Customer Reviews

East Timor (Lonely Planet Country Guide)

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

 

 

An update from the original guide, this is the essential book to take with you if you visit Timor Leste. The book provides essential advice for all, but especially for anyone venturing out of Dili. Take a 4wheel drive vehicle, some money (don't expect ATMs) and the Lonely Planet Guide, and discover a little visited country. The people are lovely, the facilities scant, the roads horrific, signposts very rare, the scenery spectacular, the diving incomparable - do go, but do take the Guide.

Given the small size of the country in question it will come as no suprise at all to find that unlike some LP books this guide to Timor Leste isn't of brick-like proportions. Spanning out to not quite 120 pages this book is exciting in that the nation it deals with has mainly only ever been in the news for all the wrong reasons. At the time of writing however there had not been any problems for some years and with luck this means that this tiny nation is now open for business.

If you have ever read or owned a LP book you'll know what you are getting here. The format we all know is followed and there are useful and plain speaking chunks of information all through this book regarding history, transport, how things run (or don't run) and a run down of basic stuff like hotel descriptions and a bunch of maps. These tend to be fairly small and I was a tiny bit disappointed that the usual LP colour map wasn't included. In fact apart from the cover photos there are no pictures in this book at all which is a pity given how pretty the coastline of this country can be - often quite sheer while at the same time there are some pretty beaches. I guess it is just a case of LP pinching pennies on a guidebook they knew would shift relatively few copies, but gee whiz, aren't they making enough cash overall to absorb the cost?

So thumbs down for no photographs to help whet the appetite and another thumbs down for no colour map, but thumbs up to LP for being on the ground and helping any would be tourists to have a crack at Timor Leste as given it's poverty, this place is crying out for some tourist dollars. And in fact, given the near impossibility for a tourist to get out of Dili due to non-existent transport, unreliability of operators and the paucity of tourists meaning that even advertised tours often are not running this guide book is probably your best bet of ever knowing anything about what is outside of Dili. And I know what I'm talking about - I only got back from the country a couple of weeks ago and it takes you about a week to make the personal contacts that allow travel outside Dili a possibility. But the scuba diving ain't bad and the people are less inclined to try to rip you off brutally at every opportunity. They'll just rip you off mildly!

It is incredibly difficult to get solid information about East Timor (Timor-Leste), so the Lonely Planet guide is a real life saver! Of course, it has everything we expect from a Lonely Planet guide, although I wish it had warned me about the swarm of agressive young ladies of the night at the Flower Bar in Dili. I used the guide extensively during my recent visit. It prepared me for a meeting with President Jose Ramos-Horta (history of the struggle for independence) as well as for meeting coffee farmers, navigating the markets and my incredible trip to Atauro island (Tetum phrases). It is required reading for any visit to this wonderful new country.

It was a pleasure reading this rare guide for East Timor, with useful updates of the 1st edition. The new author has mastered the task with care to cultural detail, i 'll be testing the practical information later this year.

Hi, was happy that Amazon.com had a copy of East Timor Lonely Planet, since nowhere else could find latest edition in bookstore. Wondered if it was an original copy since the bookshelve (short) side didn't have the the country name on it, like all other Lonely Planets, as well the date of order was printed in back of book. Am a first time user of Amazon.com; I found the final cost of shipping very unclear ... until final stage of ordering; and found it very expensive. Also the shipping days on website were different than actual shipping dates, but had the books in time before my travel. Had shipped two tennis rackets in the same week from US, which arrived faster and shipment half the price cheaper.