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Title: China (China (Rough Guides)) by David Leffman, Simon Lewis, Jeremy Atiyah, Mike Meyer, Susie Lunt, Rough Guides ISBN: 1-84353-019-8 Publisher: Rough Guides Pub. Date: May, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Up to the usual Rough Guide stardard
Comment: The Rough Guides are considered among the "cream of the crop" in the guidebook world, and this book is no exception. I used it extensively in the planning phase of my recent month-long trip to China, and it was very helpful.
The background sections of the book are outstanding, giving the reader a solid overview of Chinese history and culture. The primary sites of interest to travelers are adequately covered as well, and so the book is very helpful in planning one's itinerary.
The main drawback of the volume is it's weight. If you are backpacking in China, as I was, this book is pretty heavy to be lugging around. Therefore, unless you are staying in China more than a couple of weeks, you might consider looking at the smaller city guides.....or ripping the necessary sections out of this book and packing only those in your rucksack.
Highly recommended for pre-trip planning at home. Recommended for packing and taking to China *if* you are going on an extended trip to the country.
Rating: 5
Summary: Outstading for out of the way places
Comment: The book describes in detail almost everything one needs to know about going to China. From reccomending large 5 star hotels to Yurts in out of the way villages, the Rough Guide helps you get there the way you want to get there. The guide is so detailed that it even reccomended a small village in the middle of Inner Mongolia called Zhaohe. I went there and found it to be what the guide promised...out of the way and no tourists. Invaluable information such as this makes traveling in an already crowded China more rewarding and interesting.
Rating: 1
Summary: 2003 EDITION - VERY ROUGH INDEED
Comment: This book presents itself as a revised edition, but it is very
little more than a prettied-up reprint of the text from three
years ago, and some of that was a bit long in the tooth then.
The first and second editions carried great promise, worthy
competitors for the boys from LP. To represent the third as
having been "updated" is merely a deception. It would have been
better not done at all.
The book is a curiosity. The title-page has it "written and
researched" by the same three authors as the previous edition
more than three years ago, but "this edition updated" by two
others. It's not clear that the original three have contributed
any "research" at all that was not reflected in the previous
edition. Nor is it even quite clear that the two "updaters"
have actually been on the ground in China. The "updating" is in
fact so slight that it could almost have been done by a
desk-bound clerk on the strength of readers' reports, with
perhaps the odd nod in the direction of the Lonely Planet Thorn
Tree.
The new edition has more pages, but that's explained by a
slightly larger type-face; finer paper; unchanged net weight.
A second colour introduced throughout, with improved visual
presentation, a bit prettier. And not many other changes.
Chinese names and words still without tone-marks in the main
body of the text - a shortcoming that was never really excusable
and which has been merely unacceptable since Lonely Planet bit
that particular bullet.
There is scarcely a town or locality mentioned that is not
included in the previous edition. No one who is on the ball in
the matter of China travel could fail to discover many more
places worthy of attention than he knew about three years
before. And circumstances change as well: more than a year
before the last edition, all of western Sichuan was opened for
the first time, but the vast treasure of the previously
forbidden region is still undiscovered by the new edition of
this (very) rough guide. The wonderfully scenic Muli and
Yanyuan counties in southern Sichuan have been open for years
but (apart from one passing reference to Yanyuan) rate no
mention. Yushu Prefecture in southern Qinghai, with all
counties open at least since mid-2001, is not mentioned; indeed
apart from Xining district and Golmud (Geermo) there's hardly a
mention of any part of Qinghai province at all.
Of course I can't expect even the best guidebook to discover all
the places I may have discovered and found worthwhile - the
Mekong in north-west Yunnan, Yulin in northern Shaanxi,
Shibaoshan in western Yunnan, Daocheng and the Yading Reserve,
not to mention secret places in Tibet that I'd perhaps rather
keep to myself, nor the phenomenal valley of the Salween in
western Yunnan. The trouble is that this book has found very
few new places (though there's a tantalising addition of almost
impossibly remote Loulan and a couple of extra morsels on the
"southern Silk Road" - a reader's letter perhaps?)
Then there are the occasions when I've found the previous
edition mistaken or misleading - Chishui, Matang, Tiger-Leaping
Gorge, Ruili district, Sanying hotel open to foreigners (well,
it is if you threaten the PSB with an international incident
failing their acquiescence), Pingliang hotel; and so on. Any
corrections? Not one that I can find.
Some details of hotel tariffs, telephone numbers, admission
charges and so on have been changed, but they are generally far
too few to lend any confidence in the reliability of what has
not been changed; a number I've been able to check are just
wrong.
The maps are now far too few, the provincial (or
multi-provincial) maps just too simplified; the largest scale
for some provinces is one to twenty million. Even so, how
revealing for the text to say that "Weixi marks the end of the
road" (from the east)! Tell that to the mini-bus drivers who
drive another 220km north to Deqin, from where the road
continues all the way to Lhasa and beyond! The railway line
between Changsha and north-western Hunan (which cut the journey
from Zhangjiajie to Changsha to about six hours when it had
already been commissioned three years ago) is not shown.
Good points? There's a new "food and drink glossary", which is
to say phrase-list. The paper is excellent - strong and
light, perhaps better than the heavier paper of the Lonely
Planet, so that there are about 30% more pages but 10% less
overall weight. There must be more words in the Rough Guide,
but I doubt there is more information, regardless of its
accuracy.
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Title: Lonely Planet China (China, 8th Ed) by Damian, Harper, Marie Cambon, Katja Gaskell, Thomas Huhti, Bradley Mayhew, Korina Miller, Mielikki Org ISBN: 1740591178 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: The Rough Guide to Mandarin Chinese (a dictionary phrasebook) by Rough Guides ISBN: 1858286077 Publisher: Rough Guides Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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Title: Frommer's China: The 50 Most Memorable Trips, Third Edition by J. D. Brown ISBN: 0764524682 Publisher: Frommer Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.99 |
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Title: National Geographic Traveler China (National Geographic Traveler) by Damian Harper ISBN: 0792279212 Publisher: National Geographic Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Mini Rough Guide to Beijing (Mini Rough Guides) by Rough Guides, Simon Lewis ISBN: 1858285194 Publisher: Rough Guides Pub. Date: 19 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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