Travel guides are lying too

Comparing real circumstances with the facts set forth in the guidebook, the traveler sooner or later makes discovery: guides are no different from us with you. They lie too. Here are some examples of such inconsistencies, seriously changing my trust in guidebooks.

Floating Restaurant in Hua "What you need to know the tourist about Vietnam" Lonely Planet, 2nd Edition

Experience in visiting floating restaurants shows that only gloomy waiters work there, as well as what the rubbish are fed there and climb inspected prices. In addition, these institutions are usually located above the drain of the city’s main sewer pipe. But I decided to cross through these prejudices and go into a floating restaurant in Hua, who persistently recommended by my Vietnam guide. "This restaurant, – assured the author of the guide, is famous for excellent service, magnificent Vietnamese cuisine (not a meal, but kitchen!) and low prices". And what I found there? Dyroid food, gloomy waiters and atomic prices! And how you guess, it smeared well there.

Hotel "Erzemum", Trabzon "What you need to know the tourist about Turkey" Lonely Planet, 3rd edition

I adore the exquisite style of Tom Kosnane, the author of many guidebooks overlooking Lonely Planet. And, probably, it is not his fault that the hotel "Erzemum", which he loves charming like "A quiet corner where the gray-row elders are chinno play chess under the canopy of fragrant flowering trees", Long closed. And across the road opened some kind of vile junk under the same title.

Hotel "Ashok Yatri Havas", Delhi "What you need to know the tourist about India" Lonely Planet, 2nd edition

The guidebook describes "Ashok Yatri Havas" how "Modern hotel with great amenities and incredibly low prices. It’s hard to believe that such a hotel is actually". Indeed, difficult. Because it is located a few kilometers from the place that is marked on the map in the guidebook. I wandered half a day in the city, knocking back from the obsessive Ricksh, who insistently assured me that, first, I did not go to the other side, and secondly, I go in vain, because "Ashok Yatri Havas" it will not be on my pocket. The most interesting thing is that it turned out. Sad, when some overannants do better on the street, they own information than the luxuriously published guidebook.

Hoist the owner of the restaurant Varnish Than, Hua, Vietnam "What you need to know the tourist about Vietnam" Lonely Planet, 2nd Edition

After this guidebook strongly recommended all tourists to try "Divine food", which the owner of the restaurant lacquer Than is preparing a mute, it seems that everyone dumb in Hua opened their restaurants. Moreover, all these institutions are located in close proximity to the original, and when a suspecting tourist comes into a restaurant, where all his attempts to talk to the wall of silence, he mistakenly thinks that he got into the same restaurant where he will be served "Divine food". Even if the tourist accidentally wrestle in the right restaurant, his expectations are hardly justified, because the situation there has changed dramatically to the worst. After entering the light, Mr. Varnish Than became such a celebrity, which is forced to spend all the time in the hall, explaining in the language of signs with curious tourists, and he just once stand at the stove, which immediately affected the quality of food.

Physics at the equator "Handbook of Indonesia" Moon Publications, 2nd Edition

Describing the monument standing at the equator in Bondjole, the author of the guide advises tourists "stop and make sure that you lost your shadow. Shadow, which rightly follows you all day, then decreasing, then increasing, disappeared without a trace". The author would have to look into the school textbook of physics and make sure that the shadow at the equator really disappears, only this phenomenon occurs not every day, but only twice a year – during the spring and autumn equinox – and lasts a few seconds. Tourists who also have very vague ideas about physics, with amazement notice that their shadow in the equator does not go anywhere, and decide that they don’t have something wrong with health.

Dalat, Paris of the Far East "What you need to know the tourist about Vietnam" Lonely Planet, 2nd edition

A stunning example of danger, which is fraught with passion of authors to exaggerations. The authors of the guidebook Robert Stori and Daniel Robinson (by the way, both Americans) were writing that Dalat is "The most charming place in all Vietnam. And what is called "Little Paris", – This is an excellent compliment to the capital of France". It is, to put it mildly, greatly exaggerated. More precisely, it’s a complete nonsense. As a result, the street Dalat is full of disappointed tourists who roam around the city in search of the promised "charming" and dump your irritation, kicking urns. There are rumors that the presented passage is written by the authors under the influence of some strongly active mushrooms found by them in the Dalat Mountains.

Mohammed Arif from the Maldives "What you need to know the tourist about Maldives" Lonely Planet, 2nd Edition

Everyone who has come to come to the Maldives surrounded by newlyweds and in love with couples, knows that Maldives are not the place where a lonely tourist with a backpack behind his shoulders feels a particularly welcome guest. Therefore, the information of the Lonely Planet guidebook that a certain Mohammed Arif operates in the Maldives, which usually meets airplanes at the airport and is ready to help lonely and the poor tourist, acts on the traveler soothing. Unfortunately, Mohammed Arif has not been met by airports at the airport. The fact is that his affairs went cool to the mountain. At best, he can send his Laces, who, despite all your protests, put you in a limousine and bring to his luxury office in the center of the city, where Mohammed Arif will casually offer you to stay at one of the most expensive resorts.

Giant Buddha Statue in Hongrisan National Park, Korea "What you need to know the tourist about Korea" Lonely Planet, 2nd Edition

I read it in the guide that it is impossible to leave Korea, without having examined the giant statue of the Buddha in the Songry Songry Park, and shaking seven hours in the bus to see this miracle. What was my amazement when I walked around the whole park and did not find a monumental figure, which, according to the author of the guidebook, "dominates the terrain". Subsequently it turned out that shortly before my arrival the statue was removed from the pedestal to update the gilding.

You probably noticed that most often we are talking about Lonely Planet Publishing Houses. It does not mean that they are worse than others – the fact is that I use them most often and therefore I know their mistakes better. And yet, for some reason, in the second edition of errors, it happens more than in the first. Why? I know.