1. ISBN13: 9781741791594
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

Experience the best of Vietnam with Lonely Planet. Our 10th edition is so full of practical information that you'll be watching the sunset from a junk on Halong Bay, sucking back bia hoi street-side in Hanoi, or bargaining like a local in Ho Chi Minh City in no time.

In This Guide:

Detailed itineraries on beaches, food, the Ho Chi Minh Highway and more
Comprehensive information on everything from food and language to health and transport
Full-Color chapter on the hill tribes of Vietnam

Customer Review :

Most up-to-date

This was a very good guide. I got the Rough Guide, National Geographic and Let's Go and was most satisfied with Lonely Planet. This had the most up-to-date info and mentioned a few things that were not in the other guides. Let's Go might be best for people in their early 20's. All of the guides avoid giving opinions and pretty much list all the tourist destinations. I found the web site [...] to be the best source for recommends on what to see and do and used the guides for hotel information.

Rating :

Trustworthy, comprehensive with excellent maps.

I am reviewing the L.P.2007 guide. Note: most of the other reviews are for older editions, ie. Pre-2007. I was in Vietnam January-February 2007 and used this guide.

The guide has maps that are superb and easy to use. Both the accommodations and restaurants I chose from the guide's recommendations were good to very good. The cost for accommodations are listed in dollars, instead of the insipid icons that other guides use. Kudos!!! The restaurants cost quotes are in Dong. Caveat! Because the dollar is in a free fall against world currencies, you will need to add at least 20% to the quoted price for hotels, maybe more.

Vietnam is a country of paradoxes: Communistic-Free Market. Traditional-Progressive. Etc. To capture a caricature of Vietnam is as demanding as it would be enigmatic. Yet, Dragicevich, Ray & St. Louis (authors) have written an outstanding brief profile of this country. "The Culture" is a section not to miss. No other guide is as complete if you are going to go "off the tourist track." I found towns and places in L.P. that other guides don't even list. The information was accurate and trustworthy.

Unlike Rough Guide's Vietnam (8 pages) this guide has only a smattering of book/film recommendations. Sadly, in this guide, unlike other L.P. guides, there are few sidebars or text boxes that give you interesting tidbits about the country and its people. Though most all accommodations have an email address, there are NO webpages. NOT GOOD. This guide needs serious improvement in this area.

The 2007 is a significantly revised guide and one of the best guides in print for Vietnam. This is a highly recommended guide - happy tramping. 4.5 Stars.

Rating :

Never lets you dowm

Another good LP book:) The "Bibel" never lets you down and was a great help on our journey. Was so lucky to visit Vietnam 2 times in 08 and used it both times. Vietnam is a lovely country!!

Rating :

Lonely Planet Vietnam 9 -- LP's best try yet

For the first-time visitor to Vietnam, Lonely Planet's Vietnam 9 overall is a fine production -- and is easily Lonely Planet's best swing at Vietnam -- even if the style police are trying to ruin the show.

Vietnam 9 covers all the big-ticket destinations comprehensively, with detailed sleeping, eating, drinking and sights information. There's a detailed orientation section, loads of maps, crystal clear photos and lots of general information. Good coverage on most of the border crossings is included and the transportation information is pretty easy to digest -- if a little confusing at times. A series of suggested itineraries, while not overly imaginative, remain useful for first time travellers.

Authors Nick Ray, Peter Dragicevich and Regis St Louis have done the hard yards and crammed much of what Vietnam has to offer into Lonely Planet's famously tight word-limits. They've done a great job putting together what is a probably the most comprehensive text available and something much improved on Vietnam 8.

Listings
Guesthouse and hotel listings are concise and all budgets are well covered. There were some omissions which struck me as odd -- Mai House on Phu Quoc, Tay Ho Hotel in Can Tho, Jungle Beach north of Nha Trang, Hoa Hong in Da Nang and the Tung Trang in Hanoi -- all outstanding places, yet none made the cut. That said, there are stacks of excellent places they do mention -- more than enough for most readers. For the rest you'll just need to read www.travelfish.org.

Sights-wise, the information is excellent. Lots of historical background and interesting snippets are woven into the text, acting as leads for the reader to learn more. For example Ong Pagoda in Tra Vinh includes a reference to the Chinese classic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms for more information on the pagoda's god Quan Cong.

Transport
Transportation comes in two parts -- a summary and the destination specific sections throughout.

The summary section is good though a little unbalanced. There are almost three pages about getting a flight to Vietnam (surely something fairly simple), yet almost no information about the niche topic of buying a motorbike -- certainly an area where advice and suggestions would be useful. The train section has the briefest of fare charts, but thankfully steers people to the Man in Seat Sixty-One website (www.seat61.com) which is a far better resource.

The destination specific sections vary. In particular better information regarding frequency of bus services would have been good. There are also some discrepancies -- the Qui Nhon to Pakse bus service is listed as taking 12 hours and costing 250,000 VND, yet in Pleiku it reads "There is also an international service linking Pleiku and Attapeu (US$10, 12 hours)". This error (Qui Nhon to Pakse is at least twice the distance of Pleiku to Attapeu) is repeated in the transport introduction. Perhaps if one of the writers had actually done the trip they'd know that Attapeu to Kon Tum takes about five hours and another two hours to Pleiku, while the Qui Nhon to Pakse trip can take up to 20 hours. Of course these errors can happen to anyone -- I'm sure there are some in Travelfish -- but hey, LP has a bigger editing team than us.

Text and design
Talking about editing, the text is dense and the writing dry, verging on encyclopaedic. I've met a number of the LP writers over the years and without fail they've been a much more interesting, amusing and verbose lot than this text would have you believe. Perhaps the editors could spin the dial back a little on their "textual-de-emotionaliser device" to let the occasional witty or cheeky line slip through.

And while I'm on the topic of the back-end -- there's a new layout, and this one isn't great. A step forward is the removal of "Author's choice" aka the Lonely Planet Touch of Death -- replaced by a small "our pick" icon. A step backwards is the ordering of accommodation by price rather than quality. In this nod to the serial penny-pinchers, the rest of us are left scratching our head thinking "So which one do they recommend?".

Fact boxes though are the real blight. Vietnam 9 saw its length increased from 524 to 540 pages, yet rather than bulking out destinations, there are now more than 100 shaded fact boxes. Of course, some are useful; "Tracking the American War", tying together various sections covering war interests, is great. But half a page dedicated to Regis St Louis's motorbike breaking down is excessive -- especially when there's but a lone paragraph dedicated to trekking out of Kon Tum. Minor point perhaps, but the designers should have their cookie-jar benefits suspended for the incorrectly typeset, mistakenly padded fact box on page 163 -- sloppy.

Call me old school, but a move back to the basics -- accurate and easy to use information -- would be welcome. As an example, if you're looking for a list of internet resources for Vietnam, you'll be needing to refer to pages 21, 42, 58, 63, 69, 74, 79, 84, 89-90, 171, 465, 476, 494 and 495-6 -- whose bright idea was that?!

Now I'm getting petty and trivial -- lets move on.

Maps
The 105 maps cover all the major destinations and look terrific, but in anything short of ideal conditions, are difficult to read. Vietnam 8's maps, while uglier, were far easier to use. The new maps replace clunky shades and chunky outlines with gentle hues and delicate lines. This may look great in Lonely Planet's mapping HQ, but when you're crammed in a minibus trying to decipher the Hanoi map by torch, you'll be thinking different.

Photos
The photos are terrific. From the wraparound train cover-photo to the bored tourists gawking at the carpet in Reunification Palace, they do a great job of catching -- and explaining -- Vietnam. In another layout change, the photos are clustered in the first few pages, closely followed by a food overview and then eight more pages of colour in the centre.

Conclusion
It's worth noting that some of my criticisms are general and not specific to Vietnam 9 -- overall it's an excellent guide and I've rated the book at 8.5 stars (out of 10). If you're going to Vietnam and planning on hitting all the key destinations -- you'll be set with this title -- no questions asked.

*A pet peeve -- I purchased Vietnam 9 at a bookstore in Jakarta on July 20, and had seen it at the airport weeks earlier. Yet on the half-cover it reads "9th edition published August 2007". Unless Lonely Planet have a special in-house definition for the work "published" this is misleading to potential buyers who are looking for what they consider to be the most "up-to-date" text available -- it should read July 2007.

Rating :

Out of date and inadequate

I've been using this latest edition of the Vietnam LP during my current trip to Saigon, Nha Trang, Hue and Hanoi. I've found it to be inadequate. Maps provide misinformation, hotel and restaurant information is completely out of date, and choices seem arbitrary. LP dominates the travel guide book market, but they leave a lot to be desired.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9780452271685
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

A Vietnamese woman describes her journey from war-torn central Vietnam to the United States, recounting how she endured imprisonment, torture, rape, near-starvation, and the deaths of members of her family. Reprint. Movie tie-in.

Customer Review :

A must read

Wow. I loved this book (even though the emotional story was a bit of a tear jerker). I was heading to Vietnam and wanted to learn a little about the Vietnam (although in Vietnam it is called the American) war.This story gave me a sense of what the people went through, what the country must have been like during those days for people and further reinforced the travisty of wars. I will be sharing my copy with my family to read as I am sure they will all love it too.

Rating :

A Vietnamese survivor...

This book was originally written in English, and published as "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places." I was in France at the time, purchased the French edition, with the not quite literally translated title of "Entre le ciel et la terre," but with a much more evocative cover. This review is posted under both editions.

Her book is a very important one, if for no other reason than she tells of the Vietnam War(s) from the point of view of a Vietnamese female who has lived in both the Vietnamese and American culture, and experienced both the French war (and she still has nightmares of her first experience with one of their mercenaries from Morocco) and the American war. Underscoring her cultural straddle, one does not know whether to call her Ms. Le, or Mrs. Hayslip. Concerning her perspective, consider that during the trial of the American soldiers involved in the My Lai massacre, not a single Vietnamese was called to testify. It was as though they were only the background, unable to state what had happened to them, and thus the books on the Vietnamese experience in the war, and there are now several by women, are all the more valuable.

After she experienced the French war as a small girl, she would eventually become a dedicated cadre of the Viet Cong. Internal strife within the movement eventually forced her to the other side, and she tried to survive, associated with Americans. Part of the ultimate strength of the book is in the chapter, "To sell my body," in which she describes her life as a prostitute, the only viable way she could earn a livelihood. This is one of the most underreported (for some obvious reasons) aspects of the American involvement in Vietnam; the creation of an immense pool of "comfort women." Various articles have appeared in American news journals over the last decade concerning the compensation issue to Korean women who served in the same role to Japanese troops in the Second World War, but there has never been mention of compensation by Americans to these women. So, it is very much to Ms. Le's credit that she is willing to discuss this deeply personal, and in many ways humiliating matter. There are also large sections describing the horrors visited upon her, and other civilians, by both sides, the Viet Cong, as well as the ARVN. She eventually manages to escape this nightmare by marrying an American, many years her senior, and emigrating to the United States. Even there she is pursued by the on-going ramifications of that conflict, including the suicide of that husband. Her experience constitutes another "Book of Job," yet she is compelled to return to the country, during the first opening to the West, in 1986, to see her relatives. Oliver Stone made this book into a most moving movie, staring Tommy Lee Jones and Hiep Thi Le.

There is no question that all events in the book did occur during this terrible conflict, but I question if they actually occurred to her. I was not near Da Nang during the war (I was further south, in Binh Dinh province, and in the Central Highlands), but I note with much interest the review posted by James Chaffee who was there, and details numerous discrepancies in the book which have not been answered. Also, another reviewer, Sonia Haya shares the sentiment that this is not a totally accurate memoir, but tends more to be a historical novel. Certainly if this is true, it fits into a larger pattern of books that purport to be "true stories" that range from an embroidery of actual events to a complete fabrication (see books ranging from "A Million Little Pieces" to "Love and Consequences"). And, of course, there are others.

My "gut" feeling is that 50% of the events in the book actually happened to the author, and the other 50% are a composite of actual events that happened to others, and for this reason, despite the fact that she has written a good book, describing issues that are certainly underreported, I can only give the book a 4-star rating.


Rating :

Not in as good a shape as indicated

Not in as good a shape as indicated - many wrinkled pages that seem like water damage, ripped cover - readable for sure, but just not in as good a shape as the seller reported.

Rating :

Memoir or historical novel?

While the "memoir" provides an interesting and informative view of life inside Viet Nam during the war, taken as a whole with a dose of critical thinking it left me with questions of its validity. The story is interesting and the writing is great. Oddly, Le Ly either experienced firsthand or had a family member who experienced nearly every imaginable situation during the Viet Nam War - every demographic is represented. Having an immediate family member involved in every existing faction, being raped so many times the reader loses count, being victimized in some way in every situation, marrying an aged American and receiving a financial windfall, and portraying her reception by 2 government officials in Viet Nam in 1986 as an American diplomat offering opportunities to improve relations between the countries was absurd to me. I felt that I had been duped and the story appears as a historical novel ("American Diaries" for adults) with the intent to provide the reader with a general feel of Viet Nam during the war, not a factual memoir.

Rating :

Good debut!

Hayslip did a really good job with this as a first book, even if it is a memoir. It was interesting to learn how Vietnamese people lived in their country during such a long and harsh war. If anybody ever wanted to know, read Hayslip's works. As the daughter of a Hoa (Chinese born and raised in Vietnam, namely, Cantonese and Saigon), it was great to have some accounts of what was happening as my father grew up in Vietnam (although he says that most of this stuff happened in smaller towns, and the presence of American soldiers in Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam, made it difficult for any harm to enter).

As the youngest of seven, Hayslip (born Phung Le Ly) grew up in a small village in rural central Vietnam, alternating between Binh Ky and Ky La. However, the family lived in a community near the fault line between Northern and Southern Vietnam. As politicial views of neighboring residents shifted, Hayslip and village children are approached by Vietcong. They begin working for them as spies, but all of this ends when Southern Vietnamese discover what the children have been doing. As punishment, they arrest and torture whoever worked for the Vietcong, as in their eyes, this was seen as a form of "helping" the Northern Vietnamese; both countries were against each other in that time era. As her siblings are many years older than her, they have all moved out or died.

At the age of fourteen, Hayslip is raped twice in a row by soldiers. She and her mother leave their village for Da Nang, but soon move to Saigon. The following year, Hayslip gives birth to her son after she begins working for a wealthy Vietnamese family. The father is the landlord, Anh. His wife is displeased with Hayslip's pregnancy and relationship with her husband, so she orders them back to Da Nang.

Hayslip begins a string of occupations: black-market merchant, waitress, and assistant in hospitals. A couple of times, she even has casual sex with European American soldiers for money. Throughout it all, when Hayslip's son is around three years old, her father commits suicide, which shocks and upsets the family. After several failed relationships, Hayslip meets Ed Munro in 1969. Despite the fact that he is almost three times her age, Hayslip has another son with Mundro. Her family does not approve of him, but he announces his plans to wed Hayslip and bring her to live in California with him.

Right after her twentieth birthday, Hayslip is living in San Diego with two young sons. Just two years after their arrival, Munro becomes severely ill with emphysema. Hayslip remarries a third and final time, taking her last husband's surname. Unfortunately, he also dies while her third and final child is still in infancy.

After another twenty years, Hayslip returns to Vietnam in 1989 to visit the remaining family she has not seen in so long. Unfortunately, her mother has not aged well, and her own siblings and former companions no longer trust her, as they thought she shouldn't of married foreigners and left the country. Racial tensions and awkwardness are still present.

It was incredibly heartbreaking for me to learn that someone would have to go through all this. Hayslip's attitude towards all of it, though, was even more remarkable. She never blamed anything or anyone, nor did she ever lose hope. People may say she was too young to have logged all of the tragic political events and two kids at twenty, but it's really paid off now: the three sons all went to college when she hit forty, and she no longer has to worry about her life in the past or present.

Her writing style was confusing, and I do wish she had organized the more recent trip back to Vietnam and what happened in her early life better. Still, she didn't have a chance to pursue education in Vietnam, leaving when her age was still in single digits. I also feel some parts of the book were excessively detailed or lengthy, as others have mentioned. For that, four stars.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9781741791747
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

Nobody knows the Greater Mekong like Lonely Planet. Our 2nd edition will take you on a boat down the mighty Mekong, visiting hill-tribes in Thailand, trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan, exploring Angkor's temples in Cambodia, whizzing through the jungle canopy in Laos and kicking back on palm-fringed beaches in Vietnam.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Detailed advice on a everything from food and drink to transport and health
Full-color chapter on the Ancient Wonders of the Greater Mekong
Unique Green Index to help make your travels eco-friendly

Customer Review :

Perfectly adequate for a short Southeast Asia tour

We just returned from a three week trip to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. We spent about 10 days in Thailand, one week in Laos, and only four days in Cambodia at Siem Reap visiting the Angkor Wat complex. As we only had time on this trip to hit the highlights, this book was just fine. We actually brought along the Lonely Planet Thailand book and for such a short trip, it was too big and definitely in the way. If you're really backpacking and traveling for many weeks or months through Southeast Asia, I wouldn't recommend this book (buy the individual country books), but for a standard vacation it was a great resource.

Rating :

The Worst LP I've used

First off, I almost always stick with Lonely Planet, been through 25 countries with them. now:

No info at all about Bangkok's domestic airport, other than one line about "domestic flights fly from, Don Mueng." As a book for backpackers and by backpackers shouldn't it at least give a little transit info about the hub of all the budget airlines in Thailand?!!?

And that was just my first day...

I struggled for three weeks trying to find info I needed (even the basics) which seem to be omitted for no reason other than replacing it with useless info.

I know the editor just combined small snippets of the single country books to make something sorta useful, but he succeeded at creating a pointless book which I lugged around in my bag and kept having to ask other travelers to borrow their LP Laos or LP Thailand.

My recommendation, by the single country guidebooks

Rating :

Good guide but bit disjointed

Lonely Planet guides are very good but this one is a bit disjointed. Information on visas is located in a few different areas for the same country & is not very clear. Otherwise it is a very good guide.

Rating :

Disappointing

A guide book should be updated at least annually to ensure accuracy of it's information. Lonely planet has failed this task.
I just traveled (2009) to South East Asia, using this guide book. The prices in the book were outdated (double now), some restaurants are not there anymore, and many of the reviews are inaccurate now.
For such a famous brand, they should pay attention to their core concept..provide accurate up to date travel information.

Rating :

A decent starting point

I spent six weeks in May and June 2008 backpacking around Southeast Asia, and this was my primary guidebook. Overall, I found it to be helpful for the macro-level stuff: planning my itinerary, getting a general overview of each country's history, and budgeting.

I give it three stars, however, because although it's unreasonable to expect it to be as in-depth as the individual guidebooks for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, I often found that the authors omitted useful listings for lodging, places to eat, and sites that were included in other books.

If you plan on taking only one guidebook for VN, KH, and LA, this is a good choice. (Another option is Moon, but at the time of my trip it was even more out-of-date than the LP guide.) Just keep in mind that you'll want to refer to other guidebooks, which I found to be readily available from hostels, cafes, and other travelers in this well-traveled region.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9781848360846
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

"The Rough Guide to Vietnam" is the essential guide with clear maps and detailed coverage of one of Southeast Asia's most enticing destinations. Using expert advice explore the best attractions of Ho Chi Minh City, roam the best Vietnamese markets, shopping, temples, national parks and then slow the pace down with a trip to the paddyfields of the Red River Delta. From the rugged mountains to the west to the South China sea to the east, the "Rough Guide" steers you in the right direction to find the best hotels in Vietnam, Vietnam restaurants, stylish Vietnamese bars, cafes, clubs and shops across every price range, giving you clear, balanced reviews and honest, first-hand opinions. This guide covers the unspoilt islands, pristine beaches and trekking opportunities that have long made Vietnam a travel hotspot, from magical Ha Long Bay to the hill-tribes of the mountainous north. Explore all corners of Vietnam with authoritative background on everything from Vietnam's ethnic minorities to Hanoi's impressive colonial architecture, relying on the clearest maps of any guide and practical language tips. Make the most of your holiday with "The Rough Guide to Vietnam".

Customer Review :

Good Read For Around $15.00

I bought the fifth edition 2006 of, The Rough Guide To Vietnam, together with Frommer's Vietnam second edition 2008.

Although both books were well done; fun to read, full of anecdotes, advices & informations on restaurants, hotels, transportations, day trips and so on, I gave a slight edge to, "The Rough Guide to Vietnam 5th Edition," thanks to the higher quality of its paper: The Rough Guide's paper were thicker and glossier, and the binding was sturdier than Frommer's eventhough Frommer's prose were more coherent than the Rough Guide. And lastly, do not be surprised to find plenty of typos, especially the names of streets, people, and places, in both books.



Rating :

Skip this one ... faulty information throughout!

I bought this book after the rave reviews received by so many other readers and have to say I was incredibly disappointed on many counts. I just toured Vietnam by motorbike for 2 months. My biggest complaint is that much of the information in the book is simply inaccurate. For example, the book says that in Dak Glei "there's another spectacular rong." In fact, there is no rong in Dak Glei. The closest one is 20 km away in Dak Wak, a completely different village. Similar mistakes occur throughout the book with almost every city. I was constantly finding myself saying, "Well, my guide book SAYS such and such should be here ...." until I finally came to disregard the book entirely. Unfortunately, those are things no reader can discover until they're actually there.

The maps are horrible. They may be OK if you are taking a bus from city to city and not venturing out of the backpacker areas ... but aren't most of you readers looking for more of a challenging and interesting adventure than that? I was, and the maps might as well have been non-existent for all the help they provided.

A minor complaint in comparison with the rest, but which might be more important for some of you: I wish I had paid more attention to the accommodation section before buying the book. They don't list actual prices when describing hotels, but instead use symbols which indicate a range of prices which can often be as broad as $10 - $40. Now most backpackers that are looking for a $10 room are going to find a $40 room. objectionable. Accordingly, I found that section to be very unhelpful. Additionally, although many hotels here have clued in to the fact that more and more travelers have laptops and that WIFI is an important amenity, Rough Guide has yet to realize or to note this amenity in their accommodation sections.

In the end, although I was often tempted to toss the book, I kept it to use as a rough 5 minute reference before heading to a new area or village, but on the whole found that I got much better information simply flying by the seat of my pants and asking the locals. I haven't seen or used the Lonely Planet guide so I can't compare, but I would save my money and skip the Rough Guide if I had it to do again.

Rating :

Use This Excellent Guide and Avoid the Lonely Planet Hordes

My wife and I spent the entire summer of 2004 in Vietnam, and we found this guide to be the most complete. For the most part, we spent several weeks each in Hanoi, Saigon, Hoi An, and Sapa; not only did this guide provide just about everything we needed to know to get started in each locale, but as we explored on our own, it seemed like whatever we discovered was also consistently found in the guide. One key example of this guide's excellence: at the time, it was the only guide that guided travelers to the Ha An Hotel in Hoi An, by far the nicest place to stay in town (and very affordable as well). Over the weeks we stayed there, the Lonely Planet hordes were completely clueless about the place. That's the thing: Lonely Planet is great, but it seemed like 90% of travelers we saw had the LP guide tucked under their arms, so think about what that means for you--if you choose to join the LP stampede, or step to the side of it with this comprehensive guide. (By the way: we also liked the Vietnam, 5th: Tread Your Own Path (Footprint - Travel Guides), which isn't comprehensive but seemed to have great taste.)

Rating :

good

The writing was often verbose, but the content was excellent. In general, Lonely Planet has better maps.

Rating :

A well-researched, reliable and valuable guide

I was in Vietnam (Jan/Feb 2008) and I took with me Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, and the better of the two guides is, by a thin margin, Lonely Planet.

However, there is much to commend Rough Guide Vietnam. It is worth buying just for the section that covers the history, religion (13 pages) and the overall culture of Vietnam. Excellent.

This guide is well laid out; breaking Vietnam into eight sections. Each section has a page that points out the places not to be missed. Each of these sections opens with a very good history and explanation of the area. Rough Guide has an excellent selection of restaurant and eateries (better than Lonely Planet's) with enticing write-ups that tell you what to try, "Goi bo, a salad of banana flower, star fruit and pineapple" or "try stir-fried beef with lemongrass for starters, followed by fried scallops and then che baba - grandma's sweet coconut soup." This guide has a better selection of the discos and clubs than Lonely Planet and it has eight (8) pages of recommended books to consider - Super.

HOWEVER, Rough Guides hardly has any maps, and those that they have are not as good or easy to use as Lonely Planet. It has a cumbersome "price code" system for accommodations, i.e. 1= under to $10, 2= $10-15, 3= $15-30, etc., thus, you have to memorize what the numbers represent or flip back and forth to the legend. Whereby, Lonely Planet shows you the cost in dollars. What an idea! Duh. Only a few accommodations (very few) have webpages. In today's world accommodations webpages are a must. All savvy travelers today want to "see" what a hotel or hostel looks like. R.G. does not breakdown restaurants by cost (Expensive, Moderate, etc.) nor does it give you any prices ranges ($10-15 etc.). Not Good.

In short, the better of the two guides is Lonely Planet, especially if you are going to explore Vietnam and want to get away from the "tourist areas". However, if you are staying in HCMC, Hanoi or other major cities and want the best clubs and restaurants with good eatery descriptions then this is your guide. Strongly Recommended. 4 Stars.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9780470526606
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

Our author gives you all the details on the latest happenings in Vietnam, from the debuts of new boutique hotels to the downfalls of once-popular restaurants. She's scoped out the hip new places, and offers candid advice on which are really worth your time and budget.

You'll also get up-to-date coverage of attractions and nightlife; accurate walking tours; advice on planning a successful vacation; and in-depth coverage of Angkor Wat in the final Cambodia chapter.

Customer Review :

No review yet