Travel Guides 2001

Sun Yat Sen Temple

Sun Yat Sen was a late 19th century revolutionary who became the first president of the 1911 Republic of China. He came from near Guangzhou and it was in Guangzhou that he first obtained control over a part of China. He died before he could consolidate power; his widow, Soong Chingling   became a follower of Mao Zedong. Chiang Kaishek built a temple to him in Guangzhou and a magnificent mausoleum in Nanjing. Because of his prestige the communists adopted him (although he would probably have disagreed with most of what they did). and thus temple and mausoleum were not destroyed.

Foshan Ancestral Temple

Foshan is relatively close to Guangzhou, almost a suburb now. Today it is most famous for the hand painted ceramics it produces. We bought some pieces that quite please us. But even more wonderful was the Ancestor Temple, which has fantastic ceramics on the peaks of its sloping roof.
 

Zhao Qing (Guangdong)

Zhao Qingwas once a river town "far away" from Guangzhou; modern buses replace a day's river trip by a two hour ride, 100 km. The town is on a bluff and has some elements of beauty. It has an outstanding Buddhist Pagoda. Outside of town is a mini-Guilin: seven lakes between seven crags. It should be beautiful and the book makes it look that way.
 
 

Seven Star Crags

Seven Star Crags is just outside of Zhao Qing. It is sort of a poor man's Guilin. Many Chinese and relatively few foreigners go there. We saw it in the rain and cold and were only mildly impressed.
 
 
 

Vietnam  by Lonely Planet

Our 2000 and 2001 travels. We have several copies; unfortunately they are illegal copies, because that seems to be all that you can buy in Hanoi.
 

Sa Pa by Vietnamese Government 

Sapa is a delightful hill resort. We say that even though we had a lot of rain there. The people in the surrounding villages still wear colorful costumes, although that can't be for long. The women who sell trinkets to foreigners, while wearing such costumes, obviously dress up for the tourists. But more important, and probably much longer lasting, are the views from Sapa and its trails down into the valleys below that have iridescent green rice paddies.

Laosby Lonely Planet

Laos is the unknown land. Millions have gone to Thailand and thousands to Vietnam. Sitting in between is a relatively unknown place that has aspects of each, but is harder to reach and less changed by modern life.

Thailand by Lonely Planet

We're hooked on Lonely Planet: lots of history, lots of maps, and lots of hotels reviewed.

Our travels

Thailand by Michelin

Michelin's Thailand is very different than Lonely Planet's: organized alphabetically by major sites with nearby minor sites tacked on whereas LP treats a region or sub-region in some sort of geographical order. The maps are sometimes better than LP but there are fewer of them; the history is sometimes better, but there is less of it. Get both if you can.

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Cambodia by Lonely Planet..

Ancient Angkor by Claude Jacques; 
photos by Michael Freeman

A very good guide to the sites with lots of maps and photos by two very well qualified people.

Our travels

The Angkor Complete Guide 

A freebie that turned out to be one of the better ones of this genre. It had some nice, compact maps at its center and was a convenient thing to carry around. The hotel and restaurant listing was useful and we actually ate at some of the places described.

Siem Reap Angkor Visitors Guide

Another freebie, and also useful like the above. This seemed to be a one or two person effort; their map, although copyrighted, was ripped off everywhere.