Public transport makes or breaks modern cities. One of the delights of Rome is the cheap system of subway, overground trains, buses and mini-buses. People complain about them but they’re everywhere and they’re cheap.

London, on the other hand, now has single journeys on the Tube costing £4 and a congestion charge for anyone mad enough to drive a car into the centre. You get whacked both ways; if you use public transport or try to avoid it. The whole thing’s insane.

Twenty years ago getting around in Hong Kong involved slow buses, even slower trams or the inevitable taxi. Not any more. There’s a superb MTR subway system, buses, small light buses, still the trams and ferries. And some of the cheapest cabs I’ve met in a long time too.

Best of all, everything is integrated, and nowhere is this more obvious than when the time comes to leave. I live 75 miles from Heathrow. If I tried to make that journey by public transport it would take the best part five hours, involve expensive overcrowded trains, and probably be deeply unreliable.

This is how you get to the airport in Hong Kong. From my hotel in Causeway Bay I could pick up a free shuttle bus to the Airport Express terminal in Central, or take a cab for about £2. There, without queuing, I buy a HK$100 ticket on the Airport Express train and check in. Yes, check in. Get a boarding pass and hand over my checked luggage. I can do it early in the day and then spend more time in Hong Kong (though I will then have to carry my hand baggage around).

Or I can do it just as I leave for the airport. The whole process takes a couple of minutes. Then you walk to the train which leaves every 12 minutes and gets into the heart of the airport, on the same level as immigration, just a short walk away, 24 minutes later. If there’s an easier system for getting from the heart of a major city to an airport I have yet to meet it.

Asia’s behind me now. It’s Australia for a week, first Sydney then Melbourne. This is my first trip to New South Wales and, after a long sleep on arrival, I’m still adapting. But a look at this little chap preening himself at Darling Bay this morning tells me I’m somewhere very different indeed.