Dan's China diary - day 19

In May 2006, silicon.com senior reporter Dan Ilett travelled to China, seeking to get behind some of today's most interesting tech and business stories. This is his warts-and-all diary, which appears daily this month. For in-depth coverage of this fact-finding trip inside China, including analysis and exclusive stories, click here.

Wednesday 24 May, Hong Kong

Rough bus ride to Hong Kong yesterday. The weather was humid and the rain was falling hard. When we left the mainland all passengers were made to get off the bus with their luggage and carry it through customs. I just about managed not to swear while doing it.

The bus drove along curved roads beside tropical fields of deep green. The heavy grey skies poured rain onto the few people working on the hills. And all of a sudden I was in a completely different land.

The culture in Hong Kong is still Chinese, of course, but there's a feeling about the place that's different from the mainland. You can really see that the British have left their mark.

Arrive in Wai Chai and check into the Excelsior Hotel, which is more expensive but not as nice as any of the hotels I used on the mainland.

In the evening meet up with an old university friend, who's just buying her second flat here. The cost of property in Hong Kong is way higher than the mainland.

When it comes to renting, Shanghai is more expensive than Beijing, especially for something with a 1920s feel. In Beijing you can rent a nice two-bed flat for about £300 a month - in Hong Kong, the Mid-Levels area - you're talking at least three times as much.

Make my way over to see Peter Bullock - a partner at law firm Pinsent Masons. It strikes me during the interview how the professional services market - for things such as legal services, finance and architecture - is more mature here than on the mainland.

Give it a few years and the rest of China will be there as well but just looking at the infrastructure and the buildings in Hong Kong gives the impression the business environment is still more advanced.

In financial services - to be a bit more precise - when you consider that most people in mainland China still use cash, only 10 per cent of people have credit cards and the credit checking agencies don't really work that well, Hong Kong is quite a way ahead.

Meet up with some financial journalist contacts based in the area. One of them, John, an editor, tells me how one of his reporters was covering a land rights protest outside Shanghai recently. The police clocked him as a journalist, arrested him and removed him from the scene.

John tells me how foreign reporters are supposed to tell the police when they want to leave their reporting area. If they allow you to go, the police then provide a 'guide' for the trip who translates all your questions and answers.

I've obviously been lucky on my travels. I've had no scrapes with the law. Mind you, I'm not here to probe deep into society and human rights as much as technology and business - things the government is keen to promote. You can write about business, even naming and shaming people if they've done something wrong or been corrupt. It all gets a bit hairy when you bad mouth the government, it seems.

Later I meet Winnie, a PR manager for technology company NCR. She takes me on the tram and we catch the ferry to Kowloon. At 8:00pm on the dot, all the skyscrapers that belong to the big banks put on a light show - it's very pretty but I hear the locals get angry with it going off every night.

Coming up tomorrow, cards in Hong Kong - ID cards and the Octopus (think Oyster) card.