1 comments about China (Eyewitness Travel Guides).

1. I always go for these guides because of the color pages, photos, and maps. Visual aid helps alot rather than a whole lot of text which the other guides have. They have pics of common foods you'll see, etc. Wherever I travel to next I make sure I have their guide and one from Lonely Planet or Fodor's.

1 comments about The Rough Guide to The Philippines 2 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. This edition came out a few days before my September-October 2007 trip to The Philippines. I found a copy at my local travel bookstore, and thought I had lucked out by getting the very latest freshest information possible. I was wrong. The book kept letting me down, and at the worst moments possible. A couple examples:
   A) Manila - Hobbit House has a new location on Del Pilar street, some 20 blocks away from the previous location on Mabini. It moved on March 14, 2007, over 6 months before the book came out. If the book updated its research, I wouldn't have had to navigate through all the hustlers in Ermita on a Saturday night who wanted to charge me to give directions.
   B) Manila - the national museums aren't open Tuesday, when I tried to visit. They haven't been in many years, according to staff. Ignore the schedule Rough Guide shows!
   C) In Cebu City, the Persian Palate restaurant is nowhere near the location they show. Also, they neglect to mention that it's not a single restaurant. It's a a full blown chain of restaurants, with locations in every mall. It seems very doubtful all these restaurants got built so quickly that the book researchers couldn't have found out.
   D) Also in Cebu, the "Great Han Palace" they describe doesn't seem to exist. The building itself seems to be called the "Great Han Palace", but the restaurant inside is called something else.
   E) Airport - Departure tax is 750 pesos, not 550.
   
   I could have saved myself time, taxi fares, and a lot of aggravation by finding a better book. Don't make my mistake when buying a travel book! Just because it's recently published doesn't mean the info is updated.

1 comments about The Rough Guide to Bali & Lombok 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. an exceptionally practical guide to travel in bali and lombok. on a recent month holiday to bali, i used the book from cover to cover. the information is accurate and the maps came in very useful whilst negotiating the other road users in my rented jeep. i will certainly buy a roughguides for my next trip and have peace of mind that what is written is correct.

No comments about City Between Worlds: My Hong Kong.

5 comments about River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny.

1. Author Jeffrey Taylor used a custom-built boat to travel over two thousand miles to the Arctic Circle, recreating a journey first made by Cossacks over three hundred year ago, seeking a respite from the modern world. RIVER OF NO RETURN: DESCENDING SIBERIA'S WATERWAY OF EXILE, DEATH, AND DESTINY charts his journey, providing true life travel adventure at its best as Taylor comes to realize his guide is a bitter Soviet army veteran who hates all humanity - including Taylor. A vivid adventure comes to life in a compelling 'you are there' story.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. Most of us who have visited or lived in Russia since 1990 have spent out time in the major cities or around them. Jeffrey Tayler takes us to places in Russia that we will probably never have an opportunity to see. He does more than look and see. He experiences. If you are familiar with Russia or parts of it, the story makes sense and we can relate. Certainly what he experiences is far more extreme than what most of us know. And yet, it is still familiar. From his travel companion's contempt for all people who aren't "real" Russians, to the wish for and fear of contact with nonRussians that others exhibit, this is a story of Russian people. I learned, I was depressed, I laughed, and this book made me want to go back to Russia and experience it again and again.
   Walter Brooke



3. Very interesting. The author does an excellent job weaving in historical backgroung. He describes a very harsh environment inhabited mostly by drunks. Moves along quickly for a 2500 mile boat ride.



4. Tayler wanders off a bit in trying to make his language too flowery and poetic, but I guess it comes from living in Russia maybe where poetry is still respected. That or he is just trying to add a little more flavor to this rather depressing tale. There was one reviewer who gave this book only 2 stars because there was not more pictures and he thought the cover photo didn't look like the guy on the back flap. All I can say is try a trip like this yourself and see what you look like in two months. If you need more pictures, stick to the children's section. Having live in Russia for 4 years now I found it very believable. Vadim the guide is exactly as I could imagine having know a few Russians much like him.
   What bothered me the most is that Tayler never mentions contacting his wife even once on the whole trip. I'm sure he must have, but didn't think it worth mentioning. All-in-all, a good adventure, and a good read.



5. Many of us have been interested in Russia from the Cold WAr days, and I certainly have tried my best to learn the language, and I visited three times in a backpack/student-ish way in the 1980's. When I spotted this book in the library, the outdoorsman-feel of the cover turned me off, then I browsed through the pages and realized that Taylor was a great writer about people. It's a great book for anyone to read, who would like to know how the "real Russians" are, out in the countryside - and we're talking very far out, in Siberia, on collapsing former-collective farms, living on dribs and bits and puny pensions, hunting, fishing, small gardens, minimal electricity, police or medical service, paved roads, or telephone systems.
   
   Taylor has a sharp eye also for the various ethnic types who've made their way up there: exiled Polish gentry from two centuries back, for example, have led to beautiful young women with "aristocratic" faces. Volga Germans, exiled by cattle car in 1941, still run their farms with an admirable efficiency and cleanliness, with animals penned in and no litter, as opposed to the semi-abandoned Russian farms on the opposite side of the Lena river. Yakuts and other natives, once nomads, now settled into small towns, are mixed with the locals. All seem to have a love of cigarettes and alcohol regardless of racial origin, which destroys the young people's health, teeth, skin and handsome features quickly; people tell him that at 22, they're "old"; teens are "the young". Professionals from the poor parts of former Soviet regime, e.g. Bishkek in Kurgistan, see opportunities, and move to Siberia for better wages, sending all possible saving home for their children's educations.
   
   Taylor's own Western mentality comes into a clash with his river guide Vadim's perversities and pride. Vadim is a rebel against modern society, used to be a well-paid manual worker under the Soviets (a Siberian truckdriver!), and loves the open forests and freedom from people that one finds in the North. Taylor also loves Siberia's nature - why else take such a ride or pay Vadim, anyway? - but he argues back against Vadim's Russophile Grizzly-Adams egotism. Things get rough between them, while Taylor is absolutely dependent on Vadim's expertise with the boat, the camping equipment, the endless flies and midges and mosquitoes, so he is not angry at him; rather, Vadim seems angry at him. This growing tension is an excellent device to hook any reader, as one wishes to know if something truly awful, some horrible river crisis, can lead even to blows or deathly injuries.
   
   It's definitely written by a man, as one sees in his descriptions of the women working in cafes, hotels or shops. One wonders sometimes if his wife read the manuscript, or whether he cares. In describing the various men, he is not so generous in his praise; a very telltale male style.
   
   Taylor had been living in Moscow since 1990, and was married to a Russian, speaks the language, and has travelled widely. He writes with a great incisiveness about the people, which kept me going straight through. My own memories of hitchhiking in Finnish Lapland, hooking up with hunters, and meeting people in isolated communities, came through strongly. Russians' longing for a strong central government is not unique to Russia, as one could learn from world travel or wide reading, but it is especially poignant to read such statements from people whose own parents or grandparents had been exiled or deported to Siberia. They live without regrets that they are there, instead of in their homelands.
   
   The atrocities of Russia come alive in Taylor's words, as Siberia was filled with the Soviet and Tsarist victims.
   
   Enjoy a suspenseful read!

No comments about Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos, 2nd: Tread Your Own Path (Footprint - Travel Guides).

1 comments about Thailand - Culture Smart!: a quick guide to customs and etiquette (Culture Smart!).

1. This was a good intro book to Thailand and it's culture with a little Thai history thrown in too. It is a fast read. Our daughter is in Thailand for 6 months through a study abroad program with her college...and my husband and I are planning to go there for 2 weeks this summer. We felt this book gave info that some of the other 'tour' books left out....as the title suggests, it includes customs and etiquette of the Thai people. I'd definitely recommend this book to all traveling to Thailand. (The only draw back is that it was written in 2003 and could be updated a bit.)

3 comments about A Traveller's History of India (Traveller's History).

1. Lots of historical information. Easy to read. A must for your trip to India.



2. After reading V.S. Naipaul's "An Area of Darkness" about his first journey to India, I felt that I needed a more balanced view of the country. This book was just what was called for.

   "A Traveller's History of India" was written by a historian from Sri Lanka with an English education. He knows how to give a good overview of the various cultural influences that met and merged in India. His narrative is chronological. It is the best way to illustrate the growth, glory, decline and disappearance of vast empires. It also serves well to refute the Naipaulian idea that there is something particularly evil about the Muslim influence in India. The Islamic believers who invaded India in the 7th century AD shared many things with the Aryan invaders 1500 BC or the Christian invaders in the 18th century AD: they all came, conquered, prospered and some of their influence continues until today. The Aryans brought the caste system and Sanskrit literature; the Muslims built the Taj Mahal, and gave birth to the Urdu language; the Christians built railroads, left a working legal system and administration, and English as a common language that was understood in the whole subcontinent.

   In one aspect, however, the Islamic invaders were more ruthless than the others. No other invading culture erased a religion as barbarously as Islam uprooted Buddhism in India: "The conquest of Bihar [in 1202 AD] saw the systematic destruction of all the remaining Buddhist monasteries and the wanton slaughter of all the monks. [...] The ruthless fanaticism of the new conquerors led to the complete disappearance of Buddhism from the land of its birth."

   On the other hand, the Muslims exported the decimal system and the symbol zero from India to Europe, both of which later played a crucial role in the development of Western science.

   Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda strikes a fair balance between the failures and the successes of the cultures that came to play a role in India. And he has a fine sense of irony when it comes to the impact of the English on India. He notes that the Indian nationalist movement which began in the mid 19th century had its origins in a common identity and a new sense of purpose instilled by the new political and social ideas carried with the English language; and he observes that the discoveries of many British scholars who made it their life's work to unearth the story of India's ancient past gave Indians an important sense of their own identity and a feeling of pride in their past.

   I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this history of India. My greatest delight - and inspiration to do further research and reading - were succinct portraits like the one of Babur (1483-1530 AD), who was not only the founder of the Muslim Mughal empire but also "one of its most fascinating and attractive personalities. A poet and a man of letters, he was also an adventurer of iron nerves and powerful determination. A keen diarist, he recorded his experiences in his memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Baburi, which are an important source for the history of the period. These memoirs speak of a tremendous zest for life, a man of boundless energy and optimism, a dedicated drunkard and a wholehearted sportsman and polo player. They also reveal an artistic nature of great sensitivity and refinement. Wherever he went Babur laid out Persian gardens, and his memoirs are full of references to the beauties of nature. Cold-blooded and ruthless at times, he was also capable of great generosity and chivalry, and his memories are laced with that rare quality - an endearing sense of humour."




3. Having suffered through Keay's History of India, this volume was a pleasant surprise. Tammita-Delgoda writes clearly and compellingly. The book is well organized and at the end one has a firm grasp of the major periods of Indian history although the narrative is by necessity terribly compressed. I would recommend it to any travelling to India for as the London Evening Standard writes the book "...provides a useful grounding" for those interested in the country. The only disappointment is that the illustrations and maps are not up to the quality of the writing

5 comments about Dork Whore: My Travels Through Asia as a Twenty-Year-Old Pseudo-Virgin.

1. Great book- great first novel. Entertaining, smart and very funny. 2 thumbs up.



2. and I'm sure every guy can find someone they are akin to as well.
   
   I found this book to be almost impossible to put down and read it in two evenings (it's a great quick read.)
   
   Iris Bahr tells her memoir in the most humorous way possible. Granted, she is a comedian so her wit is not surprising, but the STORIES are just amazing.
   
   I would and will recommend this book to all of my friends.



3. I really loved this book. Iris Bahr is pretty multi-talented, and I heard her in character on Studio 360, and later saw her on Current. This is so hilariouly honest, it's cringe-worthy, but I have a feeling that this is very realistic. I enjoyed the diversion, and even though this doesn't come to an ending you expect, it's still a great ride. Have fun explaining the title to others!



4. I did expect an amusing story similar to William Sutcliffe's book "Are You Experienced?". This book however tells the story of a frustrated and embittered woman wallowing in self-pity and unable to socialize. I could not find the praised Jewish humour or a cynical story but an irritating and unexciting tale.



5. ...check out the book Naked in Haiti: A sexy morality tale about tourists, prostitutes & politicians.

4 comments about LUXE Paris (LUXE City Guides).

1. What's a stupid idea to publish something likes that. The entire "book" is yellow-page-like index. Let me make this clear, it is actually not a "book". It is a list of places, text only on one page of paper, yes one page, folding into a pocket size layout. I thought that is a joke. But, no, that is all it has. Don't buy it!



2. My husband took me to Paris for our anniversary and on our way there, he gave me LUXE Paris. I booked our dinners according to the suggestions and the restaurants were fantastic, I followed the shopping itineraries step by step and found the most amazing hidden jems and, as recommended, we had a panoramic view of the Eiffel Tower from a café at night time - gorgeous! The best part was that they helped me find the perfect jewler who helped me resize and update my wedding ring. This trip would not have been the same without LUXE.



3. This is the most useful guide to Paris I've ever read. It's nice and small and gets straight to the point, and it's got all the goss on the best places to eat, shop, sightsee etc. (and in a city this big, it's good to have a couple of pointers...) And it makes you feel kinda cool, not having to lug around an ugly guidebook and letting everyone know you're not a local. It's written in a really authoritative tone, and rightly so, because they've always just told things straight and truthfully - so you know exactly what you're getting. I own quite a few of them now, since I try to look for one for each place I go to, and they've never failed me.



4. this excellent pocket sized guide gives all the luxury insider info you could possibly need. Hotels and restaurants are well chosen and, like all Luxe guides, this shares some excellent secrets with the weary traveller and ensures a fun filled time in this lovely City