The Rough Guide to Singapore 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) [Paperback]

Mark Lewis (Author), Rough Guides (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rough Guide Travel Guides | Publication Date: October 30, 2006

Asia''s diverse cultures, cuisines and religions collide in Singapore. In the ethnic enclaves of Chinatown, Little India and the Arab quarter, visitors glimpse customs and traditions unchanged for centuries. For tourists wishing to experience this melting pot, this new edition of The Rough Guide to Singapore is the perfect travelling companion. Boasting up-to-date accounts of all the best days out on the island, plus the most comprehensive restaurant, bar and hotel listings available, the Rough Guide guarantees you visit, stay and eat at the best places Singapore has to offer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rough Guides... make valuable holiday companions The Sunday Times Travel Magazine --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

After graduating from the University of Bristol, Mark Lewis spent a year teaching in Singapore, during which time he regularly contributed to the Singapore Strait Times. He is now editor of the award-winning Caterer and Hotelkeeper and is co-author of The Rough Guide to Vietnam and The Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 5th edition (October 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843537052
• ISBN-13: 978-1843537052
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,160,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Concise yet comprehensive - and it fits into your pocket!, May 30, 2001

By 

Boris Bangemann "boyse" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Singapore (Rough Guide Mini Guides) (Paperback)

The Rough Guides have always been a good compromise between the traditional Baedeker-style travel guides my parents used and the Lonely Planet guides from my backpacking days. The chunky Lonely Planets (the volume for China has the size and the weight of a solid brick) are still unrivalled when one wants to travel in a country with bad infrastructure and few tourist facilities; but for someone who travels light and wants to visit Singapore, the Mini Rough Guide to Singapore is a good choice.

It is a travel guide that fits easily into a pocket but has all the information one would expect: detailed coverage of the major sights, reviews of the best places to stay, eat and drink, a brief introduction to the history of Singapore, and nine useful color maps (including one for the subway system that came in handy). One of the highlights of the guide is a six-page section with short reviews of books for further reading. It includes not only travel accounts and history books but also works of literature that touch on Singapore, among them works by Anthony Burgess, Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, and Paul Theroux (Mark Lewis, the author of the guide, spent a year teaching English in Singapore after graduating from university during which time he regularly contributed book reviews to the Singapore Straits Times).

The book is very readable, well organized, chock full of useful information for the visitor, and very "user-friendly". It would qualify for five stars were it not for two (minor) complaints: One is that travelling mostly on a limited time budget, I have always liked travel guides with a couple of suggestions for day tours around town (none here, unfortunately). Secondly, I feel that a squeaky clean, efficient and hyper-controlled city like Singapore really asks for more irreverence and jokes than Mark Lewis allowed himself in his book. This is a matter of temperament, of course. Or maybe the editors of the Rough Guides series thought that a travel guide is not the right place to really indulge in the joys of oddities and ironies.