Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Thailand: Travel Survival Kit (7th ed)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Thoroughly dissatisfied with our original travel guide we were lucky enough to get Joe Cumming's "travel-bible" as a present in the middle of our journey. It really made a huge difference and turned our holidays into a unique experience. The descriptions of accommodation facilities turned out to be amazingly accurate and the numerous tips regarding means of travel were extremely helpful indeed. This truly comprehensive and well written guide provided us with very useful recommendations regarding travel routes, accommodation, and sightseeing while at the same time offering a thorough insight into the country's political, socio-economic and cultural background. However, one should not mistake it for a scientific essay but take it for what it is: A practical travel guide. Going by "Tuk Tuk" in Bangkok is a great experience but take Cumming's warning seriously and beware of drivers trying to guide you to cheap "promotion outlets" since these are nothing but tourist traps! The LP is an essential guide to getting around and finding interesting spots in Thailand and leads you safely to cheap but decent accommodation in almost every part of the country.

We recently returned from a two week, self-organized tour of Thailand and Laos. Joe's books were our "Bible". We had family reasons for visiting Roi-Et, an out-of-the-way provincial capital in the northeast. We found very useful maps and descriptions even here. His warning about touts at the Chiang Mai bus station was right on, but beware even if you choose your own taxi driver and hotel (ours tried to guide us to a "better deal"). Another warning: An overnight bus ride in the winter can be like being in a refrigerator if the air con won't turn off. The low to medium priced hotels we chose from his guide for Bangkok, Chiang Mia, Khonkaen, and Vientiane (Laos guide) were all excellent. The recommended Khonkaen Silk Festival was really great, both the silk clothing and the Maw Lam music. One omission that we enjoyed (1 km jeep track & 1 km hike): The Borichinda Cave just inside the entrance to Doi Inthanon National Park.

I just returned from my latest trip to Thailand where I used the latest copy of Joe Cummings' guide. As always it's excellent; reflecting the expertise you'd expect from somebody who's lived there for so long. His writing style is informed and he doesn't gloss over important details that aren't always positive. There's nothing worse than a guidebook that reads like Conde Nast Traveller. If you can't travel with Joe, the next best thing is to buy a copy of his guidebook. He's found places nobody else has found throughbout the country including on the back streets of Bangkok.

If you are going to Thailand for any length of time, the information in this book is lacking due to many biases and lack of information on various important subjects. I would recommend it only for a novice tourist with a few days in the Kingdom.

LP has done a decent job covering the basics that you'll need to negotiate through Thailand. My advice as with most travelogues, never believe the prices as they always go up. Another piece of advice is to pick a spot before you get to a new destination and ask other travellers about that place. Some of the guest houses can change very quickly and a night spent at a cheap guesthouse that's noisy, dirty and maybe cockroach infested can be miserable. Enjoy Thailand and enjoy this book!

We went to Thailand on honeymoon and were in no doubt that this would be a fantastic experience. This was made all the better having a copy of the LP guide. What a god send. We found it user friendly, a great read, thorough and useful for us as we went off the beaten track. Overall, we would recommend this to anyone who has a sense of adventure and wants to see and experience the real Thailand.

After living in Thailand for 3 years and traveling extensively (40+ provinces) sometimes on a shoestring, sometimes on an expense account, I'd have to say that Cummings book is one of the very best (certainly better than the outdated and superficial guide by Carl Parkes in the Moon Publication series). The Thailand "Handbook" (aka the Footprints series) is the only serious competitor. The historical and cultural overviews are superb and the practical infomation highly credible. The complaints about prices changing, etc. seem to come from people who are naive about travel. The book is no more "Western" in outlook than other common guides and, if anything, it does a better job of interpreting the culture. The political coverage is very credible, unless one is a hard right-winger or a member of one of Thailand's sleazier political parties.

For strictly a Thai travel guide I would recommend "The Thailand Handbook" (Moon Guides) hands down over this "save our planet" propoganda panthlet. The book was well researched as most of Cummings books are. It's primary shortcoming though is a wealth of judgemental biases toward the Thai people, and a very tedious holier than thou political agenda interwoven throughout the book. The reader must wade through a myriad of Al Gore style tree hugging rhetoric, as well as an attitude of "all Thailand is coming to an end, if us caring Westerners don't rescue these little brown people from themselves." This perpetual pontification throughout starts to become quite nauseating frankly. Mr Cummings is without a doubt a most talented writer, but unfortunately, his book could be two-thirds its present girth if vaunted political agendas were left with the Author. As a 22year vetran homesteader in E Asia, three year worker in Khmer refugee camps and an UNTAC rep, I tire of seeing half-baked liberals coming into SE Asia to change the world. As such, this "manual is just another xerox copy of "Green Piece" marketing ploys.

As a frequent traveler to Thailand I read the book with a certain amount of hesitation, becase many "guide books" are out-of-date. However, this manuscript really informs the traveler/tourist about a wonderful culture and society. We should not try to change or modify the Thai human spirit! We, in many instances, can learn from it. In the future writings I hope more about Nan Province can be told. A beautiful area with friendly people, beautiful mountains, no polution or automobile congestion, and a place to relax for a few days from a long flight.

We was travelling around in Thailand for three weeks, and learned to know Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Koh Samui.We had a wonderful trip, and visited numbers of restaurants and a couple of villages, we did some shopping, went elephant-riding, rafting and diving and visited beautiful beaches. We brought two books with us: the "Bible" : Lonely planet travel survival kit, which helped us finding transport and accomodation, and besides that gave us a brief introduction to Thailand and the spscific regions we visited. We also brought Insight guides to get short summaries on specific themes, besides a number of lovely pictures that helped us picking out places to go.