(From top): A bird’s eye view of the city of Melbourne; a busy Tokyo street;

Are you one of those travellers who can’t go anywhere without a guidebook? Then this one is just up your line. While there are shelves filled with travel tomes in the bookshops, it’s the Luxe series that veteran travellers are packing in their hand luggage. If you’re going to Hanoi or even done-to-death Singapore, these are the most concise, slim, pocket-sized, fold-out travel guides that you can find.

The guides come from the stables of Hong Kong-based Grant Thatcher, a Royal Shakespeare Company actor-turned-publisher. Thatcher has successfully unleashed a series of city guides on everywhere from Dubai and popular tourist destinations in Asia and Australia. And it’s not just intrepid travellers who are reaching out for the guides, but local residents are also leafing through them to discover new spots to hit in town. The reviews have been flattering. The Luxe guides have been described by fans as informative and reliable and loaded with secrets that the most dogged tourist may have missed on an earlier visit to the same city.

There are currently 16 cities and tourist hotspots that Grant Thatcher has turned his attention to. If you are wandering around Asia, you can pick guides to Bali, Bangkok, Beijing, Chiang Mai, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Phuket, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Tokyo. While there’s a guide to Dubai, in Australia, Luxe can take you through Melbourne and Sydney.

Statutory warning: if you are the type of traveller who wants heavy details ? the city’s history, demographics, maps, lists upon lists of hotels and restaurants, these are not for you. For, the guides are crisp and sharply edited to include just the best the cities have to offer. That’s just three or four places to stay in, restaurants not to miss out on, top clubs, recommended sightseeing and shopping expeditions to the happening places in town.

Tongue-in-cheek, witty and funny in parts, Luxe travel guides are still relatively new ? Thatcher launched the first guide (to Hong Kong) in 2002. “The inside information offered by the guidebook proved to be very helpful. Picking up the Luxe guides to Bangkok and Phuket on a recent trip was almost like taking a local resident along,” says businessman Sudhir Chawla.

A valid observation, for the Luxe guides are compiled with contributions and top recommendations from 20 local residents of the city. What’s more, a city editor puts the entire information together after personally checking the veracity of the each claim made by the contributors. Some of the contributions are in fact the feedback that travellers have e-mailed after having found the city guide of enormous help.

Quite unlike other travel guides, the Luxe guides are sprinkled generously with amusing asides, useful tips (you’re not required to tip cabbies in Shanghai) as well as practical information. The guides are updated twice a year, which is a first for the genre as travel guides are usually updated annually. So you can expect the editions to include some of the newest entries per city.

There’s more: you might find stuff in them that is not featured elsewhere in any other travel guide. Which is perhaps why Luxe’s mantra is “brutally frank and sometimes, frankly, brutal.” On occasion some of the obvious landmarks of a city (such as its popular restaurants) are excluded if they don’t live up to the Luxe standards. “That’s the guide’s USP,” says Chawla.

Though the Luxe guides are not available in India just yet, there’s no reason to fret. They are being sold only in four Asian cities (apparently Hong Kong is the largest retail market), two cities in America and another two in Australia, but they’re also available online. So all you have to do is to log on to www.luxecity guides.com and click on online purchase. While each city guide is priced at $9, they come in sets of five as well for $38. Opt for the Bali, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Hong Kong set or another with Sri Lanka, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. There’s another with the latest editions of Beijing, Chiang Mai, Dubai, Melbourne and Phuket. Also, it’s possible to order a bespoke box set with any five guides of your choice ($45).

The other sets you can order include the Australia set with Melbourne and Sydney ($16), the China set with the latest edition of Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai ($22.50), the Thailand set with the editions of Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai (also for $22.50) and Vietnam with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City ($16).

So armed with Luxe guides, you can ‘walk into the Lion’s jaws’ (that’s Singapore), ‘taste the plumpest, juiciest fruit from the Bali tree’, go beyond the ‘kiss-bang and backpacks’ in Bangkok, ‘take a nice, juicy bite off Sydney’ and much more besides.

My favourite holiday

Anindita Sarbadhikari,
director

The one holiday I can never forget is a 10-day vacation I took in Rome. It was back in 1999 and I was invited to the Berlin Film Festival where my film, Barkha was being screened. I managed to earmark 10 days for Italy. But my very first hour in Rome saw me fall in love with the place and all my careful plans to go visit Naples, Milan and Venice flew out of the window. It was the middle of spring ? Rome was filled with music, flowers, tourists and of course gorgeous Italian men. Steeped in history and rich in atmosphere, Rome cast its spell on me. I just about managed to make a quick trip to Florence, because I’d never be able to live with the shame of not seeing Botticelli despite having a chance. But I rushed back as soon as I could. Only five of the famous Seven Hills of Rome was all I could see and I managed to spend each evening on a different hill. Sunshine, the smell of orange blossoms, music and good company ? it was blissful. I did the normal touristy things too ? shopped, saw the Colosseum, threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, and if urban legends are to be believed, I’ll go back there very soon.

Route map

Singapore Airlines is celebrating 20 years of its Delhi operations with deals galore. Not content with offering attractive fares from the Capital to Singapore, the airline has added more destinations to its roster of discounts. Now you can also avail of lowered return economy fares to 12 destinations in the US, Australia, China and New Zealand. Just take your pick of where you’d like to head — Hong Kong (Rs 19,790), Beijing/ Shanghai (Rs 21,055), LA/San Francisco (Rs 31,340), Melbourne/Adelaide/Perth/Sydney/Brisbane (Rs 25,510) or Auckland/Christchurch (Rs 29,350). The lowered fares amount to discounts ranging between 26 per cent to nearly 40 per cent over regular fares. While you must book by June 30, you can travel out of Delhi any time till September 30.