Vietnam Cambodia Laos and the Greater Mekong (Lonely Planet Multi Country Guides) [Paperback]

This book covers Bangkok and the Centre and East (Issan) side of Northern Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Yunnan in China.

This is a very good loop for travelers who are going to be doing this circuit around Southeast Asia.

The book is too condensed for my liking though. The book is small and lightweight (about 1/2 size of the Thailand guide book) but with that compromises have had to be made. It therefore seems to be similar in content to the Southeast Asia guidebook for the areas it covers. I would have preferred the book to be the size of the larger guides and covered more detail.

The are also some quirks with the book. Although the sections (countries) have a similar look and feel there are major information emissions in some section that are in others. For example - the Yunnan section has a very useful "Visas for Countries in the Region" section, which gives prices and details for visas to neighbouring countries. In the other sections you have to look at the "Visa" section and the "Embassies and Consultates" sections. In fact for working out visa and the cheapest place to buy them from while doing the trip can have you searching tables in the front of the book, information in the back of the book, up to three categories in each individual section and maybe even the city section as well. All seems a bit disjointed.

On occasions I've also found that information is missing but, bizarrely, is available in a different place in the book. For instance there are no bus times for crossing Thailand into Laos from Chong Mek to Vang Tao but if you were to look in the Laos section it does give the times for this crossing as well as the crossing from Laos to Thailand. Other than that and as long as you know this quirk, then the land crossings are very well covered.

The language section is also another example of weird discrepancy between countries. All the language sections are at the back of the book together. The detail is very different though. Chinese tone description are too brief to be useful, but the other languages have a good explanation. The the Thai pronunciation tell you how to say just one letter whereas the Laos section gives you a rundown of all the important vowels and consonants covering the half a page.

It does list a lot of the best and most popular traveler places in the area but does not cover very rarely traveled are. That said, I think maybe that is the purpose of the book and a greater level of detail would be found by buying the individual country guide. However some of the brevity, like not telling you it will cost 9000 Kip to cross from Don Det to Don Khon which would have taken just a few letters is bizarre seeing as it is mentioned in their normal Laos guide.

Low budget travelers should beware that quite a lot of the emphasis on hotels, guest houses and restaurants cover the mid range. There is always at least one of the cheapest options in there but if they are full I have had to resort to other means to find budget options in town.

Overall though it is actually a very useful book if you are traveling this area. Like every Lonely Planet (and perhaps every guide book) it does have you pulling your hair out from time to time. Some of the information is already out of date (all the Laos bus prices as they were all changed the month the guide was published) but most generally seems accurate. In such a fast changing area as this a guide book is always going to quickly show signs of age.

If you are traveling this area with a maximum of 4 weeks in each country or you wish to use this as a pre-trip overview along with a detailed country guide in each country it is ideal. The capital city is always covered in good detail and transport connection are covered well. It's also good to see LP taking a chance on publishing such a niche book. It's just a shame the coordinating author didn't use a stricter template to ensure country information was the same.

Just finished a short trip through Laos and the Greater Mekong area, we thought we'd get this brand new LP book to give us some guidance during the trip.

First the good stuff - the book is a rapid introduction to a diverse region. It is never going to be an indepth guide, but gives you enough ideas to focus in on things and identify any key highlights which you want to see. It offers more information than a travel brochure and a smattering of history and culture - without the comprehensiveness of a full blown guide book.

Downsides - not confident in the quality of research and maps in the book. Taking the research - one restaurant described as recently opened and offering excellent French food turned out to be offering pizzas and pasta but run by a French couple (simple mistake, no harm done - but suggests a lack of attention to detail). More serious was a fundamental error in the Vientiane map - staying at the Beau Rivage Mekong hotel the book's map showed it to be 4km south of the city centre. It turned out (after a very long, hot walk) that the map was wrong - the hotel is 0.5km NORTH of the city centre... Pretty fundamental mistake.

If it hadn't have been for the map this guide would have been worth a 4* rating, but the map error in particular means I don't have much confidence in the attention to detail with this guide book, hence the 2* rating

The guide is a handy overview of the area, but provides no in depth detail, as it covers such a large area. I would recommend it, but be aware that it does not provide the same in-depth detail as the separate country editions.

One thing to add, so you don't end up like me!! Beware of day-time mosquitoes, I got bitten by one and ended up seriously ill in a non-English speaking hospital with Dengue Fever. Dengue Fever is becoming more common in Vietnam, including Hanoi.