Pimp My Guide

Obsessed as I am by guidebooks generally, this trip has seen me acquire more than usual. In the planning stages, which me being me, has been at least a year (its not all planning, more like travel dreaming leading to a commitment to do it leading to obsessive planning). I bought books for every country I planned to visit. For a while the Rough Guides
have been my guide of choice, I find the cultural/sights info to be more detailed and erudite. I took one to India but as I was on a tour it didn't get a full workout. When I went to London to visit a friend I took the Blue Guide London as I had accommodation and was there to focus on sights in the capital. Now, my first trip to Europe and the States, my memory is a bit hazy here. I'm pretty sure I didn't take any sort of guide for the US leg. Europe well, I think it was the behemoth that is Lonely Planet's Western Europe on a Shoestring. But herein lies the difference with me and guidebooks. Not for me are they venerated bibles, an oracle to be kept in pristine condition. No, for me they are something to mould into a shape specific to me. Some people pimp their ride, I pimp my guidebook.

Exhibit 1: That long ago Western Europe on a Shoestring. I butchered it, taking it apart at the seams. Discarding the countries I wasn't going to (Portugal, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Andorra) - they got binned. I stapled together the victors and put them in a zip lock bag (a constant travel companion!). This victory would be short lived as those surviving the first cut got tossed as borders got crossed. Even then, on my first ever trip I was travelling light.

Exhibit 2: Rough Guide to India. Now this one is a bit scary. I cringe slightly as I reveal this particular pimp. To offer some justification for my obsessiveness, I tend to leave large gaps of time between holidays so by the time I start planning I realise how much I need one which by this time is usually still 6 months away. And the obsessive planning takes over. Infrequent holidays can do that to a girl, but here I am 3 years since my last trip - microplanning. But back to India. This trip I would be on a tour, 30+ days that toured the southern tip of the country and Rajasthan in the north. (Fab trip by the way, Intrepid Travel's India South & North, I highly recommend it.) In that all accommodation and travel would be organised for me I

figured at least I can get the lowdown on the sights. Using the trip notes I cut out of the guide the places I would be going. For such a big country and guide the resulting stapled and zip locked pages were quite slim volumes. But this is where it gets a bit wrong. Not satisfied with having the bits I needed I felt I should get more specific. So apart from adding covers, I used post it flags not just to mark the places we would visit but which days of the trip they were. Not 100% sure what was going on with me there but I did have a wonderful trip and bought the stapled pages home as a souvenir (and possibly an indication of occasional OCD).

Exhibit 3: The next big trip - Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. As I mentioned earlier I'd been using Rough Guides to each country in the planning stages. However, a couple of months ago I picked up the most recent edition of Lonely Planet Vietnam. What I liked about the Rough Guides was the list of destinations and estimated travel times at the end of each region. Slowly however Lonely Planet started to win me over. The thing I hear most about LP is how practical it is, and while it gets bashed for keeping backpackers on the banana pancake trail (http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/09-07/thailand’s-banana-pancake-trail-and-5-insider-tips-for-escaping-it.html) I can't deny its practicality (in theory at least!). I'm not saying it will be my only source of information. Online resources like Travel Fish (http://www.travelfish.org/) and the LP Thorntree Forum (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/index.jspa) are brilliant sources of up to date information. What really won me over to LP was their Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & the Great Mekong guide. As in Cambodia and Laos I will undeniably we on the road

most travelled, the infrmation in the book will suit me fine and can supplement with online and local knowledge. I will probably still take the LP Vietnam guide (butchered slightly) for the Mekong Delta and Highlands. The guide also features a section on the Yunnan province in China, a place I am not going to. But rather than cut out the pages as I normally would I've created a new pimp! I've pasted tissue paper over the pages so I can use it as a notebook. I'll get back to you on how it goes.

Pimp my guide. A mad idea sure, but it works for me!