Marvel at your awesomeness.
Eat a celebratory dumpling (or 19 to beat your record) :-p
Eating celebratory egg tarts right now.
Hi
We are Janek and Jonathan and just staying at Nancy’s in Nanning. We are on a bicycle tour to Hong Kong as well (from Myanmar though 🙂 ). We wondered about the border crossing in Macao. Is it truly impossible to take the ferry? Was it because of the bicycles, or temporarily, or are just all passenger ferries on the route Hong Kong – Macau completely cancelled and no sea route is available? That seems pretty drastic to us (and would mean a substantial detour) but it is you guys who have the first hand knowledge… so we would be delighted about some info.
Isn’t Nancy truly great?
Thanks so much for helping fellow cyclists out,
all the best,
J&J
Hello Janek and Jonathan, nice to hear from you – yes, Nancy is great!
The ferry from Zhuhai (China) to Macau isn’t running at all, so you have to take the land crossing. But the ferry from Macau to Hong Kong, which is what I think you are talking about, is definitely running – we took it yesterday. There are actually several ferries that travel to different parts of Hong Kong from Macau. We went from Macau to Tuen Mun (in Hong Kong) which cost $181 HKD per person plus a fee of $65 HKD for each bike. They were very relaxed about the whole process.
It would be great to keep in touch with you guys! If you have WeChat, just ask Nancy for our contact details.
Never mind, Janek misread (this is Jonathan). The ferry you are talking about is obviously Zhuhai – Macau, not Macau – Hong Kong.
But I enjoyed your transcript of your “48 hours Macau”!
Cheers, Jonathan
Ha ha! All good.
Well, maybe my answer will be useful to you anyway.
Thank you for sharing! Hey I am biking from Shanghai to Hong Kong and now to Vietnam. And need to take the ferry to Macau then cross the border back to China.
Sounds like an epic trip. Good luck!
hi i am Velu, indian, working in hong kong want to ride by bi-cycle to India, what r the chances and what r the procedures