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Title: Lonely Planet China (China a Travel Survival Kit, 6th Ed) by Robert Storey, Nicko Goncharoff, Caroline Liou, Thomas Huhti, Marie Cambon ISBN: 0864425244 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.56
Rating: 5
Summary: A very hard and very well-managed and great endeavour
Comment: This edition of "Lonely Planet China" is excellent. It is better than the previous one, which was very good itself but had some weaknesses. Despite the immensity of China and the numberless topics and regions that have to be covered herein, the authors have done an excellent job indeed. Most of LP's masterpieces are guidebooks to much smaller countries or regions (it is indeed inevitable for travel guidebooks to be the better, in overall terms, the smaller the region they cover). But this one is an exception: despite its hugeness, China has been covered with superb maestry by people who do know about it. Having said this, we cannot diminish the importance of LP's guidebooks to Beijing and Shanghai - if you are planning to spend much time in those cities, it may be a good idea to get those guidebooks also, since this huge and heavy book cannot cover as much of those cities as the authors thsemselves would obviously love to. The same obviously applies for Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan, and Tibet, all of which have generated their own LP guidebooks. Xinjiang is instead wonderfully covered in "LP Central Asia". This is not to persuade you to get more and more guidebooks, but China is indeed an immense place and one book can hardly be enough to cover it all in depth. In this book itself, its excellent coverage of some regions is stronger than others: it is better on the Coastal towns than it is on the deep interior of China, which reflects indeed the number of tourists who go to these places. Having said this, this book does nevertheless contain most of what a visitor will need or want to know about big China. And in a place that is chaotic and tough for foreigners like China, this may indeed be an essential tool for the less experienced travellers, and a greatly useful aid to the more experienced ones too. The coverage of places to stay and eat is absolutely excellent, not just for the major cities but also for minor towns and sites (the authors would indeed seem to have been to everywhere in China where the government did not stop them from going !). The section on permits and other legal matters is of immense value to anyone, and well up-to-date. And of course, the sections and special chapters on history, culture, religion, are extremely well written, great for the traveller and the armchair reader alike. Even though the best discoveries are those a traveller will make herself / himself, this guidebook is surely a great tool and help in anyone's discovery of this wonderful land. All in all, a masterpiece despite its limitations. A weakness is of course that things being as volatile as they are in China, information is subject to unexpected changes, and some may have become out-of-date by the time this book was printed. But this is of course inevitable, and it simply means that - as in any country - a traveller should not rely on only a guidebook, but make a considerable effort to gain as much as possible of current circumstances on her / his own, which is in fact part of the wonderful travel experience.
Rating: 5
Summary: LP Guide Delivers A Great Outline for Adeventurous Travelers
Comment: Last summer I had the incredible oppurtunity to travel throughout China, from China's wild wild west Xinjian Province to Beijing, when I was only sixteen. Although, from reading others' review of the Lonely Planet Guide, it seems as if it is a horrible way to get around, it sincerely is not. I found that LP delivered a safe and secure sense of being while traveling throughout China. Although sometimes some information was incorrectly stated, such as prices, for the most part be found that it only was in our favor. If you are planning to travel to China and are looking forward to traveling without ties, the LP Guide will help you accomplish this. I think LP is a good starting off point and will get you where you need to go, but the real adventure and lure of China lies with what is not written in the pages of any book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Needs massive overhaul - 3 1/2 stars
Comment: Just got back from China and used the latest edition as guide. That's all it is... a guide. Tries to be your "insider" pal but fails on several fronts. China's too darn big and changing too fast for any publisher to dare think a single "China" volume is sufficient. I mean, would you trust a single "USA" guidebook? Of course not, even if it's as thick as a phone book (and this ungainly little brick is just that).
Many wonderful sights/attractions/wonders are not even mentioned... Did editor decide to excise them, or do researchers look only so far?? I, for one, would have liked to see more attractions mentioned. But if the LP people are going to keep up the chatty little comments with every such entry (a Lonely Planet hallmark), they will have to break up "China" into many volumes. For example, book does not even show on Wuhan map the fascinating, large Taoist temple there... cutting the chit-chat about Mao's Villa there (worth visiting but the text on it is useless) could have made room. But if they want to keep the cute comments (surfing buddhas on a temple wall in Kunming, overrated herbalist in Lijiang, Europe in miniature in Chengdu), they are going to have to break the book up into at least three volumes.
Restaurant reviews could be chopped in half, that's for sure. They are boring, outdated, sometimes wholly erroneous. Phone numbers have always been a joke in LP editions for any country I have used ...I own some seventeen LP's... but these numbers were wholly useless to me on my recent trip.
As other reviewers note, it is necessary to concede that China is always changing, and with growing speed. Perhaps LP just can't send their researchers out fast enough. But there are enough expats living in Chinese cities to be tapped for updates. Incidentally, expats are a great resource for any traveller... already Shanghai and Beijing have weekly "what's on" style tabloids in English that are very helpful to the visitor. Anyway, on the expat account alone, generally clever LP editors really have little excuse for not having a finger on China's latest and greatest.
What's good about Lonely Planet China?? Liberal use of Chinese characters and Pinyin romanization, for one thing. Made it super easy to communicate with taxi drivers. The Orientation section for each city is excellent... three paragraphs to prepare you for the layout and characteristics of the city. History section is good, too. I truly love the off-the-beaten path viewpoint that makes Lonely Planet so much fun... so I hope future editions retain this, while getting on the ball with useful / necessary details.
Using this book, traveller / reader will get a generally good trip, but will be led astray / waste time more than once by old info (where to catch bus to Buddha, where to find Muslim food, etc), and from incomplete phone numbers.
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Title: Lonely Planet Shanghai (Shanghai, 1st Ed) by Bradley Mayhew ISBN: 0864425074 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Beijing City Map (Maps & Atlases) by Lonely Planet Publications ISBN: 186450255X Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook (Mandarin Phasebook, 4th Ed) by Charles Qin, Justin Ben-Adam Rudelson, Justin Ben-Adam ISBN: 0864426526 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: April, 1900 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Beijing (Beijing, 5th Ed) by Damian Harper ISBN: 1740592816 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: National Geographic Traveler China (National Geographic Traveler) by Damian Harper ISBN: 0792279212 Publisher: National Geographic Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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