Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Vietnam 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

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

 

 

Just came back from a three week trip to Vietnam with three books: the Lonely Planet, the Rough Guide, and Footprint Handbook.

The Rough Guide is the best guidebook around for the country. It is superior to the Lonely Planet guide in the breadth and depth of coverage and especially its accuracy. I liked LP for other countries but here they did a very poor job.

I have not found even one instance where Lonely Planet provided information that Rough did not have. If you are traveling to the north, you may want to consider reading Footprint before you leave -- it has some interesting information.

Also, all hotels -- even the top ones -- can be negotiated down in price. Send them an e-mail and ask for special rates, corporate rates, etc. You can stay at the Metropole in Hanoi for less than half their rack rate.

As a user of Lonely Planet guide books, I am a recent convert to The Rough Guide series. I used both The Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide on a recent trip to Vietnam and found the Rough Guide won hands down.

The detailed maps are easier to read and follow, the restaurant and hotels reviews are more current and objective and the historical overview offered is more incisive. The Rough Guide provided wonderful tips for sight seeing in Ho Chi Minh City and further abroad. The accounts of the last days of the Vietnam War brought to life the turmoil and chaos of a city under siege.

Still a fan of The Lonely Planet series, I can clearly state I would recommend the Rough Guide as superior for Vietnam travel. I look forward to using the Rough Guide series for other travel destinations and hope the standard emulates that of the Vietnam edition.

PS The Rough Guide also releases CDs of traditional music of many of the countries they write about. The Rough Guide to Salsa CD is also highly recommended.

I was very happy to have Rough Guide Vietnam for my travels in northern Vietnam during December, 2000 - January, 2001. For one thing I felt like I wasn't getting channeled down the Lonely Planet path, as most independent travelers were carrying that book and using it like their Bible. Also, whenever anyone compared my Rough Guide to their Lonely Planet, they said they found RG to be better. Rough Guide goes into more depth than LP in describing the sights and history. LP's maps are a little more comprehensive, but RG's listings of hotels are more user-friendly than LP. I very much enjoyed the book.

I've been to Viet Nam twice & will return next year for an extended period. For my money, the Rough Guide is superior to the Lonely Planet. Information was more trustworthy last spring, especially regarding restaurants. Information is presented in an orderly, coherent manner. The language, historiacal & cultural information are accurate & cogent. This is the Viet Nam guide for grown-ups.

The Rough Guide successfully fills the niche for a guide to read before and after your trip, as well as to carry with you. Recently updated, it covers all the essential points for a trip to Vietnam. Well done, readable maps are provided along with succinct recommendations of sights which are worth a visit, including walking tours for the larger cities. Descriptions of restaurants and other essentials are plentiful. The tone of the guide is generally enthusiastic and sedate, with both a sense of humor and an understanding of the intricacies of Vietnamese history. A comprehensive section with "context material" (including a section on ethnic minorities, book recommendations, and modern culture and entertainment) rounds out the book.

I would have checked 3.5 stars if possible, 4 is too high, 3 is too low. I didn't like the hotel section as much as other guide books. And I didn't like the price rating system, I prefer to have the prices in US$ or VD. Also the map in the front is not comprehensive enough.

This booked helped a lot in certain areas of Vietnam, but some reviews (in Mui Ne for instance) were horribly outdated (the hotel received a good review, but was literally falling apart when I got there. Yes, literally - there was a hole where the lock on my door used to be.) I suppose it's to be expected - the lead time on a travel book is pretty far ahead of publishing from what I've heard. Even still, it was a mostly helpful book.

Rough Guide prints in an easy to follow manner; I like them as a travel guide more than their more popular competitor. They are also better in the sense that EVERYBODY seems to use their competitor's travel guides, so those recommended places are always full.

When I first went to Vietnam I used the Footprints guide and my traveling partner had this Rough Guide. On my second trip I purchased the Rough Guide, which I found much more useful than Fodor. It gives good information about hotels and restaurants and also gives a good historical/political perspective of Vietnam from a non-American point of view.

The bad things about the book: 1. I believe the authors are Australian and some of the word choices were difficult for an American like me to understand. Some sentences were difficult for me to "translate" into American English. 2. The book states that there are no gay outlets in Vietnam. This is simply not true. There are several places (nightclubs and hotels) in Saigon and Hanoi that are gay tolerant/friendly. There are even gay tours of Vietnam. While it is best to be discreet in Vietnam, one can find ways to meet other gay travelers and locals.

I had the Lonely Planet and my friend had the Rough guide and the difference was quite great. The section on the Mekong Delta for example was vastly more in depth in the LP and I would have been totally lost if I had used the Rough Guide.

I'm writing this from Ho Chi Minh City where I've been for the last month or so. I have not traveled much outside the city, so my perspective is limited to the parts about Vietnam in general and HCMC specifically.

My primary issue with the book is that it gives little sense of relativity within the different topics. It speaks about $4 burger joints and $25 formal restaurants sequentially on a page and without going to them you would not know they are so vastly different. Everything is given a cursory overview. I'd prefer to know what places have better food, service, ambiance, relative pricing, etc. Prices are only mentioned on the pages regarding hotels. Once you are here, it feels like the writer just walked down a few streets in HCMC, wrote down names and addresses and a one sentence blurb from looking through the window.

I prefer a book that gives me a sense for places I don't want to miss and places I definitely should. If that is what you are looking for, this is not it.