| | The Real Guide (Real Guides) |  | Authors: Prentice Hall, Paul Gray
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy Used: $0.75
You Save: $16.25 (96%)
Used (6) from $0.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 474
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0137617437
EAN: 9780137617432
ASIN: 0137617437
Publication Date: December 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company.
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Not very useful June 18, 2008
Do your research on line before going to any of the hotels suggested in this guide. Some of them are real dumps. Also, the guide does little to show you how to get around the country. I'm spoiled by Rick Steves guides that basically take you step by step on how to get out of the airport and to the sights, restaurants, hotels, etc. There are no prices and maps of Bangkok do not even show where the airport is at. It doesn't do what a guide is supposed to do, guide you. It gives a general overview of each city and gives a history lesson, but not much else. I have to wonder if the people who wrote the book actually went to Thailand or just read about it. Waste of money if you ask me. Something to read while on the toilet, otherwise I'm doing all me research on line.
Solid travel guide April 1, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
 Good Guide except for the Bangkok section... February 27, 2005
41 out of 43 found this review helpful
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.
 Very inaccurate! Wrecked my Vacation! September 5, 2003
20 out of 58 found this review helpful
I bought this book and relied on it to plan my
vacation for 30 days in Thailand with my family.
This book is very, very inaccurate! The
information is so inaccurate that I think the
authors just made up things to fill up pages.
It was worthless when I was visiting cities in
Thailand because each time I found the
information incorrect and misleading. I cursed
this book many times when I was on vacation in
Thailand for being so useless and deceptive and
inaccurate. I really hate to give a book such
a terrible review and I usually would never
comment but because this book let me down so
much in Thailand I decided to tell other readers
to warn them to look elsewhere for "reliable"
information. Have a good trip to Thailand is my
wish to you but buy some other book than this one.
It is DANGEROUS to print untruths and misinformation
and wrong address and wrong prices and wrong
everything else. This book was dead wrong so many
times it made me vomit. The authors now have no
credibility with me and I will never buy another
Rough Guide to anywhere because of it. It's
expecially dangerous when you are traveling with a
young child as I was and relied on the book and it
let me down again and again putting my family in
a bad way really fast. It's not fun when this happens
especially in a foreign country with your kid.
Rough Guide to Thailand April 3, 2000
36 out of 43 found this review helpful
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.
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