Lonely Planet a book full of Bull Crap

Karma Queen

crikey, i drink bottled water not because i have a freakishly low resistency! i'm normal! i'd take a stab at saying that the majority of westerners have some sort of sickness (and if not the majority, then a large number) out in india, often because of the water. it's not paranoia, it's sensible!

and if you actually read my post without jumping to angry conclusions, you'll see that i wrote *a lot* of indian products. i'll admit that i don't know the whole ins and outs of every product, but i'd trust anyone who said that the condoms out there weren't safe and advised that i should take my own - that's definately not something i'd take a risk with!

cyberhippie

Merchant
We got crossed posts, just to say I agree with what you say but as I said above it seems to be what the general public want in a guide book.
The LP on India is still the #1 travel bestseller.
For right or for wrong people do generally seem to be scared........ of everything! This obviously spills over into the travel arena.
Look at most daily newspapers, full of unmitigated bullshit but try to change the format of sex terror and disaster and readership just fades away.
Perhaps the LP is more in tune with the human condition than we know????????

P.S. A little birdy told me that the LP India's next edition will be in new format let's see if they lay some of the old ghosts to rest!!

Merchant

The nail hit squarely on the head!

beach

The warnings or 'advises' in LP looks like comic strip for little kids if anyone read the 'safety tips' posted by various countries' Foreign Affairs Departments.

Read it aloud, On the front there is a terrorist, left the drug maffia, right a thief, be careful..there is a landmine at the back.Then tell that you're planing to visit India. Your grandma will say NO! with a shrill

these forums, including TT of LP, do a great free consultancy job than a thousand (mis)Guide Books. That's why you are here.....

Nick-H

First, Apologies for my earlier remark: I have edited that post.

This is not a macho immune system issue. Of course it depends where you are, but if you think your experience drinking the water in one place means you can everywhere you are very wrong. Again, people in Chennai (if they are lucky enough to have tap water do not drink it. A recent newspaper article showed Chennai not to have any 'good' quality ground water any longer. And that is just because of the dissolved minerals, before even considering the sewage leakage and saline from seawater.
I don't know how much time you have spent reading the content on IndiaMike before posting here. I wonder if you are aware that you are talking to people including Indian residents, NRIs, people who have travelled extensively in India over 30 years and more, baby.
And, by the way... you didn't see Bullock Carts? Are you sure it was India you were in ?

So that means that the consumer goods sold in the Indian economy at Indian prices to Indian people are all the same quality as those exported? No. It does not. Condoms? I don't know: not my current method of birth-control. Drugs? Yes, fine. I don't have any problem taking Indian drugs from Indian pharmaceutical industry at a fraction of the price elsewhere. Of course there is the small problem that many of them are counterfeit ( a recent newspaper article estimated 25%!) but the genuine ones are certainly OK.

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Merchant

I used their guides to Dubai, South Africa, and Trinidad recently. It's hard to compare, since the India book is bigger, more heavily invested in by LP, and I know India better than these other places.

But there is still the snide superiority. The Dubai book is consumed with warnings about Russian riffraff and prostitution and how you'll end up castrated if caught drinking and driving, which mirrors the emirates' own bias. The South Africa book is all about crime and wildlife, but crime and rumor of crime weigh heavily in South Africa, so it's tough to know if the case is overstated. I didn't notice anything out of proportion in the Trinidad book.

I think my biggest complaint about the LP franchise and the India book in particular is that it won't let these places change. It's not just a matter of staying up to date in terms of the hotels and restaurants but in presenting the culture, the infrastructure, and the economy. India has changed enormously in the last twenty years, especially very recently. No guidebook can keep track everything that is in flux, but the LP seems unwilling to re-examine the biases and assumptions that drove the creation of its backpacker guide in the early 1970s.

The other thing is that the traveler has changed. We in the west have access to extraordinary amounts of money for leisure travel. It's almost impossible to travel internationally without a credit card (paying cash for an airline ticket in the US will put you on the dreaded terrorist watch list). While many people go to India on a budget and stay in backpacker's lodges and cheap guest houses, the difference between those places and three-star accomodation is often the price of a double-whip cappuccino at home. There really is no need to travel like a pauper in India, unless you just want to (which is fine). My point is that the strata of society through which the average traveler (even the budget one) in India will move is increasingly middle class. You won't likely find yourself in the company of rogues, and all the attendant dangers the LP warns you about, unless you seek them out.

Here we all are on IM with our fancy computers and broadband connections. We worry about whether the Indian humidity will foul up our digital cameras, and whether or not we'll be able to burn CDs in Thanjavur. We worry about brands of hiking boots and pack safes, whether to install a local smart card on our mobile phones or just roam on the GSM network. Everybody here, regardless of country, is part of the technologically savvy, credit carrying, global elite.

The dangers and biases evident in the LP, at least as I read them, reflect the India and the traveler of long ago, when India was dark and dirty and the traveler had different needs and concerns.

I also don't like the way the LP is just traveler's research--rumor and irrational fear rule the day. Does the book really warn against Indian condoms, without knowing that the world's largest producer and distributor of condoms has a factory in India, so that your local trusted brand, bought at home, was made in India? Does it research reported incidents of crime against tourists, instead of just relying on heresay? Personal crime against foreigners in India is practically non-existent--but you won't get that impression from the book. And the water. I think it does say that tap water in the big cities is usually safe, so give them some credit there.

Anyway, there's another India out there, different from the one in the LP. The LP's India bears some resemblance to the real one, but it never loses an opportunity to taint your perceptions, play to your fears, and make unfounded claims that seem true but which will crumble under scrutiny.

Auntyji

And a very nice title it is!
Am having fun reading this thread but cannot comment on the LP as I have not read it in detail (skimmed through it in a book store). Recently I bought "Rough guide to South India" , which is pretty good, I think. I tried the 'Eyewitness" guide for India; it has a nice layout and nice pictures but so far the Rough Guide seems to have more practical information.

Rob_The_Pom

Thanks Auntyji, I think it says so much more than semi-professional eccentric....

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Karma Queen

surely you mean semi-professional essentric, rob?

passingby

I think Lonely Planet is the #1 world wide travel guide. Imagine what the travel culture will be like without it....
So may people in the west are scared of traveling. The Lonely Planet travel guide helps so many people in their travels. I think without the book, there will not be such a affluent influx of backpackers in India or other Asian country.

I mean, 'lovelyinida', would you have gone to India without the Lonely planet in your backpack? No, but I bet it made it your travels so much easier..
it is very easy to criticize something so useful and find its faults once it has been written... it might not be accurate 100%, but it is definitely very useful.

I think the people who put together the Lonely Planet guide deserve a lot of recognition. those were the pioneers of backpacking culture... it is because of them that we travel today in big numbers in far away places. and it is because of them that those countries have built guesthouses, hotels and restaurants to accommodate the today travelers.

Sama

For my India trip in September, I bought the LP book and also Culture Shock! India. I thought LP was basically what it's supposed to be, merely a guide book, not the Bible of India travel. I took all the fear-mongering in LP with a huge grain of salt, in fact, I took most of the book with a huge grain of salt. I thought Culture Shock! was more "realistic" insofar as most of the info contained in it closely resembles the info and advice given to me by people I know. I know the LP people go to the countries they write about, but Culture Shock! just seems more "real" to me. That being said, I don't think anyone can really "prepare" themselves for a first time trip to a foreign country -- you can gather all the info you want, but I suspect all that preparation flys out the window once you hit the ground, I don't care if you're a backpacker or staying at a 5 star hotel. I think going with an open heart and mind is more important than how many guide books one reads.

As for my trip, I'm throwing out my guidebooks, keeping everyone's advice tucked away in a corner of my mind, and using my own common sense. Actually, the person I've gotten the BEST advice and info from is my Indian gynocologist, who's from Bangalore. She said, "just don't drink the water and you'll be fine..." She also told me I started chanting before I passed out from the anesthesia for my D&C, but that's another story...

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Gayamom

I found the recent New Yorker profile on Tony Wheeler, founder of the LP franchise, to be interesting. In it, the author follows Mr. Wheeler and his wife as they visit Oman. The trip comes across as "been there, done that, check the box off" jaunt in extreme travel. Perhaps not fair to the Wheelers' actual intentions. However, the attitude conveyed -- a little superior, a little out of date in its posture to the world -- seemed quite familiar to this, generally happy, consumer of LP products.

On a different note, the author summarizes Mr. Wheeler's philosophy as, "Just go." In this xenophobic, hate-mongering world, you cant' argue with that.

GM

Link to article: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050418fa_fact

India Edge

lovelyindia is right! It is important to check your resistance power!
This may help:

Attached Thumbnails

 

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wandering_kat

I can't profess to have read many of the other guidebooks to India, but I feel fairly safe in guessing that every one of them would recommend drinking bottled water, as would any travel agent, tour operator, doctor or travel clinic. So why lash out at the LP in particular?

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Dr Funkenstein

Much prefer Rough Guide, myself.

It doesn't go in for the 'Pay no more than 35 rupees!' schtick much beloved of LP, and is streets ahead on historical and cultural background. Imo, anyway.

I once used the LP in Chau Doc in Vietnam. It recommended a nice guesthouse where 'the third floor terrace is a great place to watch river life'. It was a nice guesthouse, true enough, but didn't have a third floor terrace, had no sign of ever having had a third floor terrace and, on further inspection, didn't even have a third floor!

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