Rating: 
Summary: Preachy guide for the conformist backpacker
Review: At several points while reading this guide, I was just stunned by the little mini-sermons offered to tourists:1. Thou shalt have no plastic bottles before ye. This went on for a couple of columns, and I wondered just what planet the author came from. Other guidebooks show festoons of plastic bottles for sale in Rome, but we hear no complaints about Rome, here. No, the battle over one lousy plastic bottle becomes a battle for the reader's soul, here in vulnerable SE Asia. No hostages are taken! 2. Thou shalt have no monkey pets before ye. I just got back from a driving trip to Roi-Et from Chiang Mai, and, while we were passing through Nam Naaw National Park on the return, we turned off at a scenic view stop and discovered a marvellous view, plus a group of hill-tribe people living their lives, including a cute little monkey as a pet. The author of this guide would have the owner of the pet up before a court for cruelty, or something. There are other instances, just as crude, of the author electing to use his status as a guidebook author as a good opportunity to hector the reader with ALL of his various opinions. Done with wit, this can work, but there is nothing witty here. Alas!
Rating: 
Summary: The Real Scoop on Thailand!
Review: (By Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One," ISBN:1591133343) Thailand is a complex country that most Westerners don't know much about. This book gives the neophyte to the Thai scene almost everything that he or she will need for a vacation or business trip. There is a wealth of information about Thai culture, and the rules of etiquette that seem counterintuitive from an American perspective. Getting around in Thailand can be difficult, and sometimes dangerous. The authors have included detailed maps, and information about where to go depending on your tastes in accommodations. The language notes will also be helpful to those who aspire to proficiency in Thai. This is a book that you will enjoy reading before, during, and after your trip. I recommend it heartily.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been better
Review: My friend and I took the Lonely planet and the Let's go travel book with us to Thailand. We found Let's go a lot easier to use. Lonely planets' index was useless causing time wasted while hunting through the book looking for info. Let's Go Thailand had better maps and was easier to follow all around.
Rating: 
Summary: All About Thailand
Review: Lonely Planet Thailand has just about everything you need to know about Thailand, and then some. A great book if you plan on living, visiting, or just learning about Thailand. It is limited on the pictures, but makes up for being the book having the most information on Thailand that I have had the chance to read. I used this book frequently and carried it with me everywhere, but it was no match to me and the harsh heat of Thailand. The book's binding glue gave, and I was left with sections falling out and a pretty cover. I still use it though, because of its tons of information!
Rating:
Summary: of course good
Review: I feel Lonley Planet guides are great, but the 9th edition of the Thailand book are excellent. A lot of things have been updated and they are true, hopefully this edition will not go out of date anytime soon.
Rating:
Summary: LP
Review: I had the 8th edition in my first travel, and I couldn't avoid to but he 9th for my last travel to thailand. A very updated and complete guide that leads you to one of the most marvellous countries of the SEA. Story, geography, warnings, food information and even a quick guide to the red-district of bkk. Another LP success.
Rating:
Summary: Another Lonely Planet Success
Review: As most of the LP books, this one is a good guide. It offers you from a good review of the history of the place, places to eat, warnings and even parties dates.
The pages don't wear off easily, and it can be bent in your daypack with no problem.
Definetly it's a "must" if you want a guide-book in thailand.
Rating:
Summary: Not a "Bible"
Review: I agree with some of the other customer review that this "guide" is far from one of the best. The information is sometimes wrong (unfortunately at the most inconvenient of times). In addition the book is hardly a "guide". The walking tours, for example, give you little information and simply plop you at a site. This is more of a handbook to accommpany a map. The book seems to inspire the kind of tourism where one looks, but does not realy try to understand the culture around you. The worst part about this book is that it is not arranged well. Each area you visit is arranged by "activity" like accommodation or food. This is particularly annoying in the Bangkok section, where one has to constantly flip from section to section in order to figure out anything about where you are in the area of town you are visiting. On the positive side, the recommendations of accomodation are decent. Overall though, I recommend to get another guide. Lonely planet has gone lazy.
Rating:
Summary: not the best travel guide
Review: Since 1987 I have been buying each new edition of the Lonely Planet Thailand travel guide. Back in the 1980s, this was the only worthwhile travel guide to Thailand, but Lonely Planet and Joe Cummings are clearly resting on their laurels. There is very little new material in each new edition that comes out every few years. Now, in 2002, there are lots of new and better
guidebooks out there. I can recommend Insight Guides, Rough Guides, and DK travel guides, to name only a few good ones.
Joe Cummings has been the main author of the Thailand Travel
Guide for over two decades. He is also the author of many other
travel guidebooks published by Lonely Planet. The problem with his books is that he is not excited about travel, and this feeling comes through in his guidebooks. He is an expert on Asian art history, and I think that it would be more appropriate if he wrote books specifically about this subject, instead of travel guides for the general public.
To get a good feeling about the kind of writer that Joe Cummings is, I would strongly recommend that you also read through the reviews of his Travel Guide to Laos, which is also
published by Lonely Planet.
Rating:
Summary: Skip This One
Review: Sometimes, I think Lonely Planet has become so popular on the backpacking set that no one even questions its substance.
When I was in Thailand, people referred to this as their "Bible", an incredible overstatement. It isn't that the information was wrong, just incomplete when it seemed to matter. I think there are other guidebooks that offer better information, even though budget travellers are made to believe it is the only series for them. Shop around before you buy this.
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