The Rough Guide to Thailand 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

by Paul Gray (Author), Lucy Ridout (Author), John Clewley (Author)
Key Phrases: vegetarian festival, princess mother, bamboo house, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Hua Hin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Rough Guide to Thailand is the most discerning and accessible handbook to this intriguing country. A 24-page full colour section introduces the country, its climate, regions and culture and full colour spreads highlight the best of the activities, events and sights. There is evocative coverage of all the sights in opinionated write-ups, including the best beaches and islands, and critical reviews of places to stay, eat and drink. The authors give expert advice on activities ranging from trekking to spa treatments, and from scuba-diving to cookery courses. For every region and town, there are detailed maps, pin-pointing the accommodation and restaurant listings. Finally, in the Contexts section, there is an in-depth discussion of Thailand''s history, religion, wildlife, music and cinema.

About the Author

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.

Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987.

Lucy Ridout has been travelling in and writing about Asia for the last15 years. She is the co-author of Rough Guides to Bangkok, Thailand''sIslands & Beaches and Bali & Lombok.

Paul Gray has been a regularvisitor to Thailand since he taught English for a year in Chang Mai in1987. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 896 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 5th edition (November 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843532735
• ISBN-13: 978-1843532736
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #796,285 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Guide except for the Bangkok section..., February 27, 2005

By	Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I just returned from Thailand and I took four guides: Thomas Cook's, Lonely Planet, Let's Go, and this guide (see my reviews on the others guides, and do seriously consider Lonely Planet Islands & Beaches IF you are only going to spend time as a sun lizard).

`Thomas Cook Thailand' is a special niche guide, best suited for those with tour groups and `Let's Go Thailand' is the guide for those backpackers that are `on the cheap'. This leaves Rough Guide to face off with Lonely Planet and in some areas it is superior to L.P and in one big area it is not.

Rough Guide's restaurant recommendations are by far the best of any guide I reviewed; they are both reliable and informative, giving great descriptions and dish recommendations, "the grilled river prawns with chili, the matsaman curry and the delicious durian cheese-cake." The restaurant prices are listed as: Expensive, Moderate and Inexpensive.

The hotel accommodations recommendations are also descriptive, very reliable and most have either webpage addresses or email. Sadly, Rough Guide still uses the user 'unfriendly' price codes, instead of just saying in dollars (or Bahts) what the cost for the hotel is. Thus you need to memorize the table where the number 4=400-600B and 5=600-900B etc., then you can convert to either dollars or euros to get the price. Also, since the Guide is published in 2004 (thus the information is from 2003) you add 10-20% for inflation. Both Lonely Planet and Let's Go just tell you what the price is. "Duh".

The Guide has excellent information that tells you the nitty-gritty that prepairs you for your trip. It also has great history, religion (Buddhism of course), environmental and cultural sections. Not to be missed is the additional reading recommendations (six pages).

Where it bombs is BANGKOK. The Guide says that Bangkok is "sprawling, chaotic and exhausting" and that is exactly how I experienced the 115 pages that covered this mega-city. The layout is dysfunctional. It has no logical consistency between any two points. Bangkok is the home of 11 million people; it is huge and spreads out like greater Los Angeles. It needs to be broken down into regions and then sections and those need to be logically kept together. But, this guide will give you information on one area, like Thanon Sukhumvit, then 60 pages later the accommodations for that area, then 20 pages back will be the Thanon Sukhumvit map; but wait, the restaurants for that area... you guessed it, will be located some where else. Hello! Who laid this out? What herb, pray tell, were they using? So, if you plan to spend any significant time in Bangkok, then Lonely Planet is a better guide.

Maybe the 6th edition Rough Guide will improve the Bangkok section and hopefully increased the guides paltry index (8 pages for all of Thailand - Bangkok alone could be 8 pages) and make this an outstanding guide. Bangkok aside this is still a strongly recommended guide.

37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rough Guide to Thailand, April 2, 2000

By	Lucy Warner "louwarner" (Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thailand 3: The Rough Guide, 3rd edition (Rough Guide Thailand) (Paperback)

Fed up with the traditional Lonely Planet I turned to the Rough Guide for an alternative view. While this guide gives detailed historical/background knowledge it severely lacks in the essentials, notably transport prices and detailed maps.�@There were just too many times when this book became a more of a frustration than a help. This book is best read before you go and left at home.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solid travel guide, April 1, 2007

By	C. Georgi - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Thailand 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

Full of great and relevant information. Some prices have already gone up, despite how recently the book came out, but that's par for the course in Asia. It would have been nice if there were place names spelled out in Thai a bit more, so you could point them out to taxi drivers. They rarely spoke English and my pronunciation of the romanized Thai words wasn't up to snuff. It's also not as handy as a reference guide for looking up phone numbers or addresses to hotels, restaurants, etc. as say the Lonely Planet. It does provide a bit better context though and reads more comfortably. All in all, a good book. I bought it because it was so recent, but think I may go back to Lonely Planet for most future travel guides.