The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia - The Rough Guide

...help - so I got the The Lonely Planet Guide and The Rough Guide to SE Asia. This, however, is a review of the latter - I have also reviewed the LP Guide for what I hope will be a useful comparison.

The book may be expensive at £12.99 but you certainly get your money's worth. Ignore the title 'Rough Guide' - it's just being modest. This is anything but a 'rough' guide - it is, in fact, incredibly detailed. While the Lonely Planet books ...
...guide to travelling, giving you the real basics to start you off, The Rough Guide is essential reading for anyone that's going travelling for an extended period of time.

Why? Well, I'll tell you for why. The RG (Rough Guide) covers each country in extraordinary depth - for example there are 70 pages of small type on Cambodia alone, and Cambodia is one of the smaller SE Asian countries. And it's not just pages of waffle, either. You ... more

As I'm off to SE Asia for 6 months in February I thought I'd better get a couple of guidebooks to help - so I got the The Lonely Planet Guide and The Rough Guide to SE Asia. This, however, is a review of the latter - I have also reviewed the LP Guide for what I hope will be a useful comparison.

The book may be expensive at £12.99 but you certainly get your money's worth. Ignore the title 'Rough Guide' - it's just being modest. This is anything but a 'rough' guide - it is, in fact, incredibly detailed. While the Lonely Planet books are good in their own right as a more general guide to travelling, giving you the real basics to start you off, The Rough Guide is essential reading for anyone that's going travelling for an extended period of time.

Why? Well, I'll tell you for why. The RG (Rough Guide) covers each country in extraordinary depth - for example there are 70 pages of small type on Cambodia alone, and Cambodia is one of the smaller SE Asian countries. And it's not just pages of waffle, either. You can tell that for each page, an incredible amount of pain-staking research has been undertaken and it's rare that a sentence goes by without there being some useful piece of information there. In that way, they certainly don't beat about the bush and waffle on about "how beautiful the beaches are here", or about "the equisite mountain ranges over there" - they simply give you a brief description of each place (even the most seemingly insignificant get a mention here), tell you who it's suited for, why it's good, when to go, how to get there, how to get about once you are there...and then they move on. I don't want to make it sound like they rush through the countries - 70 pages for Cambodia is testimony that they don't! - it's just that they realise that people don't want to wade through pages and pages of useless waffle. People want to be able to decide relatively quickly which places interest them and which don't.

People also don't want to be pigeon-holed as one particular type of person who's 'bound' to want to go such-and-such a place - the RG takes great care to ensure that all types are catered for, so whether your a budget-backpacker looking to spend $10 a day, or whether you're a rich businessman out there for a holday, the RG will not fail you. One particularly useful thing is the way that they have developed a scoring system for establishing the prices of hotels, hostels and guest-houses in the region, so 1 is for budgeteers and 6 is for people with money burning holes in their trouser pockets. This way you can quickly rule out the places you'd not be able to afford or the places you'd not set foot in if your life depended on it - depending on which type you are.

The RG is divided upo into chapters for each country, including a very useful introduction and 'basics' chapter where you can find out everything from how to avoid social gaffes when you're out there, to what to pack, right through to advice for gay travellers! In each country-chapter there is a short introduction offering a broad sweep of the nation's attratcions, times to go and visa requirements, including a comprehensive listing of embassies worldwide where you can go to get your passport stamped. Then it goes on to things like routes into the country (by air, rail, bus, sea, river etc.), health concerns, living costs and transport - all very useful and very detailed stuff. You can tell a great deal of experience of travelling in the area has been put into the RG, with loads of tips and tricks of the trade throughout. There's then an overall map of the country (useful for general journey planning) and it then goes into each city, tourist resort or region in yet more excellent detail - even the smallest of towns and places to visit are included in the RG. Detailed maps of each place are also included (there are over 130 maps in total) with useful keys to the places to stay, eat, go out etc.

Basically the RG comes highly recommended. It is clear to see that it is simply brimming with useful tips and just packed with detail. This is a real must for anyone going travelling who wants to be prepared for what'll face them when they get out there. It includes up-to-date phone numbers throughout the book, plenty of addresses (internet and regular!), detailed maps, excellent advice on the practicalities of life when travelling and it's even good to read!

Although the Lonely Planet has its merits, its far too general to be of much use to anyone - but definitely check out the RG.
 

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