India Handbook: The Travel Guide (Footprint Handbooks) Book

From the guesthouses in the Himalayan foothills to beach shacks in Kerala; at Anjuna's flea market or riding a rajdhani express train from Delhi to Bombay, two topics dominate traveller's conversations--should you give money to beggars, and which is the best guidebook? The latter may seem a trivial matter, but when it's going to be the heaviest item in your bag to be dragged round for months on end its importance is elevated. In William Sutcliffe's classic India backpacker satire Are You Experienced?, the debate was won easily by what became known as "The Book" (a.k.a. Lonely Planet India). Footprints India Handbook 2001, the tenth edition, enters the fray and many, Amazon.co.uk readers among them, praise it as a good, if not better, option for the independent traveller. It certainly crams in the information. Of the 1,400 pages, some 1,178 are a densely packed guide to the maddening, magical, diverse India, from the most obscure temples to off-the-beaten track villages. Though small-type, the text is pleasingly designed and easy to read. Stylish, simple maps add to its user-friendliness.Although Footprints, covers transport, eating and sleeping for a wide budget range, price isn't the key factor. Where at LP and others, budget is the number one consideration, at Footprints this comes second to sights and culture. History, politics, art, food, religion, architecture and contemporary Indian life are enthusiastically documented in easily digestible boxes, which pepper the pages. A colour atlas, language guide and background section round the book off. Running at something like 700,000 words, Footprints India Handbook 2001 is an incredibly detailed, weighty competitor, aimed at "free-spirited individuals". --Sarah ChampionRead More