I’m running recklessly through the streets of the Macau old city centre, having a strict monologue with myself:

“Michal, you are in deep shit.”

Droplets of sweat are falling into my eyes and obstructing my vision, yet I can still perceive the delightfully crafted city streets. If Hong Kong felt like the result of one wild night where Beijing basically raped certain streets of Tokyo (especially Kagurazaka and slightly less-populated streets of Shibuya) and Tokyo didn’t want to get an abortion, but decided to raise that child with care and love, and then the child decided to spend its teenage times with teenage London, and eventually grew up as a crazy and lovely mess, then Macau felt as if Hong Kong had one extremely wild night with Lisabon, and then decided to spend multiple summer holidays in the vicinity of teenage Rome, fell in love with it, started to smoke a bit and learned the tricks of trade of a really touristy place, but with that air of chillness and organised chaos, and then eventually started to read books about self-development and grew up into a lovely young lady with a slightly dodgy past, which came to terms with herself, and achieved this state of inner balance where she is not a screwed-up person, but someone who is fine with not being fine, and doesn’t make too much fuss about it.

I’m sure you get the idea.

Macau is beautiful. Yet at this moment, there is only one sentence in my mind:

“Michal, you screwed up big time.”

I’m too much focused on solving my problem rather than to watch all this beauty. As with many of my escapades, I’m not quite entirely sure how did I end up in this deep shit to begin with. I knew that I had only 3 hours in the city, I knew I correctly estimated the time required to get to the city centre from the ferry terminal, I knew how to get around the city, and I knew how much time I needed to fetch a taxi and arrive back to the terminal to get back to Hong Kong. I enjoyed the crowded streets of Macau, I took few pictures of the cuddliest streets out there, I didn’t go to the casinos (limited time and money budget), but at least I tried some of the local street food delicacies.

Yet, here I am again.

“Michal, shit shit shit shit shit!”

I’m running down the huge roads, without any taxi nor uber in sight, regularly checking the map (I’m lost in the wrong streets), the distance to the terminal (I’m too far away), and the time until my ferry leaves (Not quite enough).

It’s 3 more kilometres and 20 minutes left. I try to half-run half-sprint, but the roads are small, the traffic is crazy, and some shortcuts that I expected to take are existing only in the world of Google Maps. Desperate feelings are slowly piling up my head, but I’m trying to contain them. “When in deep shit, enjoy it and learn from it.”

Not that this is always applicable, but in most cases it enables me to stay focused and look for solutions I normally wouldn’t think of.

Such as… approaching a random lady in her 40s who is sitting in a park, reading a book next to her Vespa, and completely ignoring her surroundings.

I stop for a second, put together the situation, and start to slowly approach the lady from the side so that she has enough time to see me coming and isn’t scared.

The idea is clear. They way how to communicate it is not.

Nor is the reason why I approach her like a horse.

But desperate situations call for desperate solutions. I’m completely out of breath, my brain is barely able to support my basic cognitive functions, and all I can bring myself to come up with is the worst cliché one could ever imagine:

“Excuse me, Miss, do you speak English?”

“Yes I do.”

Mkay, that’s quite straightforward. I think for a second how to present my situation in the most directly indirect way possible.

“Actually, my ferry back to Hong Kong leaves in, uhh, 17 minutes. Can you tell me which way to the terminal?”

“17 minutes? It’s that way.”

I push the discussion further: “Can I make it on time?”

She answers without a blink: “I’m not sure if you can make it on time.”

“Ow… that’s… unfortunate.”

“Yeah, that’s really unfortunate.”

I deliberately wait through 4 seconds of extremely awkward silence, gulp heavily, and then produce the most intense sad-puppy-eyes-look I’m capable of, take a deep breath, and ask her:

“Do you think that… that perhaps… I could… I mean… that you could… could you… drive me to the terminal?”

She looks at me with a slight question mark in her eyes.

I add: “I will tell this story to my grandchildren one day. And pay you whatever you want.”

The question mark in her eyes grows evidently larger, but she smiles, approaches her scooter, opens the little trunk under the seat and throws me a helmet.

“Dare you pay me a dime. Get on and try not to fall down!”

What comes up is the craziest scooter ride I ever had. The lady drives her Vespa through the tight Macau traffic with the precision of a surgeon. More than once I’m close to falling down, losing my helmet, or hitting my cameras to something or someone, yet always, somehow, I manage to stay intact.

The adrenaline rush is amazing. We are cutting through the cars like a small, fast, and agile swallow on drugs, throwing triple somersaults in the middle of a swarm of hungry eagles. The lady pushes the small scooter way over it’s limits, she overtakes one car after another, squeezes herself through unimaginable places, and eventually we arrive at the terminal.

I quickly get off, take out my wallet, and get scolded like a child by the Vespa lady: “Dare you!”

I smile, take a picture together with the lady, express my never-ending gratitude, and run to the check-in terminal.

5 minutes of waiting and one quick passport check later, I sit down in the ferry, and watch the slow and lazy ocean waves.

Macau, you little beast… Let’s meet again.