Thailand (Country Travel Guide)
“Friendly and fun-loving, exotic and tropical, cultured and historic, Thailand beams with a lustrous hue from its gaudy temples and golden beaches to the ever-comforting Thai smile.” – China Williams, Lonely Planet Travel Writer
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Inside This Book
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Natasha Busse
kindle version beware,
I like the content of this book overall, but I purchased and downloaded to my kindle fire and it just doesn’t work well. I have also used lonely planet kindle versions of other titles, and none give me the headaches that the Thailand book does. It started crashing as soon as I started making bookmarks/notes/highlights. It repeatedly wiped out whatever notes I had added, occaisionally refuses to open, and frequently crashes for no apparent reason (I long ago gave up trying to reconstruct my notes). So every visit to this book now for me is a tedious, annoying and unreliable one.
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|Maura E. McGurk
There’s better out there,
I don’t know why this is allegedly the most popular guidebook to Thailand. It’s organized pretty haphazardly (for example, what would be interesting stories–on ladyboys, elephants, etc) are randomly inserted on pages that need filler. I stumbled on some of these at the end of our trip because they were in some random section.
Quite a few places we walked by–especially in Chiang Mai–had “Recommended by Lonely Planet” signs out front and looked like havens for douchebag “farang”.
Most of the places we stayed, and some of our favorite parts of the trip weren’t included in the book at all (May Kaidee’s vegetarian cooking school in Chiang Mai and Bangkok is the best example; Mae Hwang village outside of Chiang Mai which had a sizeable amount of Westerners passing through on their way to jungle/elephant treks; Spicy Villa there; also Centara hotel in Chiang Mai, Anantara Lawanna in Koh Samui). This all makes me wonder how well they do their homework.
Also very short on information about Thailand itself. In a culture that is strongly based on a shared religion (as the book itself states), they devote just a couple of paragraphs to discussing Buddhism. Very little on their art, which was completely disappointing, as it’s the basis for the wats.
Quite a few factual inaccuracies also–most notably, that you’re forbidden from photographing Buddha. Not true. None of the temples posted this “prohibition”, and when we asked, Thais were incredulous that we were told this. There are some rules for how to photograph Buddha (never place yourself or another human higher in the picture frame etc), and it would have been helpful to have included this instead.
Had a bit of a shock also when they referred to ladyboys as “well-endowed dudes” on page 133. This homophobic Western slang would never be accepted in Thailand, and ladyboys and Thais consider them females–and refer to them as such. Another example of frat-boy mentality which we didn’t appreciate.
We had a few incidents with wildlife–sea urchin sting, and a fire ant bite. Having them in the book wouldn’t have prevented this from happening of course, but it might have been useful information.
Overall, by the end of the trip, we deemed this book useless. We deliberately chose LP because we’re young, and wanted an adventurous trip with recommendations a little off the beaten path and fun. Eyewitness guides or Rough Guides from now on; LP sucks.
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|Walt
Great guide for the whole country,
This 800-page tome is the perfect guide for visiting the whole of Thailand. In-depth coverage is provided for all areas of the country, with extensive dining and hotel listings for all areas. There are very informative chapters on Thai culture, history, art, and cuisine. Numerous street maps throughout the book are very helpful, and there are some very nice color photographs. Thailand has an extensive domestic travel network – air, riverboat, bus, and train – that is well-explained here.
I was particularly impressed by the coverage of the Muslim insurgency in Thailand’s extreme south. Most guidebooks gloss over dangerous areas. This book provides extensive coverage of the area, while warning of the serious danger involved for outsiders (Thai or Western). The conflict area is a very small part of Thailand, and the difficulties there won’t have any impact on visitors to other parts of the country. It is important to know not to just hop on a bus or train for an impromptu visit, though.
The background of the conflict is explained succinctly and well. I thought that I was well informed, but I learned here that this area was only incorporated into Thailand in the early twentieth century. Combined with the fact that central government policy towards the area has become an area of contention between Thailand’s two main political movements, and the current situation is much more understandable.
Thailand is a fascinating country, and recommendations for books, movies, and music are included to help you understand and enjoy this vibrant and modern country.
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