Caine Road is Mid-Levels’ main artery, leading past the Roman Catholic cathedral to Shelley Street, a left turn up which is the Jamia Mosque, a focus for the territory’s fifty thousand Muslims. The present building dates from 1915, a pale-green structure set in its own quiet, raised courtyard above the surrounding terraces (there’s no public entry).

West on busy Robinson Road, stairs lead down to the whitewashed Ohel Leah Synagogue, lurking in its own quiet, leafy hollow below the main road. The territory’s bestknown synagogue, it was built by the wealthy Sassoon family in 1902. Great care has recently been taken to restore the oakcarved and painted interior, although unfortunately security concerns make it difficult to simply drop in for a look round - if you want to go in, bring ID and ask at the entrance.

The Mid-Levels Escalator cuts up the hillside for 800m from the footbridge across Queen’s Road by the corner of Jubilee Street, along Cochrane Street and across Hollywood, Caine and Robinson roads, ending at Conduit Road. It is capable of carrying thirty thousand people a day on a one-way system, which changes direction during the day: uphill from 10.20am to midnight, downhill from 6am to 10am (use accompanying staircases to go against the flow).

All told, it’s a twenty-minute ride from bottom to top, or 45 minutes if you have to walk.

The Mid-Levels Escalator makes it easy to reach a district recently christened SoHo, as in South of Hollywood Road, although it now also extends north into Peel, Wellington and Gage streets. There are dozens of restaurants and bars here, opening, closing and changing their name and cuisine every month. The area’s daytime appeal is mainly down to a few old-style shophouses, and while the tide of gentrification is strong (florists, interior decorators and antique shops have all moved in), you’ll still find the sort of practical outlets - butchers, hardware shops and rice sellers - that tell you this remains a real Chinese neighbourhood.

Sheung Wan begins pretty much west of Jubilee Street, and though modern development has torn out many of the old lanes and their street vendors, a few - such as Wing Kut Street and Man Wa Lane - survive, and are full of stalls hawking calligraphy brushes, clothes and carved name stamps or “chops”.

Sheung Wan’s most distinctive structure is the massive Shun Tak Centre; down at the waterfront on Connaught Road, its twin towers are encased in a distinctive red framework and house the Macau Ferry Terminal. Opposite is the Western Market (daily 10am- 7pm), whose fine Edwardian brick-and ironwork shell houses two floors of fabric shops. For a typical Chinese produce market - involving vast amounts of fruit, vegetables, and freshly slaughtered meat - try Sheung Wan Market on Morrison Street; the second floor is a mass of stalls (daily 6am-2am) serving all sorts of light snacks.

The streets due west of here provide glimpses of the trades and industries that date back to Hong Kong’s settlement. Many shops on Wing Lok Street and Bonham Strand specialize in bird’s nest and ginseng: the nests are used to make bird nest soup, a gastronomic speciality said to promote longevity; as the nest is tasteless, however, the dish’s quality rests in the soup itself. Ginseng, the root of a plant found in Southeast Asia and North America, is prescribed for a whole host of problems, from reviving mental faculties in the aged, to curing impotence - some of the larger ginseng trading companies have venerable interiors decked out in teak and glass panels.

Many shops in Ko Shing Street are dedicated wholesalers, selling traditional Chinese medicines such as deer antlers, crushed pearls, dried seahorses and assorted herbalists’ paraphernalia. Others lean towards kitchen supplies with their piles of dried mushrooms, salted and preserved fish, dried squid, oysters, sea slugs, scallops and seaweed.

Hollywood Road, and the streets nearby, form a run of antique shops, curio sellers and furniture stores. There’s some wonderful Asian applied art here - furniture, old and new ceramics, burial pottery, painted screens, prints, jewellery and embroidery - and a group of more upmarket antique shops at the eastern end of Hollywood Road. As you move further west the selection becomes more mixed (and prices get lower), with any number of smaller places and pavement vendors selling bricabrac and junk on parallel Upper Lascar Row. In Victorian times this market was infamous for its large number of thieves, and dubbed “Cat Street” by the white population (after “cat burglar”, according to one story). The western stretch of Hollywood Road is renowned for its coffin makers, with some businesses specializing in silk grave clothes.

Hollywood Rd. Daily 8am-6pm. Free. The Man Mo Temple is one of Hong Kong’s oldest, built in the 1840s and equipped with interior decorations from mainland China, all hung with smouldering incense spirals.

The temple’s name derives from the words for “civil” (man) and “martial” (mo): the first attribute belongs to the god of literature, Man Cheong, who protects civil servants (he’s the red-robed statue wielding a writing brush); the latter to the martial deity, Kuan Ti (represented by another statue, in green, holding a sword). Kuan Ti is based on the real-life warrior Kuan Yu of the Three Kingdoms Period (around 220 AD), who was protector of - among other things - pawnshops, policemen, secret societies and the military.

The other altars in the temple are to Pao Kung, the god of justice, and to Shing Wong, a god of the city, who protects the local neighbourhood.

Ladder Street is a steep flight of steps climbing up past the Man Mo Temple, built to ease the passage of nineteenth century sedan-chair bearers.

At the top and off to the right lies the district of Tai Ping Shan or “Peaceful Mountain”, which by the 1890s had belied its name by becoming a place whose overcrowded slums hosted outbreaks of plague.

After a particularly virulent eruption in 1894 killed 2500 people, the slums were cleared and a Bacteriology Institute built nearby, where that year French researcher Alexandre Yersin discovered that plague was spread to humans by rat fleas. Housed in an attractive Edwardian building, the institute is now the Museum of Medical Sciences (Tues- Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $10), though the dated medical equipment on display is less interesting than the area’s history, which is illustrated with period photographs.

Tai Ping Shan district also houses a cluster of old neighbourhood temples, near the corner of Tai Ping Shan Street and Pound Lane. First is the Kuan Yam Temple, dating from 1840 and dedicated to the Buddhist goddess of mercy.

The green-tiled Shui Yuat Temple opposite is dedicated to Shui Yuat Paak, revered for his ability to cure illnesses - the statue was installed during the 1894 plague outbreak in an attempt to quell the disease.

Bonham Rd Mon-Sat 9.30am-6pm, Sun 1.30-5.30pm. Free. Around 1km west from Tai Ping Shan (you’ll need to take a taxi), The University of Hong Kong Museum and Art Gallery features an outstanding collection of Chinese art in two adjacent buildings. The collection is continually rotated, but permanent displays include a group of Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 AD) Nestorian bronze crosses, which belonged to a heretic Christian group living in northern China.

The ceramics collection ranges from Neolithic pottery through to the later ruling dynasties; items from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) include some lively tri-colour-glazed camels, horses and pottery.

Also on show is white ceramic ware from the Sui and Song dynasties, including two Song Dynasty porcelain pillows, both decorated with black and white line-drawings. More colourful are the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1645-1911) Dynasty bowls and dishes, displaying rich blues, greens and reds. In other sections, you can find a selection of woodcarvings and some furniture from the Ming and Qing dynasties, laid out as a room, along with a broad range of decorative items and Chinese paintings of the period.

Dragon Culture

184 & 231 Hollywood Rd Upmarket antiques, such as Tang sculptures and Qing furniture and screens.

Dynasty Antiques

Ground Floor, 48-50 Hollywood Rd Finely restored classic Chinese and Tibetan antique furniture, in a cavernous store. Mid-range to expensive.

Gallery One

31-33 Hollywood Rd. A huge selection of good-value semiprecious stones and jewellery - amber, amethyst, tiger’s eye, crystal and much more; they will string any arrangement you want.

Karin Weber Gallery

32A Staunton St Large selection of mid-price contemporary fine art and regular pieces of antique furniture; they also organize furniture-buying trips to warehouses on the mainland.

2 Sardines

43 Elgin St T2973 6618. Daily noon-2pm & 6-11pm. Small restaurant that has built itself a big reputation for reliable, reasonably priced French food.

Bistro Manchu

33 Elgin St T2536 9218. Daily noon- 2.30pm & 6-11pm. Moderately priced Manchurian food of the hearty stew and dumpling variety - northern Chinese with a bit of Mongolian and Korean thrown in, served in stylish East-meets-West surroundings.

Fat Angelo’s

49A-C Elgin St T2973 6808. Daily noon-midnight. Extremely popular, noisy Italian joint serving up enormous pizzas and a range of pasta dishes. Two people can happily share one dish, making eating here a fairly inexpensive night out.

Golden China

9 Jubilee St T2545 1472. Daily 8am-late afternoon. There’s a small English sign, but don’t expect any to be spoken inside - this isn’t a problem, however, as this small, comfortable Cantonese diner, which has been catering to Central’s office workers since 1963, has a limited menu along the lines of roast duck or roast pork and rice; portions cost $22-30.

Bar 1911 27 Staunton St T2810 6681. Mon-Sat 5pm-midnight, Sun 5-11pm. Ignore the “members only” sign - this is one of SoHo’s best-established and most popular joints, offering comfortable seats and reasonable noise levels if you want to talk. Not a bargain, but nowhere in this area is.

Dinamoe Hum

1st Floor, 28 Elgin St T2521 2823. Tues-Sat 6-11.30pm. Local and international artists play nightly at this tiny venue - there’s room for an audience of just twenty.

Variable cover charge depending on the band; food and drink available.

Dublin Jack

37 Cochrane St T2543 0081. Mon-Fri 8am-2am, Sat & Sun 11am-2am; happy hour noon-8pm. Irish pub, just under the escalator exit for Lyndhurst Terrace. Draft Guinness, big portions of tasty Irish food, and room to stand outside, as well as over a hundred different varieties of whiskey.

The Globe

39 Hollywood Rd T2543 1941. Mon-Fri 7.30pm-late, Sat & Sun 10.30pm-late. Cosy, friendly bar serving snacks, with a great jukebox and the best beer in SoHo, including British and European ales and Belgian wheat beer. Popular with locals after work, and can get rowdier later on.