Rough Guides recently published their first Taiwan guidebook. I am not sure if it is available in any bookshops in Taiwan yet. I picked up a copy in Bangkok a few days ago.
I was quite impressed by the guide. I like the design and it covers everything you would expect. A few sections of special note are the detailed list of festivals, descriptions of all the aboriginal tribes and details about climbing Yushan and Xueshan. I have written a more detailed review on my blog.
Bradley Winterton has a review of the Rough Guide in today’s Taipei Times. He is full of praise for it.
I am not sure if the book is in bookshops in Taiwan yet. I would be interested to hear the opinions of other forumosans who have read it.
It’s at page one in 101. About $1000 if i remember right
Hows this guide vs Lonely Planet?
Anything would be better than that overrated bloated publication.
Anything would be better than that overrated bloated publication.[/quote]
Well, what would you recommend?
I for one am looking forward to looking at the RG Taiwan. But please save comparisons until the new LP guide comes out in November. The present LP guide is now 3 years old and much has changed in the country and much has as a result been updated.
Interestingly, both the RG and the new LP are heavy into promoting Taiwan as a hiking destination. I 'm glad to read too that RG also took the time to really go over the new mountain permit system. That shows consideration for the reader and an awareness of the changes that have occured over the past few years. Unfortunately, they publihsed a little too soon as the permit system is going to be overhauled by the end of this year. But still, it won’t matter much.
By coincidence I ran into one of the writer’s cycling partners here in Tibet. Bizzarely, the writer was with them until two days before we met when he had to drop out because of a hand injury. Even more coincidental, I had just had an accident that day which totalled the Land Cruiser I was in. What are the odds that the two writers of Taiwan guidebooks would both go to Tibet after writing about Taiwan and subsequently have accidents that just barely prevented them from meeting.
74,006,921:1, unless you share the same birthday, in which case it would be 34,677,209,802:1
thanks.
My one-word review: Great! It’s well-organized, has good maps and seems to have all the details I’ll need. I’ve bought mostly LP books for years, usually after comparing with the Rough Guides and Footprints, and this is the best RG I’ve seen. I haven’t been to Taiwan yet, tho, so I really can’t speak to its accuracy.
Although I’ve only read the Northern Taiwan chapter so far, I’ve noticed a few surprising omissions:
No mention of Taiping Shan in Ilan County. Although the immediate area around the accomodation area is a plantation of reforested pine, it’s an easy way for non-hikers to get a mountain view since there is a road all the way up there. It functions as a car friendly destination with the option of driving to Tsue Fong Lake. I would imagine potential readers might choose to go there because it has a magnificent view down valley plus there’s a mini train on a section of the logging line to ride on. Buses to Taiping Shan are at 9.30 am (Saturday and Sunday only) from Ilan Bus Station.
Not every place can be crammed into such a guide, but there's also no mention of Smangus village in the back of Hsinchu County which has a path to a giant tree area about three hours hike in. It's a pity because the local aboriginal community are endeavouring to develop an ecologically sound tourism business which foreign tourists could appreciate.
I haven’t finished looking through the rest of The Rough Guide yet, and it’s certainly well written and informative, but I think the above two places should have had a mention.
I checked caves on Wufu. No luck.
Does anyone know where i can get a copy in Kaohsiung without having to special order?
I’ve bought my rough guide to Taiwan few weeks ago now and had the time to partly read it. Before I bought it (on amazon.co.uk for something like 16euros shipment included for France) I was using a French Taiwan guide called “LePetit futé”. Between these two, there’s no need to say that the rough guide is the best all the way. I think it is really nice for foreigners who have never been to Taiwan because it is full of really practical informations such as prices for little bus travel or even domestic flights. You often got boat schedules and prices. Which is really nice when you want to travel over Taiwan. Plus it got lots of pictures, some in colour, some not. Many maps, area maps, city maps, global maps, lots of maps.
Aditionnal to all the above mentioned, you got big descriptions of what to do or what to see of every single zone of the country. Many hiking tricks, like how and where to get the permit to hike on the yushan. Well, there’s no need to say I am totally satisfied with it.
And until I find a better guide than this one, I would definately recommend the Rought Guide to Taiwan, 600+ pages for 16 euros is good price per page !
The only bad point is : I guess you can find it only in English, and many tips and tricks are written for english speaking country foreigners like UK, NZ and Canada I think. For those people I really believe it’s the best guide ever, because they give many advices of how to get the administratives thing in order for these countries.
[quote=“Jah Lynnie”]Although I’ve only read the Northern Taiwan chapter so far, I’ve noticed a few surprising omissions:
No mention of Taiping Shan in Yilan County. Although the immediate area around the accomodation area is a plantation of reforested pine, it’s an easy way for non-hikers to get a mountain view since there is a road all the way up there. It functions as a car friendly destination with the option of driving to Tsue Fong Lake. I would imagine potential readers might choose to go there because it has a magnificent view down valley plus there’s a mini train on a section of the logging line to ride on. Buses to Taiping Shan are at 9.30 am (Saturday and Sunday only) from Yilan Bus Station.
Not every place can be crammed into such a guide, but there's also no mention of Smangus village in the back of Hsinchu (Xinzhu) County which has a path to a giant tree area about three hours hike in. It's a pity because the local aboriginal community are endeavouring to develop an ecologically sound tourism business which foreign tourists could appreciate.
I haven’t finished looking through the rest of The Rough Guide yet, and it’s certainly well written and informative, but I think the above two places should have had a mention.[/quote]
Actually, it isn’t always a question of space. There’s time to consider as well. I also did not get to include Smangus as I simply ran out of time and that area would need 3 days as it’s been a long time since I’ve been up there. There’s also no transport up to Smangus and that road is not one I would want a newbie to Taiwan going up. And did I want to pay for a rental jeep or 4WD when I had not cleared this expense at the start? No.
There also weather considerations. I wasn’t able to research Taipingshan either this time because the road was fogged in the day I planned to go. I do mention it but it’s just in passing.
Taian was the same. Last time I had a couple days there to do the trails and really scout out the area. This spring we had so much rain and everytime I planned to hit the trails it rained.
Just thought I’d pipe in on some of the constraints we guide book writers have to operate under that most people aren’t aware of. I’m actually jealous that the RG writers were able to work casually over a few years as they researched this book. Would be nice. On the other hand, they will never be able to reproduce the quality of the writing or research as it simply isn’t profitable. This is almost certainly a one shot deal.
Okay, I bought the book and, having read much of it, have a few things to say.
I expected to like this book and was prepared to give an evenhanded list of pros and cons. But I feel compelled to first list the con: the cheat, that is. The east coast section, perhaps others, contains information that has been out-of-date for years.
Shanyuan Beach is still open according to these guys. You can camp, use the showers and toilets, and best of all, still enjoy a meal at the fabulous Zorba Gardens. No mention of the hotel being built for the past 2 years or so which closed the beach and forced Zorba out.
Wenshan Hot Springs in Taroko Gorge. Yes, they too are still open, in fact it seems they never were hit by a landslide. This is ridiculous. That was all over the news when it happened. These guys, at least one of them, lived in Taiwan for the past 3 years. No way to miss that.
Yushan National Park. Apparently the Batongguan Japanese Era Traversing Trail, opened to much fanfare in 2005 after years of reconstruction, is still a restricted area (it even says this on their map) with serious structural damage.
There are smaller things I’ve found but it’s not necessary to include them all. The above speaks for itself. As does the publication date: April 2007. This book would have gone to the editors around November which is when I started researching. These guys should only be 6 months behind us, not 2 years.
Now this is sad, because the book does have much to recommend. It is well written as people have said. The historical background on towns is very good. When they write about a temple they give very detailed information on the statuary, the architecture, the history, and important rituals or events. Read the Beigang Temple or the Chung Tai Chan Temple as examples of very high quality coverage, much better or more involved than my own. Their list of festivals and events in the beginning chapters is fantastic. They mention festivals in honor of some deities I have not even heard of.
And they do a great job of finding good places to stay (who knew Puli had a youth hostel?) and finding where to eat local specialities. (However, they often don’t provide the Chinese name for the dishes, or at best provide pinyin with no tones which is not terribly helpful.)
But aside from the credibility-crunching out-of-date information, there is plenty of room for improvement despite Bradley Winterton’s claims to the contrary. Though praised for its hiking coverage the book hardly covers any lower altitude trails. Incredibly there’s just the scantiest mention of hiking (but no biking, or river tracing) in Wulai for example. No mention of restored trails like the historic Tonghou trail connecting Wulai to Ilan. No mention of the Foresty Departments work on opening up regional trails and the 6 National Trails, including the Nenggao Cross Island Trail, the Fushan-Baling Trail, and Jiaming Lake. How can a book claim to be promoting hiking in Taiwan and not be unaware of the work that the Forestry Department has completed on their National Trail System. (They mention the NTS but don’t seem to have any awareness of how it has progressed.)
And, in what seemed a very stingy move, they do not mention Richard Saunder’s Taipei Day Trips books in the hiking section at the front or in relevant locations (such as Wulai). He is mentioned in the book section at the back where these fantastic resources are likely to be unnoticed.
There’s the scantest mention of bird watching despite the attention Taiwan has been getting the past few years from international birders (who will buy a guidebook when they come to Taiwan) and despite the fact there are only a limited number of routes and destinations that these birders cover. A simple web search can give you all this as well as the types of birds you can expect to see.
River tracing gets a passing reference in a few places: oh, they river trace up here, sort of thing.
Hot Springs. They mention Lisong on the South Cross Island Hwy as the most wild and pristine in Taiwan. Please. There are dozens of springs far more remote and wild than this one and anyone involved in the outdoor scene these past few years knows this. Now at least one of the authors is fluent in Chinese so there’s no excuse for him not to have gone to Eslite and looked in the travel section which has a couple books on wild springs and where to find them. Hell, he could have simply done a web search which would have turned up articles even in the local English papers on wild hot springs around the country. Instead they gush about this one place and note that it is still undeveloped for now (no kidding, who would developed a spring 700m down a remote river valley?).
They mention Wulai and Zhiben as top places for hot springs. No mention of recycling water, failing health inspections, peeping toms. No mention that locals all know the areas are overdeveloped and don’t trust the water.
In short, these guys are not on top of their game and have little clue what Taiwan has to offer beyond the basics that everyone knows. They cover these basics well, but aren’t aware of the changes in the past years, not aware of developing trends, nor of what can be expected in the future.
Anyway, I shouldn’t go on so much. But I do feel I am allowed a certain righteous indignation especially given the veiled implication in so many reviews that this book is so much better than LP’s. Of course it is, if you want a guidebook for 2005 that is.
Interesting review MM. Nice to hear from the competition. I flicked through it at Page One a few weeks ago with the intention of buying it, but ended up giving it a miss. There just wasn’t enough info in it that I didn’t already know, or have resources for. But then, I was looking at it through the eyes of someone who lives here, not as someone who’s traveling.
Having said that, I’ve bought newly released LPs in the past for various countries and found the info to be out of date from the beginning.
When I started research for the new Taiwan guide it was November 2006. The book will come out in November this year so there is a one-year gap during which some of the first things I covered may have closed or changed.
No one can help when things go out-of-date after you research. But in RG’s case, some of the information they have included was already out-of-date before what should have been their research period. Wenshan closed in May 2005 (and was all over the news). Zorba Gardens and Shanyuan Beach have been closed since at least January 2006.
Big big difference and you can’t argue the two are equivalent.
Not trying to argue that they are equivalent. (I hadn’t finished my first coffee of the day while writing that so my brain probably wasn’t working properly). I still buy LPs after all. And I met some RG researchers in Darjeeling, India in 2002 and wasn’t impressed with the way they went about their research.
A few years ago I was able to have a chat with Tony Wheeler about the datedness of some things and he gave me a good explanation as to why and how you guys try to limit it as much as possible.
[quote=“cfimages”]Not trying to argue that they are equivalent. (I hadn’t finished my first coffee of the day while writing that so my brain probably wasn’t working properly). I still buy LPs after all. And I met some RG researchers in Darjeeling, India in 2002 and wasn’t impressed with the way they went about their research.
A few years ago I was able to have a chat with Tony Wheeler about the datedness of some things and he gave me a good explanation as to why and how you guys try to limit it as much as possible.[/quote]
It’s a challenge, especially in Taiwan where everything changes so fast. One of the things we do now is write more about eat streets rather than individual places (unless they are really worth a special mention). It’s sad to travel somewhere and see everyone in one bar or restaurant, because LP recommended it, when there are a dozen identical places nearby.
Don’t know how RG do their work but I did read that the authors lived in taiwan for 3 years, half of which time was spent researching. Seemed like too long and ripe for out-of-date info. But I fully expected though that any research done three years ago would have been checked for accuracy some time close to the submission date.
I have the current LP and RG for Taiwan. Both need to devote more attention to shopping for electronics, pay as you go mobile phone plans, and THSR. These are important things for people, like myself, who run a virtual office wherever we are. If you run a virtual office, you are always buying the latest gizmo, have numerous SIM cards for different countries, and get out of town on the weekends. The new RG spends too much space on alpine hiking. The LP book has pitifully few URLs. The RG has more, but is still short of what should be there, esp. map URLs and tourism (whether national, provincial, city, or private) sites. For instance, the National Scenic Area websites do a better job, in English, on the NSAs than either guide book… unless you are all alpine hiker and bringing your tent, stove, etc.
Thanks for the feedback but, in LP’s defense, the book came out in 2004 so there’s no way to have included the THSR. The latest edition, coming out in November, of course covers this in detail and is loaded with URLs. But map URLs? Other than the MRT what are you suggesting? If useful resources don’t exist we can’t make them up.
Disagree that the NSA areas are covered better by the websites (with the exception of Alishan perhaps). If you want biased reviews from a government agency, of everything under the sun, wothwhile or not, then sure, go to the websites. But not every site listed on the websites deserve coverage. Guidebooks pick and choice and the writers job is to select worthwhile sites despite what the government may think. Otherwise we are wasting people’s time.
Also, NSA are not national parks, protected from exploitation and development, with boundaries visible to the traveller. I played along last time and organized sites according to the NSA breakdown but decided against it for the most part this time. The Taiwanese gov has divided areas into NSA for the purposes of organization and development. Doesn’t mean it is the best way for a guidebook to break down the country.