Travel guides - truth or fiction?

Travel guides show to be useful many times. After I heard in the news that a LP travel author had admitted he had never ever travelled to the places he wrote about, but just copied from other books and the internet, here you can find now the ultimate test: Are travel guides telling the truth? The travel guides I used where the Lonely Planet China (Vietnam edition) and Beijing Excursion Guide (Immersion Guides, a loan on the scientific behalf from Agnes :-), thanks).

Immersion Guide titles: "Daytrip"

My opinion: Already the page starts with a lie. Marco Polo Bridge (Lugou Qiao, 卢沟桥, MP Bridge) and the adjacent chinese-japanese war memorial plus town of Wanping take you two to three hours to visit. The travel time even from Northern Beijing is only one hour. Conclusion: "Time is relative" as Einstein, the famous Chinese philosopher :-), said.

Immersion Guide says: "The bridge left a big impression on Marco Polo 700 years ago. He praised it in the story of his travels as 'a very fine stone bridge, so fine indeed, that it has very few equals in the world.' " I personally like to the idea of adventurous travellers travelling around the world already back then (so to say or grandgrandgrand... fathers). Nevertheless some scientists question whether or not Marco Polo was in China, and point out several things that a European traveler probably would have mentioned, but that MP did not mention and that there is no mention of Marco Polo in Chinese accounts of the period. They say he just heard stories from other travellers and invented the whole thing about his trips.

Immersion Guide: " The MP bridge, lined with 501 distinctive stone lions offers an orgasmically precious experience for stone lion aficionados." LP Guide: "The bridge is host to 485 carved stone lions - each animal is different." I have to disappiont you because I didn't count them so I do not know how many they are. I would go for a compromise similar to Chinese bargaining: 493 lions, OK with all of you? The more interesting thing about the lions is that they are all different from each others: some lions have babies sitting on the head of the mum lion etc. And, well, aficionados - por supuesto eso lo somos, pero k kiere decir la cosa esa del orgazmo???

LP guide: "Legend has it that the lions move around during the night". Not only at nite, I can assure you, but if you want to see lions moving around you'd maybe better visit South Africa's National Parks or the zoo. Chances are higher...

Immersion Guide: "Of course, if all the stone lion excitement just warms you up for more, there are plenty of vendors to the west of the bridge ready to sell you enough stone lions to sink a suitcase." I quite like the cheeky language of the guide, but I only saw two sellers and the frogs in the swamp below the bridge were croaking (German: quacken) and singing so loud I didn't even notice somebody was trying to sell something to me.

After the Marco Polo bridge which in fact was quite interesting, I also visited the "Anti-Japanese war memorial hall" (Immersion Guide) or the "Memorial Hall of War of Resistance against Japan" (LP) where they had English language audio guides and where I learned something about the war between China and Japan (1931 until 194x). Why did they build this museum in Wanping? Because Marco Polo bridge played an important role in this war. You can look up more facts on the war with the help of search machines if you want. Maybe the information you'll find is true, maybe not. Just as with travel guides...