Travel to Asia

The Rough Guide to India 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

Format: Paperback
Author: Nick Edwards
ReleaseDate: 21 November, 2005
Publisher: Rough Guides
Rating:

Maps lacking detail & accuracy
Why, for instance, do these guides not recommend hotels near the Jama Masjid in Agra (where one can find shops and food in abundance, where one is but a short walk from the Red Fort and hence a short walk from access to the Taj and where transportation does not involve the hassles that one encounters in other parts of town)? You tend to find that LP and Rough Guide give the same recommendations as far as hotels are concerned 6 out of ten times. A bit too much like the Lonely Planet and like LP, a bit lazy and predictable. . . it's not that difficult - most Indian towns of any size have an array of options.

I find the most frustrating aspects of this guide to be: the complete lack of maps for certain regions (I found there to be few maps of smaller towns in Tamil Nadu); inaccuracies in the maps (the Akbar Inn in Agra is 1km away from the point indicated and not on the same street as Tourist Guest House. . . in Gwalior, the guide will have you walking lenghty circles only to find that the hotel you are looking for is a stone's throw from the station on a road not indicated. . . in Bhavnagar a circle haphazardly placed on a map in the middle of a labyrinthine bazaar is apparently meant to serve a purpose); and the scales are occasionally wrong.

There are also internal contradictions. . . the time from town A to town B is indicated as 5 hours when one looks at the travel info for town A but as 7 hours when one looks at the info for town B.

Having recently decided that LP had seriously dropped its standards when it suggested turning left out of the bus stop in a Chinese town of plus 1 million people and looking for a red sign, I am at a loss for a decent guide book. Maybe the Footprint or Handbook guides are the way to go - I have yet to try them. What I tend to find most useful are older LPs (eg those of 10 years ago). . . prices change and hotels open and close but those guides did tend to provide more options as far as hotels are concerned and the maps tended to be more accurate - some hotels will remain and where one finds one, one usually finds others.

Overrated! A big disappointment
I was very disappointed. After using over 10 Lonely Planet books to travel Asia and Latin America, I thought I'd give this book a shot since many people had praised it. The maps, the background information, and the writing are just BLAND, BLAND, BLAND. Lonely Planet is still king if you want interesting, informative information with highly detailed maps. Concerning Inda, it's best to buy either LP's Northern India or Southern India in separate editions- one book just can't do justice to a country as large and diverse as India.

This was my travel companion.
I visted 4 areas (Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Agra) of which I stayed in everywhere but Agra. After spending 3 weeks in India, I had only wished I read this book more thoroughly. Rough Guide has nice maps describing major areas, good list of hotels, and restaurants along with major attractions that were helpful in me finding my way.

I only had a brief chance to look at Lonely Planet from someone who sat across from me on a train back from Delhi to Mumbai so I can't say which one is better. By the end of my vacation, Rough Guide was always with me, along with my DSLR. I would strongly recommend you to consider this book as one of your travel books.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Asia travel books.

	Lonely Planet India
	India (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
	India - Culture Smart!: a quick guide to customs and etiquette (Culture Smart!)
	Lonely Planet Rajasthan, Delhi & Agra (Lonely Planet Travel Guides)