DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Vietnam and Angkor Wat

I love the Eyewitness Travel Guide books, and this one was just what I expected. I traveled Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Halong Bay) and I didn't want to buy another travel guide just for Siem Reap/Angkor Wat so I was pleasantly surprised to find that my favorite series had exactly what I needed! The maps in this book are perfect and very easy to read. I love the pictures because they help you confirm that you are reading about what you are seeing in front of you. I wish there was a bit more info on where to eat, or that it was included within the regions being discussed instead of in a separate section in the back of the book, but that's just a personal opinion. I can see the merit to keeping history with history and current info separate. Overall, I highly recommend this book and will be keeping it in my collection for a long time. PS - Don't skip the history readings in the beginning of the book. There is a ton of interesting information on the religious background of the regions and the history that has made these areas into what they are today. Definitely worth the read on your flight into the area.

Our tour of Viet Nam was with a tour small group, so I didn't use it to choose hotels and cannot comment on that part. I almost didn't take the book to Viet Nam. I considered scanning and printing the pages of places we were supposed to go. I ended up taking the book and was happy I did, as our guide offered more options for our free time. I take photos and keep a notebook of what and where my photos are. This book was helpful for learning how to spell names and getting information about the sites we saw. In addition, the pictures helped me ascertain that I was giving the right names to various places, such as temples. I put Post-It tabs on the pages of places we were scheduled to go. That made it easy to find the sites in the book once we arrived. The book has high quality paper and beautiful photos. The downside is that it is heavy. Since my camera gear is heavy, I left the book in our room and simply referred to it before and after sightseeing each day.

This brand is my favorite travel guide option. I like the illustrations and street-by-street coverage of some city areas. The fact that this edition also covers Ankor Wat is a plus. My upcoming trip will take me to Ankor Wat. I've been doing other reading about Vietnam and Cambodia and delving into the guide's sections on areas I read about elsewhere. So far, very helpful.

If you want to actually see what the sights look like to try and plan a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, this is the guide for you. It has a great run down of all the sights plus the pictures to back it up. It isn't as comprehensive as Lonely Planet or Frommer's but it is a great guide to help you plan your trip. I usually use DK guides coupled with Frommers/Lonely Planet when planning trips. I highly recommend purchasing this book if you are looking to go to Vietnam or Cambodia.

Not the best travel guide to buy. I bought many eyewitness travel guides before and this one so far the most disappointing to me I am Vietnamese and so i dont need this guide book at all. However since i am taking a few nonVietnamese friends to visit Vietnam i thought this book will be a great travel reference book for them To my disappointment, major tourist sites were mentioned very briefly or only a few sentences. It is packed with many many details about small medium unfamous famous temples all together, pages after pages. Vietnam is not all about temple you know! There are many beautiful landscape that need to be mentioned in greater details Yet the quality of the book is outstanding as usual. Layout and colors are very catchy. Some photos need to be updated

We are off to Bankok, Vietnam, and Angkor Wat in a month and will use this as a primary guide book, have always loved the illustrations and sidebars in DK publications, very entertaining even if you are not going there.

Love the DK travel books. They always have a lot of good info and maps. I have to admit I like the pictures as well.

This guide is very informative and will probably be the only one we carry with us on our journey. We have relied on DK guides for a wide variety of destinations over the years. My only complaint is they seem to reference high end hotels and restaurants. This is not a problem for us as we also extensively research websites geared to independent/budget travelers.