Lonely Planet - Hong Kong

13. Hides and feather in the marshes

If you're a real bird fancier, the Mai Po Marsh, a fragile, 270-hectare ecosystem in the northwestern New Territories and one of the largest natural habitats for wildlife in Hong Kong, is the best place to meet up with thousands of your feathered friends. But it's reserved for serious aficionados and is not the easiest place to reach. The more accessible Hong Kong Wetland Park contains a huge visitor centre called Wetland Interactive World, with three major galleries and a surfeit of hands-on and educational exhibits, a theatre and a resource centre.

Outside there are four brief boardwalk walking trails through marshland and mangrove swamps, complete with viewing platforms and bird hides, and a discovery centre - all in all, a kind of high-tech Mai Po Marsh. The park is also now the home of Pui Pui, the irascible pet crocodile that escaped and managed to find his way to the Shan Pui River in Yuen Long, eluding would-be captors from Hong Kong, China and Australia for seven not-so-snappy months in 2004. Pui Pui seems content in his 'furnished' tank at the start of the nature trails but, like us, is no doubt unimpressed with the backdrop of Shenzhen on the mainland belching out pollution.

14. As high as it gets here

'Hong Kong is like no other place in the world, where the East collides head on with the West' was a sentence we wrote some years back in an article that dealt with the territory as an exotic destination and it remains true today. Superlatives and cliches are - and always have been - acceptable to people in this, the world's largest Cantonese, city. Biggest, brightest and especially highest - those are the sort of things that make Hong Kong tick.

To get as high as you can in Hong Kong (and we're talking lifts and elevators here), head for the Bank of China Tower designed by China-born American architect IM Pei in 1990. Take the express lift to the 43rd floor from where you'll be rewarded with a panoramic view over Hong Kong. From here you are about the same height as the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank to the northwest. It's a pity that you aren't allowed to go any higher, as it's exciting swaying with the wind at the top.

Even higher (though arguably not as dramatic) is the view from the windows of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority Information Centre on the 55th floor of the Two International Finance Centre. OK, the exhibits focusing on Hong Kong's currency, fiscal policy and banking history are not exactly a crowd-pleaser, but who's come all the way up here for those?

15. Where Buddha and Mickey Mouse are at one

Much of Hong Kong is based on artifice and one of the best ways to see it at its most 'plastic' is to combine a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland with one to Ngong Ping Village via the new hair-raising Ngong Ping Skyrail. To make the trip, catch the Tung Chung MTR line from Central or Kowloon and change at Sunny Bay station for Disneyland Resort.

After a quick look around (that's all you'll need - it's one of the world's smallest Disney theme parks), take the MTR to Tung Chung and transfer to the Ngong Ping Skyrail, which departs from the terminus just northwest of the Tung Chung MTR station. The journey, which takes 20 to 25 minutes, offers startling (and very real) views of the airport, Tung Chung and North Lantau Country Park, and ends at Ngong Ping Village, a Chinese 'Disneyland' with multimedia attractions relating to the life of the Buddha and the Buddhist Jataka tales.

Have a look at the living and fully working Po Lin Monastery immediately to the east and then catch bus 2 to Mui Wo (Silvermine Bay), where the ferry will take you back to Central (or on the weekend Tsim Sha Tsui).

Reproduced with permission from Hong Kong Encounter ©2007 Lonely Planet Publications