Travel to Vietnam

The Rough Guide to Vietnam 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

Format: Paperback
Author: ROUGH GUIDES
ReleaseDate: 20 November, 2003
Publisher: Rough Guides
Rating:

Descriptive, but not horribly useful
I have not traveled much outside the city, so my perspective is limited to the parts about Vietnam in general and HCMC specifically. I'm writing this from Ho Chi Minh City where I've been for the last month or so.

My primary issue with the book is that it gives little sense of relativity within the different topics. It speaks about $4 burger joints and $25 formal restaurants sequentially on a page and without going to them you would not know they are so vastly different. Everything is given a cursory overview. I'd prefer to know what places have better food, service, ambiance, relative pricing, etc. Prices are only mentioned on the pages regarding hotels. Once you are here, it feels like the writer just walked down a few streets in HCMC, wrote down names and addresses and a one sentence blurb from looking through the window.

I prefer a book that gives me a sense for places I don't want to miss and places I definitely should. If that is what you are looking for, this is not it. .

not as good as lets go and lonely planet
5 stars if possible, 4 is too high, 3 is too low. I would have checked 3. I didn't like the hotel section as much as other guide books. And I didn't like the price rating system, I prefer to have the prices in US$ or VD. Also the map in the front is not comprehensive enough.

The Lonely Planet was much better
The section on the Mekong Delta for example was vastly more in depth in the LP and I would have been totally lost if I had used the Rough Guide. I had the Lonely Planet and my friend had the Rough guide and the difference was quite great.

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

	Lonely Planet Vietnam
	To Asia with Love: A Connoisseurs' Guide to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
	Vietnam Travel Map: 2005/2006 Edition (Periplus Travel Maps)