Moon Handbooks: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Third Edition (ISBN 1566913721)

The Best:
This is the best guide available. Moon travel beats the major competitor (the main travel-trail eye-sore creator) in almost all respects, but not all. Moreso than other travel guides, the Moon travel guide for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia has tons and tons of recent political, social and economic history in addition to significant cultural notes that a visitor *must* be aware of. (i.e., what does a South East Asian smile mean?) The maps of the cities and provinces are excellent. the all-important overland border-crossings between 'Nam, Laos, and Cambo are cleary marked. This is one of the many reasons that Moon can't be beaten at the moment. This guide's overland itineraries are the best. Example: you want to go into China overland fron northern Vietnam. How can you get up to Kunnming, China? It tells ya. And, we learn, that the one way flight into Bangkok from Kunming is the same price as the one that flys from Hanoi. (This price equality of course must be verified). The information regarding the pricing and existence of certain establishments that cater to travelers is outdated. However, where to eat or sleep has never been an important part of a book anyhow, just the general information about the area in general and how to get there is all a visitor needs. Does someone need to read a guidebook to decide specifically where to eat? Where to specifically sleep? If it does for you, do everyone a favor: stay home. The underlying story that provides the "general-informational" foundation is enough. When we come through town, understandably we don't know much, but that is far better than knowing absolutely nothing at all, which is quite common now from my conversations with tourists, and especially now among "backpackers." The purpose of why backpacking started has been lost for most. By the way, it is a fact that the communist government censors this guidebook. I found that out trying to pick it up at the post office. Well worth having.

An Outstanding Guidebook:
I've been using Michael Buckley's Vietnam Handbook for two months now and have found it to be excellent. It's well organized with country introductions which told me almost everything I wanted to know. Michael's sidebars are intriguing and I especially appreciate the city walking tours which have led me to many hidden little places I might have missed otherwise. The maps are better than those in the other guidebooks because sites are labeled right on the maps themselves rather than coded in a key which is impossible to read in dim lighting (a fault with the Lonely Planet series). Michael has provided not only the usual city and country maps, but also detailed inner city maps and even maps of the individual temples around Angkor Wat. This book covers three countries and sure beats having to buy and lug around individual guides to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. I've found that the coverage better than adequate and certainly head and shoulders above the general Southeast Asia guides which are surprisingly sketchy about these countries. Indochina is changing so fast that much of the practical information in any guide is bound to be out of date before the book reaches the shelves and this 1998 edition does require updating, but so do all the other guides to the region. You usually end up getting that kind of information from other travelers anyway. Of the three countries included, the coverage of Cambodia is the weakest, obviously because that country is only now opening to independent travel. Next edition Michael needs to get to places like Kampong Cham, etc. Meanwhile I recommend this handbook highly over all its competitors.

Disappointing:
This book is getting mixed reviews. It seems like friends of the author say its great. Those who tried to actually use the book are disappointed that everything is so out of date. This edition was not updated since the first edition and is now really out of date. Things change, but sloppy research is always out of style.

Adequate only:
Adequate rather than good, this is no Lonely Planet guide. The structure covering three countries means a significant amount of flipping back and forth to locate information on the country you're currently in. The Siem Reap/Angkor Wat section is particularly confusing, with the practical (hotel, restaurant & general living) information interleaved with the descriptions of the temple complex. Although published in 2006, much of the political information did not appear to have been updated since approximately 2000. This book will not encourage me to buy Moon for any of my future travels

Inaccurate and outdated...Not recommended:
I have just returned from a trip to both Vietnam and Cambodia. Based on the multitude of inaccuracies in this book, I would not recommend it. I bought the book because I wanted to try Moon Handbooks. Typically, I stick to Frommers or Lonely Planet. Of course, all travel handbooks are going to have their share of inaccuracies as prices change, businesses open/close, etc between the time of writing, its eventual publishing, and the buyer's trip to the country. In addition, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are changing rapidly and thus frusterate any travel writer's ability to fully and accurately cover the countries. Having said that, this book's inaccuries and inadeqauate coverage clearly are below the expected standards of travel handbooks. At each location, I was continually frustered by the book's amateurish maps, poor recommendations, and shallow coverage. Worse was the author's discussion of the US involvement in Indonesia. In one area of the book, he states that the US bombing of Cambodia killed 50,000 and in another area the US bombing caused 100,000 deaths. Well, which is it? Kind of a big deal to get that right. One exception was the coverage of Anghor/Siem Reap. I felt the maps and the discussion were strong enough that I did not need a guide while going through the ruins. Overall, this book needs a complete revamping. It seems like the book was written in 2002 or 2003 with few updates for the 2006 edition. Again, not recommended.