Lonely Planet Hong Kong, Macau & Guangzhou: Travel Survival Kit

This book gives ou a nice overview of the region, and incredible specific tips for visiting HK and Macau.

I found this book to be extremely helpful in covering all the bases of transport, taxes, tipping, typical business hours, history, background, and a good overview of what's where, and how to get there. Often times, we'd have questions about things like poverty level, health coverage, average income, quality of water -- and found that the guide pretty much answered all of those, and more. The maps aren't super, and because of the size of the book, it made it difficult to carry. Besides, if you're asking a local for directions, you'd want a bilingual map, as the English names of cities/stations drive them crazy. (ie, Mandarin romanizations in a Cantonese city) I do give it credit for accurately pointing out the numerous obscure markets in Tsim Sha Tsui, as well as the various shops in Hong Kong City. The walking guides were surprisingly useful. The reason why I give it 4 stars is because HK is all about food and shopping, and the book came up seriously short on the food portion. (no pun intended) Despite it being only 3 months since publication (12th edition, Jan 2006) literally *every* restaurant this book recommended (of which we attempted to find) turned out to be non-existent, had changed ownership and had turned into some other shop. I attribute some of this to bad luck, but I seriously doubt the restaurants didn't *all* go out of business in the last 3 months, but rather that the information on the guide was a little outdated. The section on food is one part I really relied upon to book to help me out, and was pretty disappointed when it didn't come through for me, as the alternatives to an English guidebook aren't great. The alternatives are to ask the hotel clerk (who will recommend the hotel restaurant), or a random stranger (who will recommend his friend/family's restaurant), or read a weekly magazine about which eateries are good (which require Chinese reading skills). Despite my frugal 4 stars, this guide is considerably better than most, and is worth the small change to purchase, especially when compared to the amount of money you spent to book your vacation.

Steve Fallon is a perfect guide for walking tours, itinaries, transport (Octopus card), accomodation, eating and shopping in both ancient Western colonies.He gives us also an excellent summary of their histories.This guide has also a useful map section, although it was not possible to indicate all the street names.With its wealth of practical, cultural and historical information, this guide is a necessary companion for all Hong Kong and Macau visitors. It served me every day during my stay in both Western enclaves. I found Hong Kong fascinating. I was there for the 2004 Film Festival which had an excellent program (especially the documentaries) and a perfect organization.On the contrary, Macau was a big disappointment. It is still in shambles.

I found this guide useful in all the usual practical ways (accomodation, eating, getting around, etc), and I visited the few tourist sites thanks to it, and I LOVED the hikes in the unspoilt New Territories countryside, but I have to say I was grateful for the way the guide alerted me to the unexpected side of Hong Kong - the huge, unruly, pushy-rude crowds, the unpleasant actions and attitudes of so many people, the frankly dreary-quality of much of the over-concreted urban areas (so different from Hong Kong's famous harbour setting, which only looks good from a ferry boat or a hilltop). The comments on why this all was so - the long, sad history of the Chinese refugee movement, pouring into Hong Kong when it was British, the subsequent (also sad) insecurity that resulted, helped me appreciate more the "effervesence" of the city which didn't seem so exhilherating after a few days, but, if anything, more fascinating.It also led me to some fascinating books on the subject. I highly recommend Jan Morris's book Hong Kong, which gives great and moving detail on the whole refugee origins of modern Hong Kong and made me realise what an intense human story there lies behind the tourist bureau image of the place (there is much info on the interesting history on British days, too). The book also led me to some fascinating hill walks in the unspoilt north-east of the New Territories (Plover Cove - a world away from the jackhammers, noise and spitting). Bo Yang's book The Ugly Chinaman gave me a Chinese account of where all this insecurity and unhappiness and rude behaviour comes from - the centuries of stagnation that went on inside China (he calls the process "the stagnat soy-vat barrel"), the insistance on imitating the past rather than looking forward - there's a lot more to China's story than Confucious and the poetry of Li Po, he insists (I thought Bo Yang's book much more helpful than the Culture Shock guide because it explains to western readers the Chinese actions that actually cause you culture shock; the Culture Shock books tend to just tell you to say "everything's great".) Timothy Mo's novel, The Monkey King is a great read and a great description of many Hong Kong Chinese attitudes and actions I encountered on my trip - it centers around a fascinating, eccentric Chinese family living in 1950's Hong Kong but I was amazed at how much was still relevant.Paul Theroux's novel, Kowloon Tong, set at the Handover, captures well the sleazy side of Hong Kong money-making and greed, focusing (democratically!) on British, Chinese and American characters living in the city. Really fine description here, and dark irony worthy of Saul Bellow and Gore Vidal.And Austin Coates' classic Hong Kong book, Myself a Mandarin, will enrich any westerner's trip (it's the story of a British magistrate in 50's Hong Kong, and I found his stories of dealing with the Chinese, the clash of cultures, the insights he gained, fascinating, hilarious and, once again, oddly re