Do Not Go Through Immigration at Hong Kong Airport!

I’m creating a series of Things Not To Do when in Macau but as they will be brief statements, I wanted to tell the complete story of how I learned a big No-No in Macau.

Do Not Go Through Immigration at Hong Kong Airport!

If you’re going to Macau via Ferry at Hong Kong Airport, you’ll definitely want to read and HEED this.

I didn’t—and I almost was forced to go to Hong Kong Island.

Go Directly to Ferry Counter

Once you get off from you plane, there is no need to go through immigration or baggage claim. All you have to do is to follow the sign “Ferries to Mainland/Macau”

That’s what my itinerary from the press reps at the Macau Government Tourist Office sent me. I read it at least a dozen times but after a red eye 14 hour flight and being in a continent you’ve never been to before, you kind of lose yourself in the mind-blow.

After deboarding the flight, I made plans with Carman, our press rep, to meet outside the bathroom. When I got out—and I did take a while because it was an immensely long flight and I knew I had at least an hour ferry ride to go ahead of me. When I got out of the bathroom, I didn’t see Carman. I waited for a couple minutes but then figured she and another journalist went ahead to the baggage claim area. So I took the walkway and tram to the baggage claim area.

Uh-Oh

“What kind of baggage claim area is this?”

All there were were a bunch of counters and then immigration spanning across the whole building.

I found the one for Visitors and since my bags were on the other side and I had to go through, well, yeah, that’s what I did. Though I’m no international traveler, that seemed pretty logical to do: go directly to your bags. That’s what we do in the U.S.

But as Lisa Ling says, you can’t look at things through American eyes when you travel. She was talking about judgments but I’d say it’d apply here too.

That was Easy

I went through immigration incredibly fast and picked up my luggage. That was easy except: No Carman.

I figured she was waiting at the bathroom but I couldn’t go back through the doors so I thought that she would eventually realize that I went ahead and would meet me at baggage claim. I sat there putting on my sunscreen for the ferry ride and subsequent outing afterward. Still no Carman.

Then I pulled out my itinerary.

Oh, shit!

But is it really a problem?

To Get to the Other Side

I asked the concierge where the ferry counters were. He pointed to immigration. It was on the other side of immigration. He said that I would have to take a 90 minute bus ride to catch the ferry. I asked if I could walk around the airport to the ferry landing.

 “No.”

It was a secure area so there was no way to enter to get to the landing except if you were deboarding from a plane. I told him I had no Hong Kong money and wouldn’t even know what to do in catching this bus. He told me to talk to immigration and see if they could help me out.

I did, and at first they gave me the same answer. I was brought to a supervisor, and he asked me why I was in Asia. I told him I was a journalist on a government sponsored press trip and showed him my itinerary and passport. He told me to have a seat while he checked on what he could do.

I glared in relief at the Macau Government Tourist Office seal—it was a copy but it was there in black and white. One time I’m glad I had a hard copy instead of storing it on my phone.

Wyahh!!!

It looked hopeful. But I still got worried. There was no way to even contact Carman—my phones didn’t even work outside the U.S.

Finally he returned and told me to return my luggage to the baggage claim conveyor and come back. The incredibly nice immigration officer then said, “Mr. Choy, this is the first and last concession we’ll make for you.” He pointed to where I should have gone and let me through, back into the terminal.

When I retold the story to people, they were astonished. This never happens. Could be he saw that I was a dumb ass American or that any second, I would burst into tears or just was an incredibly nice person. Some think he got fired—I hope not. But he did make several phone calls so he must have cleared it with someone else.

I only saw my trip companions briefly on the plane in a weary eyed haze, and the other journalist from LA walked right by me without recognizing me. I stared at her and called out her name. Finally recognition. She said Carman had been looking frantically for me, running through 40 gates back and forth twice. We finally found each other, and she hugged me in relief.

I’m surprised I wasn’t sent home that second.

Carman was attentive to all the journalists on the trip—she’s an amazing, thoughtful person, and I’m not just saying that because she ran back and forth searching for me.

She told me she was ready to jump a bus to Hong Kong Island to see if I was there so I wouldn’t be alone.

Yes, she is something special.

During a trip interview, I cried throughout because the thoughtfulness and extension of self is extremely touching to me. Total cry baby.

All these thoughts went through my head because I was initially suspicious of an unsolicited call to go to Macau on a journalist trip. Once I got my ticket number, those feelings of unease quelled. But when I was all alone in the baggage claim, I thought, “I knew it. They just wanted to get you to Asia and then leave you stranded.” There was no logic to my thoughts—to what effect would that have?

Anyway, I was safe.

Though it wasn’t the only time I got lost on the trip…