Lonely Planet China (Country Guide)
by Damian Harper, Daniel McCrohan
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.44 You Save: $24.55 (77%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.36 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Lonely Planet China (Country Guide)
Book Review: Fine, No Problem, What More Could You Want?
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent two and a half months traveling around China and this is the book that I took with me. Besides the fact that the map in the front isn't very good, and that in a couple of remote places (the North Korean border town of Dandong, for example) the street maps aren't entirely accurate (a problem in China given that local people usually don't even know the name of the street on which they work), I found this to be a great guidebook. Really. It was fine. It did the trick. No problems. I subjected it to quite a lot of abuse and it's still together and looking good. I cannot, for the life of me, understand some of the negative reviews here.
One says there's no Chinese in the book. I'm looking at the Chinese in the book right now. In addition to place names, food items, and so on, there's an entire section of it for pity's sake, although, to be fair, it has been cleverly disguised with the heading, 'Languages.' Another critic claims that the volume doesn't contain any useful travel information, a miracle when you consider that it's nearly a thousand pages long and teeming with the sections 'Sights,' 'Sleeping,' 'Getting There and Away,' 'Getting Around,' 'To and from the airport,' 'Maps,' etc.
Despite the LP formula, quality can vary from writer to writer and book to book, and some writers are bent on plugging the humdrum (lest the potential buyer think the country rubbish and return the volume to its spot on the shelf), but not in this case. There are a few trivial glitches here and there, but in a tome of this size there are bound to be. Basically, you arrive at a place, check into a recommended hotel, take a look at the 'Sights' section and off you go. Book your onward tickets from your hotel's in-house travel agency, easy to find as it's usually the same counter or the one next to your hotel's in-house "massage centre."
One more thing: if you are using this guidebook in China, you may want to consider tearing out the map in the front. I ran into three people who had their China Lonely Planets confiscated by officials because it didn't include Taiwan. Each person was given a little geography lesson before having their book taken away from them ("Do you see this troublesome little island here? The one with more than a thousand missiles aimed at it? To whom does it belong?"). The reason why this can be problematic is that you rarely see English guidebooks (even second hand ones) in China, except in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing. I ran into a nice Danish couple who had their Lonely Planet taken away, hence they had to waste valuable time digging around for a new one. It was their first time to China and they hadn't the faintest idea as to where or what Taiwan was. But, of course, they do now.
Troy Parfitt, author
Book Review: Use With Caution!
Summary: 3 Stars
It is confusing that many of the reviews here are for the National Geographic Traveler China book, by the same author as the Lonely Planet book. The National Geographic book has lots of pictures and is a good "idea" book. The Lonely Planet is geared to the independent traveler, with much more specific information about how to get around. This review is for the Lonely Planet.
My husband and I have successfully used Lonely Planet books on many other trips, but we were disappointed in the China book. Obviously China is a huge country, and it is changing very quickly, so we were not surprised to find that many places no longer exist and that some of the information was out-of-date. But we WERE surprised at the amount of blatantly wrong information. For example, the section on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang was so mixed-up that we ended up spending the day at the wrong hiking area.
In most countries it would be fairly easy to double-check the accuracy of a description by asking a hotel concierge or taxi driver. In China, though, we often had problems communicating, so we relied much more heavily on our guidebooks.
The book is huge, but it didn't need to be quite so big. Many of the descriptions are excessively wordy, and sometimes it seemed like the author was more interested in writing a clever review than clearly giving the facts.
The best thing about the book is that names of places and most streets are written in Chinese. It was incredibly helpful to be able to point to the place we wanted to go. We found that our accents and pronunciations were so bad when we tried to read pinyin that most people didn't even realize we were trying to speak Chinese to them.
We looked through other guidebooks at some of our guest houses, and unfortunately none seemed to be much better.
Book Review: It has everything
Summary: 4 Stars
I used this book during my second trip to China in summer 2007. We did not take any organized tours. We used it in Beijing, Shanghai and Hunan province and we took its advice and avoided Shenzhen.
That out of the way, I found the book eminently useful. There is enough Chinese script in it to show a taxi driver where you want to go by pointing to the characters. Every place name has a set of Chinese characters you can point to. The maps are particularly useful (of course), but I thought they could have edited out some of the color pictures for more maps. Can't get enough maps in a travel book.
I did not really read this book until we actually landed in Beijing. From there it was pretty much a thing I could immediately pick up, figure out and use to get moving. The descriptions of things are acurrate.
I'm not sure why some reviewers are complaining that the descriptions are too short or simple. China is a massive country of 1.6 billion people over a huge land with dozens upon dozens of cities -- more detail would double the book's weight.
If you have to go to China (which I wouldn't really recommend) then you cannot go wrong with this book. It's a starting place, and a savvy travelor will find one of the millions of internet cafes available to look up more things in depth, or just ask questions of other travellers or hotel workers, shop clerks, waiters, etc. Anyone who wants more information than this book offers should just book an organized tour for their entire trip and have their hand held the entire time. Or better yet, take a cruise. Otherwise, this book will get you started and the rest is easy to figure out. It's very easy to travel around China. My first trip I didn't even use a book or a Chinese-Engilsh dictionary or even the internet.
Book Review: Authors have little understanding of China; too much outdated information
Summary: 1 Stars
I was born in China and lived there for more than 20 years. Since I moved to the States, I have traveled in China frequently on business and for family reasons.
I am planning a trip to China with the rest of my family who traveled in China only once in 2006. To help them organized for the trip, I was looking for a guide book. I browsed this book in a local book store. I was shocked to see that it contains so much value-judging commentaries about Chinese history, customs, government policies, etc. Unfortunately the authors seem to understand little about Chinese history, culture, politics, economy and business. Some of their commentaries are blatantly racist. In describing Chinese moving around in their own country (whether Tibet or Xinjiang), on their own free will, the book's use of "hordes" and "flood" is derogatory, if not plainly racist.
I do not intend to buy this book to brain wash my kids: They are going to China with an open mind and will be there to see with their own eyes and to judge on their own. Thank you very much.
I also found quite a few misleading information about some popular sites. Other readers have already commented on some of them.
So thanks to the authors for spending so much time on the commentaries and not enough time on providing accurate information for tourists, I am not buying this lonely planet.
Book Review: Did the authors actually go?
Summary: 2 Stars
I used this book only in Beijing and Shanghai, so I can only vouch for those two sections. The maps of Beijing were great, when they were there. Because the book appears not to have been copy edited, there are lots of references to more detailed maps there are not actually in the book.
Also, the Beijing section doesn't include some of the most interesting areas for tourists to visit. It seems like someone just did a google search on Beijing and listed the first few things that come up, regardless of their interest or relevance to tourists. A major park walking distance to the forbidden city surrounded by cafes, museums and excellent souvenir shops is simply not listed.
Shanghai was a little better.
It is a good book for dreaming though. I am keeping my copy so I can plan ahead for next trip. Before I actually go though I will be buying a different book.