Macau is now boffo, big wicket, the wiseguys at Variety Magazine might say. When I first ferried across from Hong Kong in the 1980s, Macau was a Portuguese colonial backwater with mid-sized plans to restore its architectural heritage. It did so beautifully. But plans became more than a touch grandiose after Portugal ceded it to China and in 2010 Macau belts "Look at me now!" Money fleeing the sinking oasis of Las Vegas is placing its bets here. Macau, is out Vegasing Vegas already in gambling revenues and if you look at the otherworldly palaces rising from under the construction cranes, it will probably outbuild it as well.

I stayed for a week last month, at The Venetian, a hotel-casino that makes the one in Las Vegas look like a Motel Six, witnessed the preview of a spectacular US$250 million water show called "The House of Dancing Water," similar to Cirque du Soliel's "O" but more engaging, I think, went to visit the family jewels (the Ho family, who controlled gambling in Macau for decades) including a 216 carat diamond, took a stroll through the old Portuguese quarter under the glow of holiday Chinese lanterns and ended the night with a bang at the Macau International Fireworks competition.

But monkeys are untouchable in this Hindu temple perched on a cliff above the Indian Ocean. Every night, in a performance of the Kecak, or Monkey Dance, the monkey-like Varana helps a prince fight off an evil king while 100 men chatter like macaques.

I had a dream that the Grand Lisboa tower, a hotel-casino that now dominates the skyline of Macau, came alive one night, pulled itself from its mooring, marched across China's Pearl River Delta and, like Godzilla, tossed trolley cars around Hong Kong.

Ka-Ching? (a Chinese expression?)

Like Vegas in the 90s, this former Portuguese backwater colony, now called East Las Vegas, has gone over-the-top.

I think about my week in Macau last year as I walk the strip in Las Vegas, past rubble-strewn lots that look like some lizard of mass destruction had just swung through. Past construction cranes that have not moved an inch since my last visit a year ago. Past women stuffed in short tight skirts like shrimp in sushi rolls, alone or in pairs, peering at their mobiles. This is not the Las Vegas of the mid-century when Mo Dalitz and his pals ruled and in the words of a longtime restaurateur, "knew how to take care of people." This is not the Vegas of the 90s when the Steve Winns and corporate poobahs built palaces and faux New Yorks and Venices and "family values" was the motto. This is the Now Las Vegas: down and a bit dirtier, but not out.