The nightlife hub of Hong Kong Island is Wan Chai, an area which once gained notoriety as the red light district due, in part, to a book called The World of Suzie Wong. Published in 1957, the book tells of a young man seeking his fortune as an artist who unknowingly checks into a brothel in Hong Kong believing it to be a legitimate hotel. He then goes on to befriend the bargirls and become infatuated by the charming "hooker with a heart of gold" Suzie Wong. The book was later made into a film and a stage play, the latter starring none other than William Shatner, long before he made his name wiping Klingons off the starboard bow.

The days when such things were considered the norm, however, are long gone.Nowadays, there isn't very much about Wan Chai that could be considered seedy - it's full of McDonalds, Irish Bars and Nightclubs. The most popular bar at the moment is Carneigies, which is a rock and roll Bar and is packed to the hilt nightly by people dancing precariously on the bar and balancing on the edge of the balcony to rock music from the Seventies and Eighties. The few "Girlie" bars that do exist in the area display their presence via huge neon signs but usually offer little more to the sleazy traveller than a woman in her seventies pretending to be in her twenties and a huge bar bill at the end of the night. Suzie Wong no longer rules the roost.

When I was first in Hong Kong in 1997, my visit coincided with the birthday of one of Simon's work collegues - and the top floor of a bar in Wan Chai had been hired for the occasion. After eating, we had a strange request from the girlfriend of the birthday boy - she really wanted to know what a girlie bar was like. This is how we came, at around 1 o'clock in the morning, to be searching the back streets of Wan Chai for strip joints. And you know what? It wasn't particularly easy to find one.

There seemed to be a branch of 7-11 on virtually every corner, but when it came to finding what Wan Chai is supposed to be well known for, we came up blank. Well, almost. In the end, we stumbled into a small bar with a neon sign outside which proclaimed itself to have naked girls. Inside, the dimly lit club wasn't much bigger than a small corner shop, and the naked girl was a middle aged woman standing on one end of the bar wiggling her backside in an unconvincing manner and drinking a pint at the same time. We were decidedly underwhelmed.

Getting around Hong Kong is easy. Kowloon, Hong Kong Island and Lantau are all joined by a clean and highly efficient subway train service called the MTR, and there are frequent trams which trundle along the middle of the street and regularly cause pedestrians to have to leap out of the way. The first challenge which greets new arrivals to Hong Kong is working out how to find their way around, and once the seemingly complex subway map has been mastered this becomes as easy as pie - as long as you don't set out in the rush hour, when slightly less than the population of North America all decide to swoop down on the system and try to board a train at the same time, getting around is a doddle and you can even switch to the overland railway and travel right up to the border with China as I will be doing later in the week. The ticketing system on the MTR also beats any I have seen elsewhere hands down. Using a system called Octopus, You buy a special ticket with a microchip embedded in it and then keep it for as long as you like - this is essentially a reloadable ticket, and you can add as much cash value to it as you like at any station by either going to the ticket office and handing it over or using the ticket machines you see everywhere you turn. When you walk through the turnstile onto the platform at the beginning of your journey, the system reads your Octopus automatically as you walk through without even requiring you to take it out of your bag, and then when you pass through the corresponding turnstile at your destination it deducts the cost of the journey and a little screen lights up telling you your balance. Once again, Hong Kong is ahead of the pack on technology - why don't we have ideas like this back home (1) ? Octopus can also be used just about anywhere - Taxis have a reader to swipe it, so do buses, and you can even use it in McDonalds to buy a Big Mac.

I began my exploration of Hong Kong Island by making my way up to the highest point, known imaginatively as "The Peak". The island is divided into three levels - sea level, the "mids" where most of the people live, and the peak, and there are several ways to travel between them. One of these is the most fascinating innovation I have ever come across, an escalator which runs right up the street to the mids. This moving staircase runs up the side of the mountain, stopping only when it needs to cross a road - passengers simply get off, walk across the street and hop back on on the other side. Each section is covered with a canopy in case it rains, and the stairs all move downward in the morning and upwards in the afternoon so that people can come down to sea level for work and then return home later with the absolute minimum of effort. Riding the escalator is quite a strange experience - imagine standing on a long escalator in an underground station, but where the walls of advertisments normally go there are instead people climbing the hill alongside you or doing their shopping on the narrow side streets of the mids. Only in Hong Kong would they think of something like this. I just think it's a shame that nobody has thought to go the whole hog and extend the escalators all the way up to the peak - when you finally get to the top of the last set of moving stairs, you find yourself standing on a narrow empty street in the mids with nothing to see in either direction but the road heading off around the hillside. A bit of an anticlimax, really. I was half expecting to find a souvenir shop selling certificates to say that I'd ridden an escalator up Hong Kong Island!

The main way for tourists to get to the Peak involves walking a few blocks from Central to the base station of The Peak Tram, a ridiculously steep funicular railway which shuttles tourists up to the Peak, stopping twice on the way to let people on and off at intermediate stations in the mids. Unlike the escalators, the Peak Tram goes right to the top, arriving in the heart of the Peak Tower, a combined shopping and entertainment complex full of expensive boutiques, souvenir shops and fairground rides. There's even an observation deck from which visitors can view the famous skyline of Hong Kong, lit up in all its neon glory as soon as the sun goes down, and romance seekers will find a restaurant so that they can sit out on the observation deck with their significant other and look at the view while slowly freezing to death...

At the base station of the Peak Tram, visitors are treated to a video presentation running on a loop as they queue up for tickets, showing off all the wonders waiting at the top. This makes the whole experience feel a little like a ride at Disneyland, especially once you climb on board the tram and begin the ride to the top surrounded by views of Hong Kong far below. In the Peak Tower, the video promises, you will find thrill rides and shopping opportunities beyond your wildest imagination.

When I visited the Peak Tower for the first time, the main attraction was a voyage through ancient China, consisting of a two level museum complex and a "pirates of the Caribbean" style train ride through rooms of animatronic characters from history. Since then, however, they've added numerous new attractions, including a Ripley's Believe it or Not! Next door to the Peak Tower is the Peak Gallaria, a shopping mall spread over three floors with altogether too many modern boutiques for it's own good, and outside the Galleria is an enormous fountain set into the pavement with jets which shoot water high into the air at just the right intervals so that you scare the willies out of yourself when they go off just as you're walking across them. A return ticket on the Peak Tram will set you back about 28 Hong Kong Dollars, which is about £2.50 (2), but this often includes entrance to some of the attractions when you get to the top. The Peak also includes extensive gardens and walks, which a lot of people manage to totally miss as they aren't very well signposted. A visit to the Peak without taking a walk through the gardens and exploring the different nature trails laid out for you would almost be a sin and a pleasant afternoon can easily be spent wandering aimlessly before getting hopelessly lost trying to find your way back to the Tram.

(1) Well, now we do - in London, at least. Sort of. Octopus has been almost totally "borrowed" by Transport for London and given a name so amazingly similar that you really do have to rub your chin and go "Hmmm". Oyster, as it is called in London, does suffer from the British tendency to want to make as much money as possible - it is actually more expensive to use an Oyster card than it is to buy a daily travelcard which allows a whole days worth of travel anywhere in London for 6 pounds. Every trip you take using Oyster is billed at the full single fare, meaning that compared to Octopus it is almost totally worthless. Another shining example of taking somebody else's idea and totally messing it up. Oyster, currently, cannot even be used anywhere other than on the train. Come on Mr Mayor of London, get your act together.

(2) Well, all things change. The current price, as of October 2007, is now 33 Hong Kong Dollars for Adults return or 22 if you don't fancy going back. For Children, it is 15 Return or 8 Single. If you fancy access to the Sky Terrace as part of your ticket, you now have to pay 48 HKD for an Adult or 23 for a child - this includes a return on the Peak Tram. Current attractions include Madame Tussauds and the EA Gaming Experience. This has been a public service announcement on behalf of nobody in particular.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.