Lonely Planet China 9ed 9th Ed.: 9th Edition [Paperback]

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-- As noted by other reviewers, the prices on admissions are already out-of-date.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.

The Lonely Planet guidebook is a commonplace symbol on the long hard road through Asia. Everywhere you go on the tourist circuit (and sometimes off it) you will see tourists and backpackers totting well-thumbed and/or pristine copies of the blue book for immediate reference. While in some destinations, particularly South-East Asia, a well-delineated tourist circuit has already been established and a guidebook is not really needed, China is a different sort of challenge, and - barring proficiency in Mandarin - some sort of manual is essential in traveling from one place to the other and in exploring the myriad sightseeing destinations without the wallet-sting of the package tour.

I used this guide to visit the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan and Guangxi and the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in the spring and summer of 2005. Aside from offering fairly informative sections on China's history, health issues and basic language skills, this particular guidebook is necessary in that it contains the characters for all locations covered. Aside from Hong Kong, Shanghai and the tourist-Mecca of Guilin/Yangshuo, most Chinese natives do not speak nor recognize English, and having a concrete symbol to point at goes a long, long way in making this vast country assessable. Factor in lodging recommendations, reasonably competent maps, bus and train time-tables and the boxed articles about misc. culture, Lonely Planet: China contains all one would need for an adventurous trek through this ancient, swiftly-changing nation.

Change quickly outdates any guidebook, however. Published in January 2005, this particular edition should prove satisfactory for information in every regard *except* price. With a burgeoning Chinese upper middle class more than willing to spend extra lucre for their two-week vacations, the prices for tourist destinations have risen anywhere from 30 to 60 percent in the last year and a half. For example: Black Dragon Pool Park in Lijiang is listed as having an admission fee of 20 yuan; the reality is now 60 (USD $2.50 to $7.50). For Shaolin Si, entrance is 100 yuan instead of the listed 60. Transportation costs have risen only slightly - roughly 5 to 10 yuan - while hotels are always a nebulous rate, given the Chinese predilection towards bargaining... and, aside from government-listed tourist fees, one should always attempt to bargain; getting something half off the quoted price means you're paying a fair price.

This guidebook - which, in the core writing, hasn't changed in years - gives a great overall analysis for the 33 provinces / Special Economic Zones. But if one is planning their trip around certain specific locals - Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tibet - it would be better to pick up on of the individual guides covering those areas, as cramming information about all of China's environs in roughly 1000 pages does tend to short-change certain sections. Personally, I feel the guide works best for someone traveling through three or more provinces on their trip. Prior research is very important: China is enormous and there is a lot to see and do. In order to maximize one's potential, an itinerary is necessary and this guidebook goes a long way in terms of preliminary research.

Enjoy your trip!

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!

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