| Product: |
Lonely Planet in general |
| Date: |
07/09/04 (310 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Very comprehensive, Interesting, Good talking point!
Disadvantages: Not the cheapest (but well worth the extra pennies)
After a particularly dull, family-filled Christmas we decided that it was about time we had a Christmas to remember (and finally a honeymoon too). To kill to turkeys with one stone we booked ourselves a fabulous, all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles holiday after some careful research and advice from fellow travellers we settled on our destination. It had to be somewhere hot, beautiful, quiet and above all else, expensive. You can't afford these things when you've got kids and as this is our honeymoon I'm guessing once this is off the preverbial list then a family is next!
Well, armed with a huge bill for a holiday and the excitement that goes with it I've got the 'I'm going on holiday' feeling in my head and my heart so I set off grinning to my local bookstore to pick up a Lonely Planet Guidebook. I'd already been loaned a 'Globetrotter' guidebook from a pal at work who'd been to the same place on his honeymoon. It was quite good, but a bit out of date and lets face it, it's nice to have your own things, particularly books - am I right people?
Oh, I forgot to mention the destination of my once-in-a-lifetime trip - The Maldives! (Or the Republic of the Maldives - official country name)
Back to my book, it's about 5" wide and 7.7/8"'s tall in old money. To you young 'uns thats about the width of a CD case and the height of a CD case and a third. It's half an inch thick too, to the tune of 176 pages, every last one packed with information. It depends on where you're planning on visiting in the world, but there's usually a selection of a few books for each destination, some cities and more popular places (like Spain) have hoards and hoards of shelves worth of books, but for places like the Maldives, the selection of
travel guides is limited. Of course, pending your destination you may find more specialist books dedicated to for exampling diving holidays, climbing holidays etc etc. Having spoken to a few divers, I've been assured that the Maldives is one of the most beautiful places to dive, apparently, it's even better than the Great Barrier Reef.
Opening the book I'm greeted with a two-page (in colour) map of the island(s) which includes a few details of points of interests like where the traditional Maldivian laqcuer work is produced and where the Hammerhead sharks hang out. Cool place huh? Then there's a few pages of the usual bumph; index; foreward; a bit about the Lonely Planet itself and the obligatory introduction to the country.
Each section in the book is divided up into sub-sections. (I'll list all the sections at the end for those of you who'd like a more comprehensive view). The first real block of information is facts about the country including a brief history, who's invaded, who's settled, political points in history, geography, ecology & environment. It really is incredibly interesting, as each page is divided into two columns of text, it doesn't feel like a chore to read. Also, as each paragraph has a brief heading for example 'The 1988 Coup' you can pick and choose at random what takes your fancy. I rather like the fact that intermittently the layout changes slightly with information in boxes, again, I found this makes for a much easier more interesting read.
The section called Facts for the Visitor is quite simply incredible. As well as telling you where to go; what to wear; how to get around; tipping; newspapers; food; theres some invaluable information about travelling outside of resorts. Two things I learnt from this section that my travel agent certainly didn't te
ll me were the fact that you cannot bring into the country alcohol, pornography, pork, narcotics, guns, spear guns** or 'idols of worship' (for example, wearing a crucifix with a depicture of Christ on it would not be socially acceptable). It is also noted that an issue of Cosmopolitan or suchlike that has photos in it of women in their underwear would be considered porn! (God help those Maldivians if they ever find themselves in Europe!!)
**not that I would of course... but it'll make me think about the half-eaten ham sandwich in my handluggage!
There's only really one 'town' in the Maldives (Male) and there's a streetmap included in this book with points of interest marked out. I myself am hoping to drag Mr Fish along to the Unixpo Jewels shop to get myself a lovely Christmas gift of handcrafted jewellery, and it's conveniently next to the souveneir and craft shops (thanks to the map, I can 'accidently' wander him in without his noticing as he'll want to visit the craft shops too, let's just hope he doesn't read this op!) ;o)
For those of you who haven't been to the Maldives, although the primary use for a lot of the (habited) islands is tourist resorts, you can island-hop but you do need a permit to visit the non-tourist ones even if you are going to visit a friend who lives there! There's infinate lists including full contact details of Maldivian companies who can offer you day-trips, diving, safari cruises, these are all things I'd personally like to know about before I travel. There's nothing worse than not knowing what your options are and perhaps missing out on something because you didn't know about it. Plus, being able to look up all these things on the internet helps build the excitement levels knowing that you are going to experience these beautiful sites fir
st-hand!
There's an excellent section on diving & snorkelling with full details of courses (individual resorts, prices et al), locations, and even lists the fish you are likely to see and in what season - the Maldives has two, the summer monsoon and the winter monsoon (not as bad as it sounds, basically hot and wet and hot and less wet). Details of the various resorts including things like facilities are all listed too. Another thing I have saved on due to this book is snorkelling gear. I was planning on renting it direct from the resort, but as prices are listed I worked it out and it cost marginally less to buy reasonably good quality gear at home to take with us. (Plus, having the gear's a good excuse to get hubby to take me somewhere else exotic in the future).
Divehi (or Dhivehi) is the main language in the Maldives although my book assures me that English is also widely spoken, but the good folks at Lonely Planet have in their infinate wisdom provided us with a (very) brief chapter on local language. It is no substitute for a phrase book, but its always good to be able to say please, thank you and hello in the local language - that's just good manners!! It's mainly greetings and useful words and phrases, which rather interestingly include mosquito (madiri) times, places, people evil spirit (jinni), days of the week and basic local food and drink.
Although most of the book is in black and white print there are some beautiful photographs inbetween the chapters. These depict resorts, views, local people, and fish, lots of fish. If you are planning a holiday, particularly one like mine, to a country with a different culture, climate, way of life then I would seriously recommend whizzing off to your favourite bookstore and getting yourself a Lonely Planet guide to it. If you go to www.lonelyplanet.com they've got a great website
that you can order your book directly from should you wish and the guidebooks are the same price as in the shops. $17.99(USD) £11.99(GBP) The book I bought is part of the 'Country Guides' series, Lonely Planet also have a 'Regional Guides' series, a 'Shoestring Guides' series, 'Classic Overland' guides, 'City Guides' and the 'Best of...Guides'. Pretty much covers a large portion of the globe as far as I can tell.
I lay in the garden one sunny day and read my book from cover to cover fascinated by the cultural differences, but even now, picking it up again to refer to for this review I'm fascinated with the quality of information, and sheer volume of facts inside it. I wish you safe and happy travels with your very own Lonely Planet guides.
As the Maldivians would say 'shukuria' (thank you) for your read. This is my first delve back into the world of dooyooing/reviewing in nearly 10 months so please be kind with your comments folks.
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Capital letters courtesy of: http://www.chuckleweb.co.uk/fixit.php hurrah for chuckleweb i say! :)
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