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Product Details
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- Up-front colour highlights section plus "top 10" lists - Detailed itineraries reveal classic and less-travelled routes - Unmatched history, culture and background information, with expert author contributions - Easy-to-use maps with cross-referencing to text
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fine guide book, typical for Lonely Planet,
By Brian Davies (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lonely Planet Laos (Paperback)
I have recently completed a 12-month backpacking journey around the world, a trip that included Laos. In each of the 20-some countries I visited, the Lonely Planet I carried proved invaluable. However, after having read some of the other Amazon reviews of the LP Laos book before using it, I was expecting this particular guide-book to be worthless. But in fact, after using Cummings' book for nearly a month in Laos, I was pleasantly surprised to find it as useful as any other LP that I have used. Actually, expecting this guide-book to be useless, I brought along another Laos guide-book, which proved to be much less useful on the road when used side-by-side with the LP.Not only did I find the accomodation and eating sections for popular locations as accurate and update as I would expect, but Cummings' did a fine job of briefly describing many off-the-beaten-track places, providing initial ideas for numerous adventures into the unknown. And of course, as in any country to see the "real-thing", it is always rewarding to venture to places that you have not read about in a guide book. For this reason, I would certainly not criticize Cummings for not writing more. All in all, in my opinion this book certainly meets the lofty standards set by Lonely Planet. A bit of advice to would-be travelers: During my 12 months of diligently using Lonely Planet guides, I have been amazed by the travel-blunders made by fellow travelers who have carried travel guides, but have not used them. Some travelers perfer to do it "on their own", but I have seen numerous costly, time-consuming, and uncomfortable mistakes made that could have been easily avoided if they would have simply consulted the book in their hands. A little diligence goes a long ways.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
No wonder the planet's so 'Lonely'..,
By Patrick Hardy (Vientiane) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lonely Planet Laos (Paperback)
Joe Cummings' 'Lonely Planet Laos' is the most pedantic and useless guidebook I've ever been unfortunate enough to use. Cummings seems desperate to show the reader how much he knows about the country, going off on endless tangents that lead nowhere and tell the reader nothing (especially in his 'Dangers and Annoyances' section). Does your average traveller really need to know how the licence plate system in Laos works? His information on hotels, restaurants and other attractions is shockingly out of date and inaccurate. I once used the 1997 edition, and I noticed that very little in the book has changed. Don't waste your money.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Guide to nonexistent restaurants, old residences, old hotels,
By Timothy J. Triche, Jr. (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lonely Planet Laos (Paperback)
The problem with this guide is that, even though things have changed since the last revision, the guidebook hasn't. I would strongly recommend the Rough Guide and a curious spirit over the Lonely Planet guide to Laos, even the new 4th edition. Either way you're going to contend with some bad information, but at least with the Rough guide you won't have to put up with Cummings' writing. I'm sure he's a brilliant scholar, but there are other reasons people go on vacation besides research. Don't miss Luangphabang and the villages up and down the Mekong, whatever you do. Beyond that, everything in Laos is hit-and-miss. Relax and enjoy it. I've never had so much fun on a vacation in my entire life, and it was cheap as dirt, too.
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