Lonely Planet China (Country Guide)
by Damian Harper, Daniel McCrohan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Damian Harper, Daniel McCrohanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-05-01
ISBN: 1740599152
Number of pages: 1028
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Book Reviews of Lonely Planet China (Country Guide)
Book Review: Some decent information, but often outdated or inaccurate.
Summary: 1 Stars
This book contains some decent travel information, but the relevance and accuracy of that information varies wildly from section to section, as this book was actually written by several authors at different times in the past. Some sections are rather strong, others contain blatant typos in the Chinese and pinyin, inaccurate maps or bad directions, and pointers to restaurants and markets that have long since closed. I have owned a previous edition of this book, and interestingly enough, while the authors of each section have changed, the content has not been updated, keeping inaccurate and outdated information from older versions. The authors often weave their political opinions and biases into the book, which I feel distracts from its primary objective of providing objective travel information. It is somewhat ironic that this book points fingers at the Chinese for supposedly diluting the local culture of Xinjiang and Tibet, but at the same time provides information for busloads of foreign tourists to come to these regions. As another reviewer mentioned, the Lonely Planet effect is quite noticeable and previously untouched spots are now swarming with backpackers and tourists.
The book gives decent hotel recommendations, but they are often slanted to backpacker type "digs" where there will be plenty of other foreigners around. It could be the Lonely Planet effect again, but it seems the hotel recommendations are for hotels that are substantially more expensive than nearby choices of similar quality.
There were one too many times when a map led me in the wrong direction or the Chinese name for a place was so completely mangled that nobody was able to figure out what it meant. An example is the Altun mosque in Yarkand, Xinjiang - not only did they write it "Altyn" in the book, but they wrote the Chinese as "a-qin-dian" which sounds absolutely nothing like the proper Chinese transliteration, "a-le-tun." The directions were also useless, along the lines of "go right from the bus station and get on a bus, then ride it for some time until you reach the mosque." As the bus station had been moved to a completely different part of town, the directions were useless. Plenty of other examples abound - another big one that comes to mind is the guidebook's frequent claim that certain towns don't have any hotels where foreigners can stay. This might have been true years ago, but we never had any problem finding accommodation.
It's also ironic that this guidebook laments the status of the Uyghur language in Xinjiang, but does not provide any Uyghur travel phrases, as it does for Mandarin, Cantonese, and Tibetan; instead, they simply suggest you to buy their Central Asia phrasebook. When I was traveling in Xinjiang, I found that many Uyghurs have a hard time communicating in Chinese, and it was difficult to talk with them without knowing some Uyghur(which I learned from Chinese books).
To sum it up, there's some decent travel information to be had, but the accuracy and relevance varies a lot, and many sections are poorly written. The maps are often inaccurate, and there are recommendations for hotels and restaurants that have closed years ago. I would not recommend this book to someone who has never been to China before, or does not speak the language.
Summary of Lonely Planet China (Country Guide)
Discover ChinaWalk the watchtowers at Badaling, where President Nixon once said, 'this is a great wall.'
Knock back a shot of Confucius baijiu firewater in Qufu, hometown of the sage.
Find out how a local farmer first uncovered the Army of Terracotta Warriors.
Perfect your Monkey Offers Peach strike at Wudang Shan, birthplace of taichi.
In This Guide:
12 authors and 483 days of in-country research
Special coverage of pristine Ming and Qing dynasty villages for the first time in English
Content updated daily - visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler insights
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