To Vietnam With Love: A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur (To Asia with Love)

I enjoyed reading the stories and loved how they were organized. That said, this seems more like a fun read to generate excitement for your trip versus a legitimate travel guide. Any of the excursions I discovered through this book that I used on my trip required addition research outside of this book. My recommendation... buy this book, get excited about your trip a month or two out, and be sure to buy a rough guide and/or lonely planet for actual travel planning.

A collection of anecdotes with no easy way to reference.I have been to Viet Nam many times and found it less useful than almost any guide book.

This book is simply awesome! It is superbly written, the writers' anecdotes are very interesting, and the tips are great! I have been to Vietnam twice already, and have yet to see half of the places they describe.This book will be in my bag when I make my 3rd visit next January.Highly recommended, even for the armchair traveler!!

So far I love this book, all the ideas are great.You cannot use this as your only travel guide, you must supplement with something including maps, phone numbers, etc. but the cultural tidbits are very valuable.This book is a great source and I highly recommend it.

It's about the food and the people, and this book zeros in on both. It is a very interesting & different book, to be used in combination with a more traditional guidebook.

... from the trampled paths of the Backpacker hordes.I give my conclusion here right at the beginning.This is one of the most helpful guides I ever had the fortune to stumble over.It contains all the informations a dedicated lover of Southeast Asian countries ever wanted to know, and never had my luck to find them...It's a finely printed masterpiece put together by some people who had choosen to travel the regions of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand stricktly OFF the trampled paths of those legions of backpackers, travellers "on a shoestring", only in search of the cheapest food and guesthouse and booze bars and beaches full of semi-naked tourists, etc. etc. etc....You will find in this guide, like in all the others of this series, all but the facts I annoted in the chapter before...All the counseling is made on the most personal base: The "counselors" have tried out everything by themselves, are often even of Vietnamese or Asian descent.You will come to know of food, hotels, trips, and yes - coiffeurs and massages (strictly NO sex business!!) etc. that don't cost much more that the "shoestring" version - but make a lot of a difference.All the informations are backed up by wonderful websites You can find all around the globe. And that is more than some of the "Big Guides" can say from themselves...You can read this guide just to give You the right "appetite" to plan a tour to this so fascinating country that is opening up for the travellers right now!An exciting experience!Surely there are those that always remember the Vietnam War, as if to say: Don't travel there - it was our FOE!But look at the big travel guides - they all have now the newest editions for Vietnam in a lot of languages - and not for nothing! And they sell them. And there are no such ressentiments to find.No, the editors of this special guide want to encourage more people to visit the country - but not to wander about blindly.So here You can read all about the history, customs, Buddhist etiquettes of the Nation - it is like having a "CultureShock" book together with a Tour Guide.And how to invest in a way of travel that really supports far more the locals instead of the government.A big "Thank You" to all the unselfish writers of personal experiences for let us be part of them. This book takes You into an unknown world - THAT side of Vietnam in Southeast Asia that only a few and very lucky people come to know once in a lifetime!Try it out - it's worth every cent!Word of one very but very very dedicated lover of Asia!PS: The same editor has gone further into the details and brought out several To-Asia-with-Love Guides for a lot of countries of the region.I have the  To Asia with Love: A Connoisseurs Guide to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam , To Myanmar with Love: A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur (To Asia with Love)  and  To Cambodia with Love: A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur (To Asia with Love)  right now for my next SE-Asia trip and can't await for "To-Thailand-with-Love" finally getting in my hands!

This book has been my morning coffee comrade ever since I received a copy a week or two ago, and now I'm ready to pack my bags and head off for Ho Chi Minh City. This is the very best kind of guidebook for the independent traveler--it trusts that you know how to get from an airport to a hotel and that you can pick up key civilities from a phrasebook. What it does and does quite well is provide you with personal and highly individual recommendations from expats, travelers, and Vietnamese people, who tell you what they love about this country. From their stories, you can draw up your own itinerary--their tips provide a springboard for your own adventures.This is a book to dip into and to use for building dreams. Short essays provide information for every interest--Todd Berliner offers film buffs the Hanoi Cinematheque and Cafe, "which you cannot find unless you know where it is." Antoine Sirot tells where to find ballroom dancing to live music in the romantic destination of Dalat. Jeff Greenwald reveals the pleasures of searching for the elusive langur of Cat Ba Island, and Vu Kieu Linh not only tells why the hoa sua flower makes Hanoi an unforgettable place in autumn, but tells exactly where to walk for a fifteen-minute stroll through the flowering trees that bear these blossoms.Where to stay, what to eat, how to shop: these conventional guidebook subjects are all included but are enveloped in the experience that has made the recommended places special to the author (there are 60 contributors to this book, including the editor and photographer.) If you're like me, you will develop a fondness for a particular voice and yearn to wander with that writer. (Believe me, when I finally get to Ho Chi Minh City, I plan to hunt down Emily Huckson.)And in addition to the nourishment for dreams that it provides, this is a gorgeous book that is sheer pleasure to touch. The cover feels like satin, and the paper used for the pages sets a whole new standard for the paperback publishing industry. Julie Fay Ashborne's photographs are generously sprinkled throughout the book and every one of them is a visual poem.Editor Kim Fay has followed up her first travel guide  To Asia with Love: A Connoisseurs' Guide to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. with a book that is certain to become another travel classic--beautiful, useful, and completely irresistible.

A complete let down. The editing authors didn't even put enough effort in editing the articles nor arranging them geographically. As a result you find the info about the same city in several places of the book. Focused on places targeted at expacts so if you're after a street eatery charging foreigners 3times more than it should and has a menu in English ready to prove this price is correct, it is a book for you. Found it totally useless.

Dieses Buch ist so anders als die anderen Reiseführer die ich gekauft habe bis jetzt. Die Geschichten sind so persönlich und so schön geschildert, daß ich große Lust habe auf die bevorstehende Reise nach Vietnam. Eine Perle.