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The Peak Tram runs every 10 to 15 minutes from 7am to midnight, making between one and four stops (Kennedy Rd, MacDonnell Rd, May Rd and Barker Rd) along the way in about seven minutes. It’s such a steep ride that the floor is angled to help standing passengers stay upright. Running for more than a century, the tram has never had an accident – a comforting thought if you start to have doubts about the strength of that vital cable. It carries 8500 passengers a day.

The Peak Tram lower terminus ( Map) is behind the St John’s Building. The upper tram terminus is in the Peak Tower (off Map; 128 Peak Rd). Avoid going on Sunday and public holidays when there are usually long queues. Octopus cards can be used.

Between 10am and 11.55pm, open-deck (or air-conditioned) bus 15C takes passengers between the Star Ferry pier and Pedder St in Central and the lower tram terminus.

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TRAVEL & TOURIST PASSES

The Octopus card ( 2266 2222; www.octopuscards.com), originally designed for the MTR and seven other forms of transport (thus the eight-armed ‘octopus’ connection), is valid on most forms of public transport in Hong Kong and will even allow you to make purchases at retail outlets across the territory (such as 7-Eleven convenience stores and Wellcome supermarkets). All you do is touch fare-deducting processors installed at stations and ferry piers, on minibuses, in shops etc with the Octopus card and the fare is deducted, indicating how much credit you have left.

The Octopus card comes in three basic denominations: $150 for adults, $100 for students aged 12 to 25, and $70 for children aged three to 11 and seniors (‘elders’ here) over 65. All cards include a refundable deposit of $50. If you want to add more money to your card, just go to one of the add-value machines or the ticket offices located at every MTR station. The maximum amount you can add is $1000, and the card has a maximum negative value of $30, which is recovered the next time you reload (thus the $50 deposit). Octopus fares are between 5% and 10% cheaper than ordin-ary fares on the MTR, Light Rail systems and certain green minibuses.

You can purchase Octopus cards at ticket offices or customer service centres in MTR and LRT stations, New World First Bus customer service centres as well as Outlying Islands ferry piers on both sides.

The much-advertised Airport Express Tourist Octopus card is not really worth the microchip embedded into it. The card costs $220 (including $50 deposit) and allows one trip on the Airport Express and three days of unlimited travel on the MTR (except Airport Express, Light Rail, MTR Bus, East Rail Line First Class, Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau stations). Value can be added to the ticket for travel on other major means of transport. For $300 you get two trips on the Airport Express and the same benefits. At the end of your trip you can claim your deposit back (plus any part of the ‘remaining value’ added still on the card). For shorter stays there’s the Tourist MTR 1-Day Pass ($55), valid on the MTR for 24 hours.

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TRANSPORT TO/FROM MAINLAND CHINA

Air

Competition (of sorts) is driving prices down slightly, but expect to pay a premium to fly between Hong Kong and the mainland as the government regulates the prices. Depending on the season, seats can be difficult to find due to the enormous volume of business travellers and Chinese tourists, so book well in advance. Destinations and sample adult return fares valid for a year from Hong Kong are Beijing ($4290), Chengdu ($4650), Kunming ($2840) and Shanghai ($3060). One-way fares are a bit more than half the return price.

You should be able to do better than that, however, on both scheduled and charter flights, especially in summer. Also note that you can save at least 30% on the above fares by heading for Shenzhen by bus or ferry and boarding the aircraft at Huangtian airport there.

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Land

The only way in and out of Hong Kong by land is to cross the 30km