China (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

The first and second editions carried great promise, worthy
competitors for the boys from LP. To represent the third as
having been "updated" is merely a deception. It would have been
better not done at all.

The book is a curiosity. The title-page has it "written and
researched" by the same three authors as the previous edition
more than three years ago, but "this edition updated" by two
others. It's not clear that the original three have contributed
any "research" at all that was not reflected in the previous
edition. Nor is it even quite clear that the two "updaters"
have actually been on the ground in China. The "updating" is in
fact so slight that it could almost have been done by a
desk-bound clerk on the strength of readers' reports, with

perhaps the odd nod in the direction of the Lonely Planet Thorn
Tree.

The new edition has more pages, but that's explained by a
slightly larger type-face; finer paper; unchanged net weight.
A second colour introduced throughout, with improved visual
presentation, a bit prettier. And not many other changes.

Chinese names and words still without tone-marks in the main
body of the text - a shortcoming that was never really excusable
and which has been merely unacceptable since Lonely Planet bit
that particular bullet.

There is scarcely a town or locality mentioned that is not
included in the previous edition. No one who is on the ball in
the matter of China travel could fail to discover many more
places worthy of attention than he knew about three years
before. And circumstances change as well: more than a year
before the last edition, all of western Sichuan was opened for
the first time, but the vast treasure of the previously
forbidden region is still undiscovered by the new edition of
this (very) rough guide. The wonderfully scenic Muli and
Yanyuan counties in southern Sichuan have been open for years
but (apart from one passing reference to Yanyuan) rate no
mention. Yushu Prefecture in southern Qinghai, with all
counties open at least since mid-2001, is not mentioned; indeed
apart from Xining district and Golmud (Geermo) there's hardly a
mention of any part of Qinghai province at all.

Of course I can't expect even the best guidebook to discover all
the places I may have discovered and found worthwhile - the
Mekong in north-west Yunnan, Yulin in northern Shaanxi,
Shibaoshan in western Yunnan, Daocheng and the Yading Reserve,
not to mention secret places in Tibet that I'd perhaps rather
keep to myself, nor the phenomenal valley of the Salween in
western Yunnan. The trouble is that this book has found very
few new places (though there's a tantalising addition of almost
impossibly remote Loulan and a couple of extra morsels on the
"southern Silk Road" - a reader's letter perhaps?)

Then there are the occasions when I've found the previous
edition mistaken or misleading - Chishui, Matang, Tiger-Leaping
Gorge, Ruili district, Sanying hotel open to foreigners (well,
it is if you threaten the PSB with an international incident
failing their acquiescence), Pingliang hotel; and so on. Any
corrections? Not one that I can find.

Some details of hotel tariffs, telephone numbers, admission
charges and so on have been changed, but they are generally far
too few to lend any confidence in the reliability of what has
not been changed; a number I've been able to check are just
wrong.

The maps are now far too few, the provincial (or
multi-provincial) maps just too simplified; the largest scale
for some provinces is one to twenty million. Even so, how
revealing for the text to say that "Weixi marks the end of the
road" (from the east)! Tell that to the mini-bus drivers who
drive another 220km north to Deqin, from where the road
continues all the way to Lhasa and beyond! The railway line
between Changsha and north-western Hunan (which cut the journey
from Zhangjiajie to Changsha to about six hours when it had
already been commissioned three years ago) is not shown.

Good points? There's a new "food and drink glossary", which is
to say phrase-list. The paper is excellent - strong and
light, perhaps better than the heavier paper of the Lonely
Planet, so that there are about 30% more pages but 10% less
overall weight. There must be more words in the Rough Guide,
but I doubt there is more information, regardless of its
accuracy.