Pao was born in Hong Kong, but started his career as an art director and graphic designer in New York and Los Angeles.
During this time, Pao also met Michael Palin, when they worked together on the book for the Monty Python film Life of Brian in 1979.
When Michael Palin was doing his first trip for the BBC in 1988, Around the World in Eighty Days, he asked Basil Pao to show him around Hong Kong when he arrived there.
Many of the photographs between Hong Kong and Shanghai used in the book that Palin later wrote about this trip, Around the World in 80 Days, were taken by Pao.
Palin wrote some introductory text and lent his name to the cover, but the book was almost completely dedicated to Pao's pictures, some of them displayed in two-page spreads.