asia

My copy of this title has the Chinese in large, useful characters right next to the maps. Only if there's no map for a small town is the Chinese listed in the back, with the information for each town handily grouped together in alphabetical order.

And like every other guide book, the map for a town is in the middle of the text talking about that town. So what's hard to find? The hotels and places to see are right next to the map in most cases. And since the towns only have one map, what's to guess about which maps things are on?

I don't know about the Beijing and Shanghai guides, but of course there will be a lot of repeated information. The sights don't change, after all. The best place to eat is the same. Bus 47 still runs the same route. Of course lots of the information is the same. What do you expect?

But what I do agree on is that this books is waaaaay more accurate than any other I looked at. I'm no fan of the usual schmaltzy Frommer's style, but this book really tells it like it is. It has the most extensive, detailed and accurate practical information of any guide I've seen, including the do-it-yourself budget guides.

And while we're on the topic of Chinese, note that for every recommended restaurant there are recommended dishes, and the characters for them are given so you can just point to them to order. There's also a good long list of Chinese favourites you can buy anywhere.

And while the major destinations are covered, this guide also scores with some remote rural destinations I've not seen covered anywhere else, including LP. Even if you don't want to go there, it's fascinating to read about the real China away from the regular tourist routes.

You know, the first thing you want to check out when you buy a guide is the author biogs. Most of the writers on this guide speak Chinese and have lived in China. It really shows. All the LP and Rough guide readers were borrowing my copy all the time and making notes.

I bought this book because it was the most recently published travel guide on Beijing at the time (Dec '03). I have been living in Beijing for 3 months and have been to several of the places the book recommends. The facts in it are usually accurate; some prices, restaurant names, and phone numbers have changed since the book was published.

My main qualm with this book is the referencing... it is completely inconvenient. First of all, the Chinese characters of location names are listed in the back of the book, instead of with the desriptions (like most books). This makes is difficult to show people the characters of the place you are looking for if you're lost.

Also, if you are looking at one of the book's maps, and want to find out more about a certain location, there is no page reference. You have to look the place up in the index and then flip to the description.

Similarly, there are no map references in the sight-descriptions. (The book has several maps.) You have to guess which map the place would be on, based on the very basic directions given in the description. This can be a pain!!!

Otherwise, the book proved useful. My friends that had the Lonely Planet guide said that is was much less acurate than my book. Also check out Let's Go when deciding which book to buy.

I bought this book, Frommers Beijing, and Frommers Shanghai. Altogether they were pretty useful, but had a lot of repeating info between the main book and the city guides.