Philippines (Lonely Planet Country Guides) [Paperback]

After spending a couple of weeks in the Philippines consulting this guide I became so frustrated that I switched to Rough Guides. The sections on nightlife are truly atrocious - bog standard chain store rubbish without a trace of local colour. And there is nothing to speak of on music or culture. The Rough Guide has stacks of great places and a whole essay on Philippines music. And one on diving. This is the third Lonely Planet I have become disenchanted with - Brazil and Thailand being the others. Buy the Rough Guide. It's not perfect but it's a whole lot better that this.

This book is seriously out of date and obviously written by tourists who made no local contacts. Prices, times and travel information are misleading. Its attempts at comedy regarding western men and younger Filipina are insulting. All in all not the usual Lonely Planet informative and trusted guide book - No longer written by travellers for travellers

LP thinks a lot of itself. "Our travel information is the best in the world" (P468). This book thinks a lot of itself. It's all over the cover: "Experience the best of the Philippines with Lonely Planet". "Lonely Planet guides are written by experts (more later) who get to the heart of every destination they visit" (a lot more later). "100% researched and updated". 100% researched? How else, apart from plagiarising, do you write a guidebook? I can't tell if they mean it's also 100% updated. A question of scope. I'd be surprised. Authors of LP guides may change from one edition to the next but content carries over regularly. "This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip." The self-praise doesn't stop. Is it justified or is it hubris?

The writers ("experts") present themselves twice: P4 and P468-9 ('full author biographies'). P4 is meant to be fun but is actually quite embarrassing with its Facebook-like content and poor photos. One of the writers delights in getting lost. Paragraph 4 is incomprehensible. The co-ordinating author advocates travelling on the roofs of buses on mountain roads (P4) so unsurprisingly he gets thrown out of the back of a jeepney (P468). LOL for teenage facebookers. Experts? They know a lot but I'm not totally convinced. There's a tension in the book reflected in the ostensibly opposing approaches adopted in P4 and P468-9 between informal Facebook-style vacuity and more formal, serious information and advice, and it's not resolved satisfactorily. In any case, the vacuous makes the greater impression.

LP seems to think maps are a main attraction. 106 maps, the cover tells us in a large font. I don't know whether to be impressed. Is this an impressive number? I'm not going to count them. I've been using LP guides since the very first yellow book, SE Asia on a Shoestring. The maps, historically, can best be described as approximate. I find Rough Guide maps more readable "We go further". Really? In what sense and where to? "More insider tips than any other guide." I'd like to see the evidence for this. "Insider tip", like "fully updated" or "expert", could mean anything. Has LP really defined the term 'insider tip', counted the number in this guide and compared the result with all the insider tips in every other guide to the Philippines in every language? I'd be amazed.

Insider tips are only useful if an individual reader finds them useful. I look for cultural festivals in guidebooks. I couldn't find much of interest to me in the LP guide (more later). The Rough Guide to the Philippines (2nd edition, 2007), on the other hand, gave me details of one specific event of great interest to me: the fertility festival in Obando. I don't know if this counts as an insider tip but the LP guide doesn't even mention Obando, never mind the festival. I went - loved it

The best things in the Philippines are the festivals. LP doesn't quite say this but does allow that 'the Philippines just isn't the Philippines without the colourful festivals that rage ('rage'!!??) across the country throughout the year'. So they're important, if not quite important enough for LP to write much about. The Philippines is actually one of the best destinations in the world for festivals. A simple sentence but you wouldn't know it by reading this guide. There must be thousands. The back cover refers us to P22 for the "top festivals". LP's 'favourite' festivals are actually listed first on P20. LP experts manage eight. On P22-24 we get a few lines on each of just 36 festivals. This list is padded out by repeating the eight festivals already listed on P20. But after a derisory preamble, this list and a few further listings under individual cities, that's it for festivals in the Philippines. LP experts go no further than providing very limited information that anyone could pick up for nothing from a few Filipino festival websites. So, far from providing in-depth, worthwhile information on festivals (and I repeat: "the Philippines just isn't the Philippines without the colourful festivals"), LP experts show little interest in the topic and barely touch the surface. Two and half pages are considered sufficient to cover this major topic. I wonder how long someone spent deciding which "top" festivals should be made "favourite" festivals?

I also wonder how updated the festivals section really is? The cursory descriptions of individual festivals read like they come from general tourist brochures. The writing is generic. The descriptions sadly don't convince me that LP's experts went to any of them. The omission of Manila's Aliwan festival is unforgivable (see below). The National Tourist Office in Manila has hundreds and hundreds of pages of information on festivals. I was shown all those taking place in region 2 (and found the one I wanted). You have to be persistent and find the right office for each region but research can be done. LP don't seem to have done it.

The information and advice provided on at least one festival is not very helpful or accurate, or even consistent. The Pahiyas festival in Lucban is mentioned three times in the book. It's a "top festival" and also one of their favourite eight. On P20 it is listed as taking place on 15 May; on P23 it is listed tantalizingly as taking place 'around 15 May' (there's no further detail and exact dates are very important for festivals). On P126 we're told "Lucban comes alive on 15 May for Pahiyas". It actually comes alive before then. It's wonderful on 14 May too. This isn't mentioned. Nor are the parades, the street dancing or the fashion competition etc etc.

Lucban is a very small provincial town so there's naturally hardly any accommodation there. One hotel is listed in the guide. We're told severely by LP: 'if you want a room, book a year in advance'. What use is this? No one will do it. People will presumably be put off by this blank assertion and not bother going, if they take the guide on trust. It's all made to sound too hard. LP could so easily have helpful. How about writing, for example, that people can stay at the hotel next to the bus station in the nearest large town, Lucena (around an hour from Lucban), and commute? That's what I did. Or stay anywhere else in the area. (And a lot of towns and villages around Lucban hold festivals at this time so it's a good time to go.) There's an awful lot of frequent transport on festival days.

Street dancing parades in the Philippines are simply dazzling, even in small towns. There are costumes, choreography, commitment, energy, pride and there are always prizes. Festival-related street dancing isn't mentioned in the book, even in the Culture section. Festivals in the Philippines invariably include beauty pageants. These are not mentioned anywhere in the guide either as far as I could tell (I looked hard), and I'd be interested to learn why. Doesn't LP know about them? Unthinkable. I'll bet they've been included in previous editions of the book. I reckon (even if I can only surmise) that LP disapproves. But it's not an answer just to leave them out. The Rough Guide acknowledges their prevalence and introduces the topic quickly and elegantly, with humour too, in a well-written, informative single paragraph (P7).

Bars, on the other hand, never fail to excite Lonely Planet experts. At sunset, a lonely planeteer is apparently gagging for it (booze, not a beauty pageant), and LP is only too happy to provide. For we apparently need to be told - in great detail. And we need to be advised how to avoid the wrong (i.e. unfashionable) establishments. 106 maps? 1,123 bars would have been a good strap for the book's cover. OK, I made that up, but that's just about what you get. Here we are in the city of Cebu: "After dark you can pull up a plastic chair at any number of street-side barbecue stalls that serve chilled beer, and settle in for some serious people-watching (p242). The heart of the country, indeed. The talk moves to 'pumping nightspots' and hip joints. Even the text is jumping. But then LP gets carried away and there's no restraining editor. Try this on the Paseo, an area of 20 bars in Cebu: 'See how far you can crawl around in a single night but don't forget to write the name of your hotel on the back of your hand' (p242). Gosh and LOL. Responsible, serious, practical and honest advice designed to help you get the most out of your trip? Only if you want to broaden your experience and meet a few local muggers, police officers and hospital staff. If you follow the advice and need the phone number of your embassy or consulate, some are helpfully provided on P.435. They'll be delighted to hear from you. LP advises 'keeping your ear to the ground' to help you in the all-important mission of patronising only the hippest bars in Cebu. Do this and you'll be lucky to get up again. We're even told about the latest-closing bar in Cebu. Why not simply promote responsible and respectful tourism in all activities? There's a Travelling Responsibly' section on P19 and a 'Responsible Diving' section on P71, but when the detail comes, it's too often irresponsible. This is the sort of guide that will nudge you not to forget to smuggle your booze into a 'detoxification centre' as you won't be able to buy it inside. This reminder, which really only undermines the ethos of the place, is provided on P123.

For more mixed messages, try getting an answer to the basic issue of personal safety. Is the Philippines a dangerous destination? The question is introduced quickly. It's even on the back cover, striking a sour note in a chirpy tone amid the otherwise unrelieved joy and excitement: 'ESSENTIAL safety information for Mindanao'. Mindanao is partly a war zone but, see P.361, it's mostly OK really. Read more ›