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| Lonely Planet China | 
 enlarge | Authors: Damian Harper, Andrew Burke, Julie Grundvig
Brand: Sheila Shine
Category: Book
List Price: $31.99
Buy New: $17.87
You Save: $14.12 (44%)
Buy New/Used from $17.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  (92 reviews)
Sales Rank: 18292
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 10th
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1028
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.7
MPN: 1
ISBN: 1740599152
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.1046
EAN: 9781740599153
ASIN: 1740599152
Publication Date: May 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Silk Road research was lacking May 1, 2006
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I used the 2002 edition when I traveled the silk road in 2004. I have to say that I hope in this edition they actually visited the places and didn't just use the phone. The descriptions of Kashgar, Turfan and Dunhuang were not very accurate. There was barely any info, and what there was lacked accuracy. While I lived in China from 2003 to 2005 I used the book in many places and found it fairly accurate given the frantic pace of change in the country. However, the silk road and some of the less-traveled areas were not as well researched as they could have been. I'm glad to see they have a 2005 edition, and hope that it is done better. I also used the Beijing "Best of" for my many visits to the capital and found it well done.
 Basics and specifics February 20, 2006
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Concise, yet extensive - includes lesser known places. Perfect for planning a trip. When used in conjunction with the internet, we were able to make lodging reservations with confidence. Too bulky for actually taking on trip.
Solid Over-View But Not Very Indepth November 5, 2005
31 out of 34 found this review helpful
As others have mentioned, China is a sprawling country that will transport you to 1421, 1890, 1850 or 2005 depending on where you or what your interests are. There is really no way any one guide book could satisfy everyone.
Here is what the Lonely Planet-China manages to deliver and why you'd want to buy this book: An over-view of nearly every city you might be able/want to visit. The brief history and signifigance of each city and its main sights are mostly accurate. Within each city, there are a range of hotels, transportation and resturants. Depending on the size of the city, that can range from from a few paragraphs to several dozen pages.
After most cities pages, there is a page with English & Chinese words/characters so you can point to them for your cab driver or if you have any questions at the hotel. They are in tiny print so hopefully, no one needs glasses to read them.
There are also Chinese phrases (along with English) of the most important things you might need to ask or say.
If you are planning on traversing on your own or if you speak Chinese adequately, this is a decent starter book as to what you might want to go or see in a particular city.
If you're on a tight guided trip - this might be adequate enough for you to get a sense of where you are in the city in respective to everything else.
If you have relatives in China or you're traveling with a Chinese speaker and your trip is short, this book offers you enough of an over-view of most things.
Why this book might not be for you?
Just think of any large American or European city near you with hundreds or thousands (well, not really in the US) of years of history - can you describe all there is to do, see, eat, etc in several pages adequately? Rome? New York? Etc? Not really. That's the main problem with Lonely Planet-China. It's really an all too brief over-view.
If you're with a guided tour group and you are a really detailed person, you'll want to get the city specific books (Lonely Planet or otherwise) of each particular city to learn the history of what you're seeing and what else you might want to do your few hours away every few days.
First, in the major cities, China is literally changing overnight. There are 4,000 skyscrapers in Shanghai and 1,000 going up in the next YEAR. Most all of the information pertaining to lodging & restaurants are changing EVERYDAY. But going to China as a non-Chinese speaker is not necessarily easy. If you're willing to pay typical major US city hotel rates, there are dozens of choices in Beijing and Shanghai not listed here - most which will pick you up in a limo from the airport - a very necessary arrangement for non Chinese speakers. There are car rental agencies now but unless you are a cab driver in Manhatten and you can negotiate your way in Chinese out of any fender benders, do NOT even consider driving in China.
The other problem with the guidebook is that you definitely need to sit down and map things out way in advanced. For instance, there is a descripotion of a sight, you need to find the key to that city - then look at the monochome map - find the number to see exactly where it is. They also are not very clear about how far each sight to each other. The maps are not huge so what seems like 3 inches might really be way, way out of town. It would also be nice if they were clearer in exactly what you absolutely need to see and why in comparison to another temple ... for instance, each publically accessible section of the Great Wall also offers you different things.
And of course, the food. If you love food, China is the mother mecca of food - it's extremely inexpensive unless you just eat at the tourist spots of course, personally I have had a filling breakfast for $.25 USD and massive banquets for less than $8 USD a person. From the street to 6-story restaurants, there is no way any guide can keep up but also what's disappointing is that most foods are very regionalized in China and that is NOT really mentioned in this guidebook - if you are really traveling around to different parts of China - there are definitely dishes and delicacies that are sometimes ONLY available in that city or region and if you want to eat it, sometimes by the next train stop, it's NO longer available (many if not all sit down restaurants have picture menus but I don't think that's pointed out also).
BTW, many major historical sites and in particular Beijing historical sites are undergoing renovation for the Olympics and beyond so be prepared to see scaffolding.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to email us.
Overall - a decent book with a decent over-view of most of the cities in China. The real problem is a printed book cannot hope to cover the thousand years of history, the overnight changes going on right now as we speak and of course, the thousands of food choices.
Enjoy your trip!
 Good guide book with minor problems September 26, 2005
71 out of 78 found this review helpful
I've been using Lonely Planet guides for all of my travels in the past decade (and not finding LP, I go with Moon Guides). Luckily, the new edition of the LP China guide came out a month before my visit to the Middle Kingdom. I planned my itinerary inside China based off of recommendations in the book: Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Suzhou and Guilin --using the book as a reference everywhere. Here are my impressions after the trip, starting with the positive:
-- The book is overall a good value for helping find which sites are worth visiting on a tight schedule. I found all of its site descriptions to be spot on and was not dissapointed by any of the places I visited based on suggestions from the guidebook.
-- As ususal, the LP maps are tremendously useful when navigating major cities and towns.
-- the advice on scams was tremendously useful in China, where being a foreigner makes you an instant target for unwanted attention. If anything, they should expand this section.
However, there were a number of minor quibbles that kept this book from being as useful as other LP guides (like Japan or Canada) which I will go over below:
-- As noted by other reviewers, the prices on admissions are already out-of-date. The book was published in June '05 and my trip was in August '05, yet very few prices corresponded to those in the guide. All prices were higher.
-- Often the hotel reviews were far too generous. After staying at many "mid-range" and "High-end" hotels recommended by the guide, my travel companion and I laughed at the wonderous descriptions given in the LP guide for most of them.
-- Some of the slang used in the guide is unfamiliar to US readers. Granted, this point is a very minor quibble, but it's annoying when you're trying to get a feel for a place from the book and you can't understand what it's trying to say.
-- Since many, many people go to China to shop, and nearly all stores involve serious haggling, I was disappointed that the book did not have a good section on how to approach shopping in China. For this I had to go to various forums on the web, but there's really no reason to not include the universal rules in such a general guidebook.
-- Finally, I was a little surprised that this LP guide seemed a little toned down in its editorial criticism of the enormous inequalities and visibile authoritarian elements within China. This is not to say I was expecting a political statement, but a charming aspect of many LP guides are their willingness to point out blatant or just-below-the-surface problems in the countries and cultures it covers. In many cases the China guide did point issues, particularly with minorities, but often it gave the Chinese gov't a pass in areas where even a fairly oblivious tourist like myself couldn't help but notice. With that said, I have a suspicion that this may have been a judicious choice by the editors, since bringing in books that are too critical to the Chinese Government is forbidden (as clearly stated on the customs forms visitors must sign when they enter the country).
Overall I found this book to be useful. I did side-by-side comparisons with a Frommer and Nat'l Geographic China guide before I purchased it and I felt that the LP guide was willing to make more editorial opinion judgments on what was really worth making time for.
 New edition?? September 21, 2005
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
There is a lot of old information in this book - almost all entrance fees are wrong! Info about extra departure taxes on airports are wrong. It isn't new edition - it's old edition in new facelift!
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