Posts about travellers versus tourists and the art of travel.

But If They’d Just Use A Cattle Prod . . .

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

Tags

Air travel sucks these days, but there is one way to improve the experience for elite passengers.

I’m boycotting United Airlines and refuse to ever fly with them again. Not because they were the first to charge for baggage, or because the seem to specialize in surly flight attendants, but because they teamed with Capital One so that fans of high interest rates get to board their flights first. The only first on board privileges based on the option you selected to pay for your ticket should be when you swiped your American Express Centurion Card. Because the rich should always come first. Just as the gods intended.

Even then I’m of two minds when it comes to boarding a flight. The problem is that I’m not a fan of being on that damn plane any longer than absolutely necessary. So as much fun as it is to board first, and then enjoy the floorshow the airline puts on for you of beleaguered and bewildered lower-class passengers dragging oversized roller bags down the aisle in hopes of finding a coveted storage space while those of us who count passed ours to a flight attendant at boarding and told him or her to put it somewhere, I’d just as soon spend that time in the airline’s lounge. The one they reserve for the best of the best. And despite missing out on the refreshments that come along with the floorshow, there’s something to be said for allowing the entire plane to board before you finally make your entrance.

I miss stop-overs at Narita when I used to fly NorthWest. When you were a Passenger Who Counts, they’d hold the plane way past its scheduled take-off time waiting for your entrance. You didn’t even have to pay attention to the clock. They’d send a girl running through the airport calling your name. Nowadays when you finally make an entrance the passengers who paid to be ballast are so tired and beat down from what both the TSA and the airline just put them through they barely have the energy left to shoot daggers at you for making them dwell in hell even longer than planned. Flying today just isn’t as much fun as it once was.

Why cattle class passengers are allowed to pack their entire household in their carry-on is beyond me. It’s not like they own anything of value.

Flying once was the most expensive form of travel. And the airlines treated passengers as gods. Or at least not like freight. Then they got greedy, thinking more passengers meant more profits. Instead, they convinced those meant for bus travel that they too could fly. And the cattle said thanks by demanding lower and lower airfares. So the airlines had to cut costs and service was the first thing to go. That went so smoothly they started whittling away at everything that once made flying enjoyable. And the herd mentality said, “Moo.” Which would have been fine if they kept that to steerage where it belonged. Now even in first class you have to put up with all of the tribulations that flying has become. That means often having to stand on the tarmac waiting your turn to climb a steep flight of tacky metal stairs. And sometimes even having to catch a bus to the actual terminal because the airline was too cheap to pay for gate privileges. Seriously. If I wanted to ride on a bus I’d have taken Greyhound, not paid thrice the ticket price than did those in the back of the plane who are forced to share a bathroom with their fellow 500 passengers.

Boarding procedures were once simple and democratic. First class passengers got to board first. And then everyone else was allowed on the plane with the rest of the luggage. Now they let old people get on before others, even though any idiot knows that just slows everyone else down. Then they let passengers with infants and small children board, even though infants should not be allowed on a plane in the first place (as for small children, they’ll fit in an overhead, so what’s the problem?) Next comes each level of that airline’s frequent flyer club. And then those damn Capital One credit card holders. And it keeps going and going and going. Meanwhile, those of us up front have to wait. We’re never supposed to have to wait. For anything. We had an iPhone 6 a week ago. A much more simple and easier way to fill the plane would be to allow first class passengers to board and get settled in. And then open the boarding gate doors and tell everyone else they have five minutes to get on and grab a seat or they’ll be left standing on the tarmac. You may think that’s an elitist attitude. But science backs me up.

Airlines are big on tradition, especially on those procedures that never worked well in the first place. Most still use the board from the back to the front scenario by default, although some airlines have updated that procedure by using groups and zones although the system and its outcome is still the same. A few, to be different, use the window to aisle filling pattern thinking that will clear the aisles fastest. It would if not for the passengers who sit in the window seat on aisle 38 when their assigned seat is the window seat in aisle 37. And Southwest started the fad of the free for all seating mob scene, though you have to give them credit for having the balls to be honest enough to admit they really don’t give a damn who you are or where you sit as long as you paid for your ticket. Air Asia used that system too until it realized it could charge passengers extra for assigning them a seat.

Group 5 is for backpackers. It leads back out to the curb in front of the airport.

Herb Kelleher, one of Souhtwest’s founders said, “Planes only make money in the air.” A statement that’s all about profits through keeping those planes full and moving shouldn’t necessarily be something passengers get behind, but if that means shortening the amount of time I have to deal with the flight experience, I’m all for it. Hiring TSA agents who weren’t shopping mall security guard rejects would probably be a good first step. But Kelleher was defending his airline’s use of the free for all seating scheme, the least favorite boarding procedure amongst passengers because far too many end up seated in the middle of a row ‘cuz they are too slow to grab a good seat before everyone else does. But that’s Darwinism at work. And it works for Mother Nature. It turns out that also works the best for loading a plane with passengers.

The brain trust at Mythbusters, a popular US television program that routinely proves how many stupid things we take for granted are lies, recently tested the four most popular plane boarding procedures for efficiency. For their speed test, they used a simulated average-sized, single-aisle airliner complete with gate-checked luggage, real-world flight attendants, and last-minute stragglers. The ever popular zone scheme, wherein first class boards first then the plane is filled by zones from the back to the front, took the longest at 24 minutes, 29 second. Because that is what is most familiar to flyers, it’s also the boarding procedure they most favor.

Next Mythbusters tested a not-so-popular boarding procedure: free for all boarding, but with assigned seats. The line nazis hate this scheme because they miss standing in a queue; the passengers who Darwinism favors dislike it because even though they get on the plane first there’s no reward. But cutting out the boarding line alone saved 17 minutes in boarding time. The test took 17 minutes, 15 seconds to fill the plane.

Forget the nuts, live midget wrestling would put a smile on every first class passenger’s face.

Filling the plane from window seat to aisle seat (after first class boards) is another variation on the zone boarding procedure and is the second most popular boarding scheme among passengers. But it fails too because you are dealing with humans and many of that species are just not too bright. In Mythbusters’ test, this boarding procedure took 14 minutes, 55 seconds. So it still is quicker than the back to front method. Until that 90-year-old woman sits in seat 34A when she’s supposed to be in 36C.

Last up was the totally unpopular, only the strongest survive, free for all boarding where everyone rushes onto the plane pushing and shoving to grab the best seat before someone else can. Note that unless you are on a budget carrier – which you shouldn’t be – there is still a first class on these flights and those passengers, rightly so, still get priority boarding. In Mythbusters’ test, this boarding procedure was the quickest. It took only 14 minutes, 7 seconds to load the plane so it could get on its way. Even better, depending on where you are seated, it provides the best floor show for first class passengers. And using the Darwin approach to plane boarding shaved ten minutes off the plane’s ground time.

Whichever class you are flying, air transportation is brutal these days. It seems to me that now that we know how a carrier can be more efficient, and can provide a better onboard entertainment experience for its passengers who count at the same time, all carriers should adopt the free for all boarding procedure. Low-cost carriers who insist on nickel and diming passengers could even make more profits by providing first class passengers a paid option for a color commentary feed of the boarding melee in the back of the plane so no one would miss the 90-year-old woman using her cane to snag a window seat away from a mother with two infants. In fact, airlines could charge more for tickets based on the passengers booked in cattle class. ‘Cuz who wouldn’t pay more to watch midget wrestling during boarding? And that, as Western Airlines once proclaimed, is the only way to fly.

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Going Gay

25 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

That's Gay

The world is opening up for the gay traveller.

I just read a blog by two young(er) American gay backpackers about their most recent trip around the world, their world being parts of South and Central America and Europe. They seemed to have had a grand time on their journey, partied their asses off, and certainly got their gay on while soaking up the sun and men in Ibiza. Elsewhere, not so much. In fact, when and where they allowed their true selves to shine was a conscious decision on their part, one they made on a daily basis. In one of their later posts they addressed the issue, explaining the various reasons they’d used to choose when and when not to be openly gay. There were a lot more instances of when not than when. Though with plenty of photos of their travels to peruse I think those when nots were more about not being in-your-face gay because gay backpacker #2 had rainbows shooting out of his ass.

In a perfect world you could travel your heart out being who you are. In the real one, closeted travel is an issue we all have to deal with at one time or another. It’s an acceptable fact of life for some, others – especially those who’ve learned how free life can be when you’ve come out of your closet – object to the idea of being forced back into the dark just because they chose to use their passport. Some avoid the issue by only travelling to gay friendly destinations (that’d be those locales gayer than John Travolta at a masseurs’ convention), others by only travelling to gay tolerant destinations and then staying within that area’s gay ghetto. Both will tell you that’s about freedom. But restricting your travel to only those places where you feel free to be yourself is really about closeted travel. Walls are walls regardless of who erected them.

Personally, I don’t feel the need to be segregated, to be only surrounded by other gay people. I’m an experienced traveler and am quite capable of handling myself in most situations around the world. I enjoy interacting with people of all backgrounds. I’m not looking for everyone to get – or appreciate – who I am and do not need to travel in a homogenized bubble. And while I can understand those who only travel to places with rainbows flying from every building, and have been to many of them myself, that’s not why I travel. The boys too went beyond those walls, but – at least for the first part of their journey – they carried a lot of those walls with them.

Some gay travellers exchange their closet for a suitcase.

With its culture of machismo and Catholic heritage South America is not exactly a hotbed of gayety. Okay, there’s Rio, where even when all the gay Olympic divers and gymnast hit town in 2016 the pink factor won’t trend upwards by even the smallest of blips. But even though homosexuality has been legal in Brazil since 1830 and same-sex marriage became the law of the land last year, in preparation for the FIFA World Cup being held in June many stores in Brazil began selling T-shirts bearing homophobic slogans such as calling Cristiano Ronaldo gay and footballer Diego Maradona a maricón. And while the São Paulo Gay Pride Parade is the world’s largest LGBT Pride celebration, 44% of world’s anti-LGBT violence occurs in Brazil too. But with an estimated 25% of tourists visiting Rio being gay (some 880,000 of them annually with a 90% satisfaction rating of their time there) the boys decided the numbers were in their favor. Rio, they felt, was a safe place to be gay, so they donned their feather and boas, and let their inner rainbows shine. But out of the three and a half months they spent south of the border, that was the only place they visited where they felt comfortable being themselves.

Some Latin American countries are more progressive than others; Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay have moved more quickly on gay rights than the United States has. But there is a difference between what is and isn’t legal and what the attitudes of the locals are. Our intrepid gay backpackers decided the safest course of action was to hide their relationship and who they were from everyone they met. They shared a room but not a bed, replaced the o in espouso with an a, and told anyone who asked they were friends from college travelling together rather than admit they were a married couple. Their overarching reason for travelling in the closet was for personal safety, occasionally it was ‘in respect’ for the families whose homes they stayed at; unsure of their attitude toward gay men it was easier to allow their relationship to be a non-issue by repressing it.

Both of those reason are understandable. Both are also the same justifications gay men have used in the past to stay safely cocooned in their closet. The boys went into a huddle in Costa Rica to reflect upon their last three months on the road and came to an important conclusion. They’d been traveling constantly but had not been getting to know people very well despite frequently interacting with locals and fellow-travellers alike. They realized that by not being themselves – and even actively hiding who they were – they’d prevented themselves from really getting to know people and sharing the incredible experience that international travel can be. It was time for a re-boot before they hit the shores in Europe.

Being open about who you are can make travel much more rewarding. The guys you’ll meet then ain’t a bad bonus either.

Not that that meant it was time to break the pink suitcases out. The pair still remained respectful of local culture and did not attempt to become poster boys for the gay traveller set. They admit they were not out to make big statements or to change deeply rooted ideologies. And at times they still had to hide who they were, such as while volunteering at a children’s orphanage in Ghana, a country where same-sex relationships are illegal and can be punishable with 5-25 years of imprisonment. Their change in attitude, however, was a positive experience. Or as they put it:

“The more we stepped out of our bubble to meet the travelers around us, the more comfortable and trusting we grew. We felt less and less necessity to be wary of coming out to people, especially travelers. You have to notice that travelers tend to be of a certain mindset (generally speaking). They’re typically very open minded. It’s a ‘come as you are’ and ‘let’s learn from each other’ kind of crowd. The more you open up to it, the more you stand to gain from it. In the end, we just became less willing to hold back.”

Like many gay travellers before them they learned that the unintended consequence of insulating oneself from homophobia is the insulation from many of the other rewarding experiences of travel. That doesn’t mean you have to constantly fly a rainbow flag. In fact depending on the country you are visiting doing so can be quite dangerous. But there’s a difference from being out and being visibly gay. And traveling in the closet, being forced to lie again, to pretend again, to be someone you are not again, is seldom the best way to go.

Rainbow-myopic travellers miss seeing a lot of the world in preference for a misguided sense of safety.

Some gay travellers adopt a don’t ask, don’t tell policy, preferring to keep their sexual identity private. That may work. At least until you are asked. I can’t say I’ve ever had a local or fellow touri ask me specifically if I was gay, but I am frequently asked if, or why I am not, married. There’s the how many children do you have question that comes up frequently too. Years ago, even though I was out in my home country, I’d lie. It was the easy out. I was on holiday to enjoy myself, not to deal with the possibility of homophobia. But one lie leads to another, even in a casual encounter. And in the end, being uncomfortable about not being myself far outweighed the possibility of finding myself in an uncomfortable situation.

Now when those questions come up I come out. And just as many have found when they finally came out of the closet, the reaction is more times than not a big yawn. Though in Brazil the nice old local lady who’d enquired about my wife then decided I needed to met her gay grandson. And that was a rewarding travel experience in its own right to say the least.

More recently I’ve begun travelling with my boyfriend. We’ve yet to have an eyebrow raised when we check into a hotel and have requested a single king-size bed. We travel as a couple. Openly so. We don’t seek out ‘gay friendly’ hotels, or choose where to visit off of the large travel sites’ rainbow pages because we don’t gay travel any more than we gay eat or gay park the car. Neither of us is big on PDAs and neither of us feels being openly gay means having to hang on each other, so local attitudes have not been a real concern. But then neither of us has a desire to visit Uganda either.

You don’t have to leave your gay at home when you set off to see the world.

Thailand has a well-deserved rep for welcoming its gay visitors. It is one of the places in the world where you will find zero problems in being who you are. It’s safe. And yet many gay visitors stay at a gay hotel, eat at gay restaurants and pubs, and hang out at the gay bars and gay clubs. The only locals they meet are gay, or more likely those who cater to the gay traveller trade. And that’s a shame. With all the country has to offer, segregating yourself does nothing more than insure you’ll never get to experience the Thailand most visitors are rewarded with.

The times are a’changing and so are people’s perceptions of and attitude towards gay men. In some areas of the world discretion is still the better part of valor. But in most, you’ll find that the majority of people whom you meet have enough troubles of their own and don’t really care who it is you’ve decided to love. And while you don’t need to be a world ambassador for gays, just being who you are can help change those attitudes. And it certainly can make for a much more rewarding and enjoyable trip.

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You Had Me At Gay

25 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

Gay Thailand, Hotels and Restaurants

Thailand travel sites after the pink dollar seem to think gay only means happy.

That many gays enjoy travel is not earth shattering news. The travel industry figured this out quite some time ago and responded with special promotions and gay-specific travel web pages, all in an effort to grab a hefty wad of the infamous pink dollar. It doesn’t matter whether you are a g-circuit party boy or an older gay couple intent on seeing the world, someone within the industry has you in their sights. Gay tours, travel for gay men, gay destinations, and places in the world of interest to gay men . . . wherever it is you are thinking of going the travel industry can make your holiday a gay one. Even if your destination of choice punishes homosexuality with death. Happy travels.

Gay travel means different things to different people. For some travellers its about scoring hot bodies regardless of where in the world they may be. For others its the sense of security and belonging they get from participating in organized tours made up solely of gay travellers, of people like us which they hope means people like them. And for others yet it is nothing more than the advice and assistance of travel professionals to ensure they – and usually their partner – are afforded a warm welcome wherever they go. Depending on the version of gay travel that interests you, you can find a perfect match, what you want and what the travel industry provides can result in one big sparkling rainbow with all involved happily content. In most cases however, you’ll quickly realize that to the travel industry gay is not a life-style but rather a demographic. And since the demographic you fit into promises lots of disposable income, travel professionals have no problem planting a few rainbows on their web pages to lure you in.

If you followed the travel industry’s example of what constitutes gay, the entire world would be sitting under a big pink rainbow. Sure ‘gay’ doesn’t necessarily mean sex (okay, it does but let’s pretend for a minute), but it should be used as a designation for something of specific interest to the gays. And of little interest to those who are not. Travel is one of the areas that draws a high amount of internet searches. For a gay man planning on visiting some new locale there is a wealth of information available on the internet. But, for example, to find out about the Grand Palace in Bangkok it does not require a website with rainbows on it. When the future traveller clicks on a supposedly gay website covering Thailand he’s looking for gay content – not just more of the same found elsewhere. It is amazing how many gay travel websites never deliver on the gay. You have to wonder if some website that tout the word gay in their title even know about the wonders of sucking dick.

Finally someone found a good use for a rainbow flag.

Orbitz is one of the larger and better known travel websites, offering hotel deals, airfares, and travel packages. They were one of the first to court gay customers. But if you look at their gay travel area it quickly becomes evident they haven’t a clue about who or what the gay community is. Except that it has something to do with rainbows.

Orbitz’s into to its gay vacation section begins with “Whether you’re living it up with the boys of summer or island-hopping with the ladies of Lesbos, we’re your one-stop travel shop for gay vacations.” Huh. Oh, ‘Lesbos’ ‘Lesbians” I get it. Though Orbitz probably just lost out on a lot of dyke dollars. Not that Orbitz really had its heart set to catering to the gay community anyway. Of the 83 top gay hotel deals they list, only one is gay owned and operated. Marriot, Hiton, and the usual gang make up the remainder of recommended hotels. And their Top Gay and Lesbian International Destinations lists 16 hot spots in Asia for the gay traveller. Thailand is not one of them. But if you are into being sold travel packages via video, they do have a series featuring Miss Richfield 1981, an over the top drag queen. ‘Cuz nothing says gay travel like a campy drag queen.

Closer to home, or at least closer to my heart, there is a still fairly new travel blog for Thailand online now that does a great job of using keywords to grab prime real estate on Google even if it doesn’t put as much effort into covering the gay destinations and areas of interest available to the Kingdom’s gay visitors. I don’t know who Carlos Melia is, but it doesn’t take much reading of his blog to learn he visited Thailand once and has now positioned himself as the leading travel expert on Thailand for gay men. His blog cum website ignores both Silom Soi 4 and Soi Twilight, but does include gay-specific travel deals like a stay 3 nights pay for 2 offer from Siam City Hotel, one of the better known gay hotels in Bangkok. Or at least I have to assume it is a gay hotel. I’m sure they have a rainbow somewhere on their property or website. And don’t get me started on Davey Wavey’s singular visit to the Land of Smiles.

Most Thailand gay travel websites say this does not exist.

Not surprisingly, because there are not a lot of opportunities for travel agents to make a buck these days, the gay travel industry tends to focus on upscale properties. If you are gonna go after the pink dollars, you may as well hone in on the larger denominations. I get that. But there are few properties in the world that cater specifically to the gay demographic. Which means your gay travel business is really not that different than any other travel-related business. Despite your rainbows to prove otherwise.

NewNowNext, part of the gay Logo TV brand has a website on travel. Which you’d think would finally be a true gay travel hub, but they are busy running their Traveler’s Choice Awards – supposedly the places in the world gay men love thee most – and from the start, they obviously haven’t a clue. While readers get to chose the eventual winners, nominations were suggested by a ‘notable’ panel of travel experts, folks who write for Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The New York Times travel section, The Wall Street Journal travel section, Marie Claire, Elle, Sherman’s Travel, Out, Town & Country, The Miami Herald travel section, Fodor’s, etc. Maybe buried in that etc. is a gay travel professional. Let’s just hope it wasn’t Carlos Melia. Not that it matters. Like regular travel sites courting the pink dollar, the majority of their suggestions have more to do with generating advertising dollars than they do with anything gay.

Not every gay man who visits Thailand has an interest in gogo bars or taking off a new friend to discover one of the better attractions the kingdom offers its gay visitors. At least that’s the rumor. But I don’t get how you can set your site up as the gay travel source for all things gay in Thailand and then forget to mention dick. And where you can find it. Travel Gay Asia, the new kid on the block, at least didn’t completely ignore sex tourism on their site. But while they list tons of other gay, gay-friendly, and not so gay but we threw a rainbow flag up anyway places, they only managed to find one bar on Soi Twilight. Three if you count Jupiter which is “located within the Suriwongse Hotel” and Tawan, which according to them is “located on a side street opposite the entrance to Soi Twilight”. As for why you’d want to visit Soi Twilight they say, “Go-go dancer bars have shows every hour or so, that can be fun to watch – if not taken too seriously. The content can range from erotic dancing to routines that leave only a little to the imagination. In host bars, you pay for the company of a guy by purchasing both yourself and him a drink and then tipping him when you leave.”

TAT wants gays to visit the country, but this is their vision of your gay vacation.

Utopia is one of the oldest sites offering info for SE Asia travel for gay men. It still ranks as the best. Purple Roofs makes a noble attempt, but is primarily focused on selling you a room. It too has been around for ages. TAT is trying to court the pink dollar, and at least now has a few photos of two guys together on its site, but still doesn’t seem to realize gay and sex tend to go hand in hand. Or that at least a few other body parts are generally involved. The upstarts that spring up monthly all seem to believe in the Field of Dreams promise, that if you build it they will come, instead of the old adage that if you build a better mouse trap the world will flock to your door. Better does not mean the same old same old. And if you are trying to trap the gays, you’d better use some dick as bait. Instead of just a few cheesy rainbows.

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Siem Reap. Or Bust

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Bangkok, Cambodia, Transportation

Ever notice how AirAsia’s promotional shots of their planes always seem to be mooning you?

The good news is that AirAsia has just added BKK – REP to its ever growing list of routes the budget airliner services. The bad new is that Air Asia has just added BKK – REP to its ever growing list of routes the budget airliner services. Once the sole domain of Bangkok Airways, with AirAsia’s entry to flying this route visitors from Bangkok will now be able to fly to Siem Reap for about half of what it used to cost them. But to cash in on that savings, you’ll have to put up with AirAsia’s complete disregard for the comfort, travel schedule, health, well being, and dignity of its customers.

I’ve flown AirAsia before. Many times before. And bitched about all the things you have to put up with when flying with them too. Or trying to. Last time I manned up and decided to go with price over comfort their on-line booking system couldn’t figure out how to accept a VISA card as payment. Though it was AirAsia’s problem and not VISA, I still feel I owe VISA a thanks for saving me from yet another flight from hell. But with the allure of a direct flight at a cheap price dancing in my head, I thought I’d bite the bullet and check out what AirAsia could do for me when flying to Siem Reap. Big surprise, their only interest was in doing me.

When it comes to airlines, low cost means no frills. And AirAsia makes sure there is nothing frilly about your life. Starting at the airport. Your flight with them really isn’t BKK-REP, it’s DMK-REP – they fly out of the old Don Muang airport. Which, other than having already agreed to being a second class citizen, isn’t a problem as long as you are not connecting from a flight that landed at Suvarnabhumi. Or unless you forgot to tell your taxi which airport you needed to go to. On the plus side, they do fly to Siem Reap (and back, which you do need to check since this is AirAsia we are talking about) seven days a week. And at a respectable hour – the outbound flights leave at 10:20, with returning flights departing Siem Reap at 12:25. As for fares, when you fly with AirAsia, flexibility counts. Both in your travel schedule and in your standards of travel.

AirAsia is a great airline to fly when you want to be treated like a piece of luggage.

Wanting to get past their almost free introductory fare hype, I chose two dates in early October. And then looked at the fares for each day of that week. Tuesdays offered the best deal. Each way the cost was 670 baht. A nice addition to their on-line booking site is that they now compute the total fare – well, at least the addition of taxes and fuel charges – up front. So the total fare came to 3,408 baht. Though there may be additional charges still to come. Knowing AirAsia, I’m sure there are. But I couldn’t tell you. ‘Cuz the on-line system wouldn’t allow me to proceed further. It kept asking me to select the number of passengers, and no matter how many I selected it did not approve of my answer. Despite repeated attempts I was unable to book a ticket even if I had wanted to. You may have better luck. I just assumed the gods were looking over me and protected me from making a grievous life error.

No problemo. I had, at least, established a possibly full fare figure to compare with what the same flight on Bangkok Airways would run. Bangkok Airways flies out of Suvarnabhumi, which already made me feel better about myself. Bangkok Airways also gets bonus points for offering a lounge to all of its passengers, which if I fly with Noom, in his opinion, is the only way to fly. Bangkok Airways also offers five flights per day to choose from, which if you are connecting from some other destination makes life a lot easier. They had a comparable flight to AirAsia’s – one that landed 5 minutes earlier than AirAsia’s – which means getting to immigration before the poor souls whose bad karma put them on the AirAsia flight.

But you don’t always get what you pay for. Bangkok Airways roundtrip fare (including taxes etc., etc., etc.) ran a hefty 11,195 baht. 7,787 more than Air Asia. Which is about an additional $260 for the same one hour flight. You could take two bar boys with you and still have money left in your wallet at that fare. Assuming you could get AirAsia’s on-line booking service to sell you the tickets.

Tranquility Lost: Thanks to AirAsia, the crowds at the Angkor Wat temples will soon be massive.

Bangkok Airways has had that route to itself and has always charged accordingly. In the past if you wanted to fly cheap, you had to fly into Phnom Penh and then take the 5 hour, $11 bus to Siem Reap. Now that there is competition, perhaps they will lower their fares. A bit. As badly as AirAsia sucks, it’s only a one hour flight. For $100 more, I’d gladly fly with Bangkok Airways. For $250, probably not.

The new competition for flying into Siem Reap is not going to be gentle to Bangkok Airways’ bottom line, even if they do hold on to a hefty portion of the market by coming up with a reasonable fare. Cambodia, undoubtedly, will benefit greatly. With the added number of touri who’ll decide the temples at Angkor Wat just became both less expensive and more convenient to visit, Siem Reap will flourish. And I’m not sure that is a good thing.

Low-cost airlines cater to low-cost travellers, the once bucolic town has already been over-run by the less than desirable vacationers over the last few years. A lot of the town’s charm will disappear thanks to the hordes who will be taking advantage of the low airfares offered by AirAsia. And with more and more touri choosing Siem Reap as a destination, you can expect prices in town for hotels, transpo, and food to soon be on the rise. Air Asia is a lot like WalMart; when they come into town the results are never a pretty sight. So if you haven’t been before, now is the time to visit Siem Reap. And if you can get AirAsia’s on-line booking system to sell you a ticket, you can do it for less than 1,000 baht if you grab one of their first 8,000 seats.

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Flight 214, Lessons Learned

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Transportation

The horror that was when Asiana Flight 214 failed to stick its landing.

Like many frequent flyers and San Francisco bay area residents, last Saturday’s tragic crash of Asiana Flight 214 touched home; I was one of the thousands stuck in the backlog of traffic on U.S. 101 when the San Francisco Airport was closed to incoming and departing traffic after the crash. Faced with such a horror, it is human nature to wonder how a tragedy like this can be prevented in the future. But the sad fact is that most large international airports in the U.S. are situated closely to major highways and the unfortunate loss of vehicular mobility when a plane falls out of the sky is unavoidable.

There is little we can do to prevent this type of horror from happening again, but perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the airliner’s crash instead. Since as a passenger your role is to simply board, strap in, be equally bored and abused for the duration of the flight, and then disembark, you wouldn’t think you’d need to be a rocket scientists to be part of the cattle call known as modern day air travel. But those whose profession as a talking head requires their lips to move regardless of the lack of accompanying brain activity say differently. How you can improve your chances of surviving a airplane crash has become the favorite topic of side-bar featured analysts this week when the nation’s media should have instead been focused on the payback we’ll all vicariously receive when the jury in the Trayvon Martin murder trial hands that officious little prick security guard / policeman wannabe his head on a platter.

Unfortunately that means instead of learning tips for being the sole survivor of a plane crash instead we’ve been given worthless advice such as never wear flip flops on a plane ‘cuz they “are the wrong attire for evacuation slides.” “Count the rows to the nearest exit, since you may need to find it under dark or smoky conditions,” on the other hand, isn’t bad advice. Though personally I think counting the old people between you and the nearest exit who’ll be easy to climb over is an even surer path to safety. With that in mind, here are some considerations on surviving a plane crash thanks to the lessons learned from Flight 214’s rough landing:

The odds are you are more likely to die from a grocery store’s roof collapsing on you than from flying. Happy shopping!

The Odds Are With You Even If The Force Is Not. The two teenage girls who arrived at their final destination on Flight 214 were the first two deaths on a scheduled commercial flight in the United States this year. In fact they set the record for the last 4½ years. During that period, more than 3 billion passengers flew with no fatalities in the United States or on U.S. airlines. At that risk per flight, a traveler could on average fly once a day for 4 million years before succumbing to a fatal crash. An American teenager is far more likely to grow up to be president or win the Nobel Prize in physics than he is to perish on a flight today. Think about that: as difficult as it is to believe, a U.S. teenager will actually win the Nobel Prize in physics some day.

Unless Lightening Strikes Twice. As a passenger there’s not much you can personally do to increase the odds that your plane will get you to your intended destination in one piece. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore the few things that you do have control over. You probably play the lottery, and probably have your favorite lucky numbers. But do you ever consider the lucky or unlucky numbers of your flight? No. You don’t. Or at least 307 passengers last week didn’t. Flight 214 doesn’t have a good record for staying aloft. In 1963 Pan Am’s version crashed near crashed near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 on board. After being hit by lightning. Just sayin.

We All Have Baggage. Unless he had jars filled with summer kimchi packed in his carry-on, the actions of Flight 214’s passenger Xu Da, who said he first grabbed his luggage, then scooped up his young child and fled the burning plane with his wife is perplexing. The instinct of many of the passengers to find their luggage before their children and fleeing for their lives has baffled airline safety experts, none of whom, obviously, have children. Amateur video shot of the aftermath of Saturday’s crash show some passengers wheeling their heavy luggage away from the plane just moments before it catches fire. You have to wonder just how attached some people are to their knock-off Gucci luggage.

This strange phenomenon just proves that Darwin had it right. Not that his theory can’t occasionally use an assist. As can your fellow passengers during your flight to safety. Feel free to offer your help to those fools in front of you struggling with their baggage. Then once in your control, toss their bags toward the back of the plane. This should clear your path to the nearest exit nicely. And if you accidently mistake a child for a piece of luggage, evidently your error will be of little concern to its parents. Though you may still have to toss a few of their bags away to get them to move.

Luggage 52 / Kids 0

Location, Location, Location. According to research commissioned by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and carried out by Greenwich University in London that studied 105 airliner accidents, passengers sitting in the aisle seats near the front of an airliner and within five rows of the emergency exit are the most likely to survive a crash. Which makes sense ‘cuz those who could only afford to travel in steerage are basically nothing more than ballast anyway.

Randy Reep, a Florida attorney and professional pilot who couldn’t snag a gig offering his useless input on the Trayvon Martin murder trial and had to settle for a role as a talking head for coverage of Flight 214’s crash instead, disagrees. He says the safest place to sit is in the back of the plane, citing the not-a-fact that all the weight and momentum in an airplane is being pushed forward when it hits a stop to back up his opinion. Reep says those in the front of the plane during a crash become, basically, pancakes.

I can’t tell you whether Reep or the CAA is right, but can tell you that I am getting sick and tired of the class warfare being incited by the 99% and it has to come to a stop. I can also tell you that whether it is safer to sit in the back of the plan or not, by doing so you’d have a 93.8% greater chance of sitting next to someone like George Zimmerman. Or a Florida attorney who’s so crappy at his day job that he has to take part-time work providing inane commentary for CBS to use as filler between commercials.

Since this is how the airlines view you anyway, you should be prepared for the day your plane falls out of the sky.

Is Bigger Better? Even when it comes to aluminum tubes mocking the earth’s pull, size matters and bigger is better. Or at least more safe. Asiana Flight 214 was a Boeing 777, which holds between 314 and 451 passengers depending on how tightly an airline company packs them in. The 777’s record of fatal crashes is at 1. Ooops, make that 2. The 737, which can hold up to 215 passengers has experienced 72 fatal crashes, while the no longer in production but still in use 727 with a 189 passenger count has crashed with an accompanying body count 50 times.

Um, About Those Frequent Flyer Miles. Airlines like to boast about their on-time record, but seldom mention their Full Loss Equivalent (FLE) score, which computes their fatal event rate. In the U.S., American Airlines leads the pack with a score of 10.08 for its 13 not death defying mishaps. For the Pacific region, Taiwan’s China Airlines has a 6.44 FLE thanks to its 10 crashes, and Turkish Airlines holds the record in Europe with a 10 crash 7.56 FLE score.

Watching Survivor Could Mean You Are A Survivor. Just ‘cuz you walked away from a burning plane that made an unscheduled landing doesn’t mean your fun is all done. Juliane Koepcke, the 17-year-old sole survivor of Flight 508 that crashed and burned en route to Lima, Peru fell 10,000 feet strapped to her seat into the jungle below. 10 days later she managed to trek her way to civilization and eventual rescue.

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06 Monday May 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

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Stupid Tourist Tricks

International travel can open your mind to new experiences, or help you maintain a closed mind about your fellow travellers.

Huh. I really shoulda saved that elephant fisting photo I posted yesterday for today’s post . . .

There are those whose greatest travel pleasure is whining about the behavior of their fellow touri. And then there are those of whom the former whine about. It’s a universal truth nicely summed up by that well-known adage: Those who can, do; those who have a stick up their ass, preach.

Not that any travel-related behavior should be considered acceptable, but what gets some grumbler’s panties in a wad is nothing more than the sight of someone else having a good time. And sure, you shouldn’t traipse around Bangkok wearing nothing but skimpy beach attire – unless you have the body of a god – but then that sort of behavior is more of an embarrassment to the transgressor than it is to the rest of us. Not that you want to ever see most of those bodies revealed even when you are at the beach.

What constitutes proper tourist behavior and which actions should be universally deplored and condemned are often in the eye of the beholder. It’s a lot like pornography, or as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart put it, it’s hard to define, but I know it when I see it. To some the sight of a touri who has had a few too many brings on a conniption fit over public drunkenness, while most just assume the poor bloke is an Aussie and, karma being what it is, will suffer for his behavior when he wakes up the next morning with the mother of all hangovers. There are a few rude travel behaviors that everyone agrees should be banned, but most depend greatly on where you are from and how you were raised. Even among those who are fussy old queens raised to seek out faults in others in order to maintain their illusions of moral superiority.

Screw the souvenirs, it’s memories that can really make a holiday. Even if you can’t remember them.

International travel was once reserved for the cultural elite. Nowadays, as Air Asia like to brag: Everyone Can Fly. The tourist areas of the world have become a melting pot, bubbling over with a spectacular mass of people who come from different backgrounds and traditions. That can cause problems. What is socially acceptable to one culture results in charges of tourists behaving badly from those of others. Think American tourists and many immediately picture loud, overweight, poorly dressed folk who don’t speak any language other than English and who are totally ignorant of the places they travel to, excluding information that they’ve picked up from Lonely Planet. Think Japanese vacationers and many picture large groups on tour, loaded with the latest models of the most expensive photographic equipment to take smiling pictures everywhere, who willingly over-pay for anything and everything while braying among themselves about how vastly inferior the people of the land they are visiting are.

Brits have long suffered from a loutish image abroad, obnoxiousness seeming to be their #1 export – though to be fair, in a recent survey published in Newsweek, French and Indian tourists ranked higher on the obnoxiousness scale. In fact, while being an Aussie and being an alcoholic are often viewed as being synonymous, the French are the perennial favorite for the #1 spot on Expedia’s annual survey of the world’s best and worst tourists and are generally viewed as being the biggest skinflints, the worst tippers, the least able or inclined to speak foreign languages, and usually rank last in terms of their politeness and behavior. And then there are the Chinese.

Two months ago, according to a China Economic Net report, some high-end vacation resorts in the Maldives have become so outraged over what they consider to be bad behavior on the part of vacationers from China they’ve changed their property’s operating procedures: employees have been instructed to remove the hot water kettle in every Chinese tourist’s room. The social faux pas this new policy was designed to curb is the Chinese nationals’ love of Cup of Noodles; the resorts were upset that the tourists were not spending their money in restaurants but sitting in their hotel rooms chowing down on instant noodles instead. The Chinese, of course, are incensed. Not that the China National Tourism Administration is willing to give their people a free pass on proper touri etiquette while abroad.

20% of touri like to mark their spot globally.

Teaming up with the central government’s Office of the Spiritual Civilization Development Steering Commission they conducted a study on The Frequent Bad Behaviors of Chinese Citizens Who Travel Abroad, which detailed ten popular complaints against Chinese tourists, including: littering, spitting, snatching bus seats, queue-jumping, taking off shoes and socks in public, speaking loudly, bad temper and cursing, and smoking in non-smoking areas. In response, the Ministry of Tourism issued a brochure for Chinese tourists called The Manual on Proper Behavior for Chinese Citizens Traveling Abroad. It lists helpful information, suggesting touri eat their food quietly, not cut into queues, and, in order to ‘protect the environment’ not to litter. It also warns against spitting on the ground, not because it’s a disgusting habit but because everyone needs to do their part to curb the problem of greenhouse gases.

Cultural norms aside, the sight of touri gone wild in and of itself does seem to be the norm. The results of an unscientific survey by travel app Triposo, were recently released which showed misbehaving while on holiday, for many, if just part of the travel experience. Their research covered everything from travel etiquette and manners – like hogging arm rests and asking to switch seats incessantly – to drunken misbehavior and foreign fraternization. Some of their findings may surprise you. Or help you to realize you are not alone. Or give you something more to whine about:

70% of touri’s photographs are more monumentual than they are of monuments.

The Joy Of Sex:
· 70 percent admitted to some form of sexual fraternization.
· 25 percent admitted to a one-night stand.
· 17 percent did it in a public place.
· 16 percent did it with someone who didn’t speak a word of their language.
· 6 percent admitted to cheating on a significant other; and
· 5 percent broke up with said significant other.
· 6 percent admitted to soliciting sex.

The Evils Of Alcohol:
· 60 percent admitted to getting totally blitzed.
· 11 percent reported injuries thanks to having one too many.
· 20 percent admitted to urinating in public.
· 10 percent admitted to vomiting in public.
· 5 percent say drinking abroad led to naked escapades in public.

Bad Boys:
· 20 percent who admitted to stealing while in a foreign country
· 15 percent admitted to buying or selling drugs.
· Almost 14 percent admitted to some form of trespassing.
· 6 percent admitted to smuggling contraband.
· Less than 2 percent report being arrested, though more than 10 percent reported being held at the border.

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Who Knew Iran Is A Gay Friendly Destination?

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

≈ 8 Comments

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That's Gay

Yes there are many hot guys in the middle east and many of them are gay. But calling the Arabian world gay friendly might be pushing it.

I’d like to see a show of hands from those of you who know what the word gay means.
Huh. As I thought, almost unanimous with a few hold outs from those whose hands were busy enjoying the naked dude’s picture I just posted.

You wouldn’t think that gay would be such an undefinable word. Especially among those who are. But as soon as you tack on the word friendly, confusion rules the day. At least among those who have a problem with saying what they mean. Queries about which hotels and SE Asian locales qualify as being gay friendly are a common post on the gay Thailand message boards. But they never really mean friendly to gay people. What they mean is friendly to sex tourists. What they are asking is how open a place is to bringing a prostitute back to your hotel with you. Granted, just like their straight brethren, gay men tend to have active libidos. But that doesn’t mean every gay traveler plans his holiday based on the availability of male whores. No, really.

Recently there was a thread on SGT about how gay friendly Cambodia is. The discussion centered on hotels in Phnom Penh, and how many of those establishments were not friendly to gay clientele. Cambodia is trying to not become the new Thailand. The government is not in favor of sex tourism. Many of the hotels in the country’s capital city post signs stating they do not allow customers to bring prostitutes back to the premises. Nowhere in those signs is the word gay used. But the punters on SGT have decided that makes Phnom Penh not gay friendly.

A Not Gay Friendly sign in Cambodia?

On my last visit to Cambodia I made my first visit to Phnom Penh with two stays in the city, one at the beginning and one at the end of my visit. I stayed at two different hotels. One had a No Visitors sign posted, the other did not. Neither asked, or seemed to care whether I was gay or not. But then I didn’t travel to Cambodia to see how cheaply I could buy a local boy either. Some do, and I have no problem with sex tourists. Depending on where it is I’m travelling, I probably even qualify as one at times. I do have a problem though with those who can’t man up and admit that they are. Only because their inability to say what they mean leads the uninitiated into believing a locale is not friendly to gays when the opposite is true. Not that travel industry professionals do much better. Even those who specialize in info for gay travelers and sex touri alike.

The Spartacus International Gay Guide recently released its updated list of the world’s top gay friendly destinations. Their guide was once the definitive source for all things gay for the world traveller. Back before the internet. That they even still exist came as a surprise to me. As did their determination that Thailand ranks as the 38th most gay friendly country. In a ten-way tie with the U.S., Aruba, Hungary, Mexico . . . and Cambodia among others. Guess those signs at hotels in Phnom Penh haven’t been every effective.

Indonesia’s ranking as the 104th most gay friendly destination would be higher if you only considered Bali. Or this guy.

There is something inherently wrong with either the definition you are using or the criteria you’ve selected to use when you end up with a 10-way tie for any of the spots on your list. When your are judging how gay friendly a country is and you determine that there is no difference between the experience gay men will have in Mexico and Thailand, then something is rotten in the state of Denmark (which came in at the #6 spot, in a 3-way tie with Canada and Iceland).

Spartacus’ popularity as a guide among gay travelers was always its list of bar, pubs, and meting places for gay men in each of the countries and cities it covered. No matter how outdated that information was. But for determining which places were the most gay friendly, they decided to not judge them based on gay nightlife. Instead they used criteria such as the laws and customs of each country as they relate to marriage equality, HIV travel restrictions, hate-crime murders, laws against homosexuality, and others. The availability of male prostitutes was not included in their list.

Vietnam came in at the 48th place along with the Philippines.

While it is good to know in which countries you may face the death penalty for having sex with a local hottie, whether or not you can marry him is not one of the major concerns for the average gay traveller. How you can expect to be treated as either a single gay man or a gay couple is. How many gay bars there are, and whether or not a taxi driver will kick you out of his cab when you ask to be taken to one is of more interest than whether or not gay men are allowed to adopt. What, if any, hassles you can expect when checking into a hotel with your same-sex partner matters more to most gay travelers than does the amount of dollars spent on attracting the LGBT market. And yes, even the availability of male prostitutes ranks higher than the equality of the locale’s age on consent laws (though for some those laws in and of themselves are of major importance).

Using political criteria to define how gay friendly a country is, is no better than using the criterion of how acceptable prostitution is. In Indonesia, which ranked at the 104th spot in a 14-way tie that included Singapore in its group, homosexuality is not illegal. Though it is in the Aceh Province and South Sumatra which have both invoked Sharia law. Yet throughout the country, where 85% of the populace is Muslim, same-sex couplings remain taboo. So its low ranking would make sense. Until you consider Bali, which is pretty much a gay paradise.

Peru joins Singapore and Indonesia as the 104th most gay friendly destination. Though that rank might have just been raised a few notches.

I’m not sure what the laws about homosexuality are in Singapore; every time I’ve visited there I’ve been too busy getting laid to have the time to look them up. As for neighboring Malaysia, where homosexuality is illegal, it came in at the 130th spot with only 8 other countries ranking lower. Which is all good and well but fails to account for all the little Malaysian gay guys on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Finding a sex partner in Malaysia is easier than finding an underage bar boy in Sunee Plaza. Nor does it account for how Vatican City (#127) managed to score as a more gay friendly destination than Malaysia. But then on second thought . . .

Gay friendly probably is a more popular internet search phrase than homophobic countries where they’ll kill me for being gay is, so while it is understandable for SEO purposes that Spartacus would use the gay friendly moniker for their list, when you call it the ‘Top Gay Friendly Destinations In The World” there is a problem when you include Iran on your list. Even if it is in last place. There is nothing gay friendly about Iran. They don’t even have gays in Iran according to the country’s president. But then maybe if the pundits on SGT spent some time in Iran they’d change their mind about what gay friendly really means.

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11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

≈ 21 Comments

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Transportation

Doing it solo can be a pleasurable experience.

A visit to Thailand, even just a holiday in Bangkok, can be completely different each and every time you go. Sometimes it’s the weather. Sometimes its the people you meet or the places within the city you visit. For me, some trips are heavily filled with business, others provide ample free time to play touri. Not hitting the bars, or hitting the bars nightly, can make one trip totally different from another, as can finding a guy to spend the entire holiday with or playing butterfly instead and sampling the many guys the city has to offer. But nothing has as much of an impact as does who you travel with.

I’ve made the trip by myself. And I’ve gone with a buddy, both gay and straight. I’ve visited Bangkok with a small group of friends, again both gay and straight as well as mixed, and once even made a pseudo group tour hitting the Kingdom with a gaggle of fifteen friends and acquaintances (all gay thanks the gods . . . if you consider lesbians to be gay too). Travelling by yourself or with a friend or group of friends makes the experience unique. That can be a good thing, or a bad thing. It all depends on who is in your wolf pack.

The Advocate had an interview that I wanted to read the other day and while on-line I decided to click through a variety of articles to see what else interested me. Articles on travel always grab my attention and seeing one with the title “Going Solo”, I clicked in for a read.

Travelling on your own exposes you to a different world.

I assumed being in the Advocate it would cover the joys of travelling by yourself. Instead it was a short article covering what the author thought to be the downside of solo travel and how to best negate those problems and concerns. The Advocate is all about gay rights, equality and empowerment for gays but still is cool with discriminating against single men. The author was concerned that the cons of travelling by yourself were too worrisome, and then went on to list the dangers of solo travel such as the cost of a double-occupancy hotel room being almost as much as single-occupancy (huh?) – which he suggested staying in a hostel as a remedy – problems with meeting people (his sage advice was to always carry a lighter with you even if you don’t smoke), and the horror of dining at a restaurant by yourself, which you can avoid by eating at street carts, sitting at a restaurant’s bar instead of asking for a table, or eating early or late to avoid being the sole sole diner in a room full of couples and groups. I was waiting for him to remind his readers that as solo travellers we are required to sit at the back of the bus.

More times than not I travel alone. I’m great company. At least for myself. Solo travel isn’t for everyone. There are a lot of people out there who just are not comfortable enough with themselves, and just as many who are not comfortable visiting a foreign land without the safety net of a companion. I enjoy travelling with friends, but nothing beats the freedom of being on your own. You can do what you want when you want. And can be just as happy doing nothing at all.

Travelling solo opens you to different experiences and I’ve always found strangers tend to reach out to you when you travel solo too. Maybe it’s pity that makes them make that effort; I don’t care. I’ve spent some wonderful times in the company of complete strangers who quickly became friends. And unlike when travelling with friends, if you decide you don’t really like the people you find yourself hanging out with, it’s always easy to ditch them.

Solo travellers find it easy to make new friends.

That can be one of the biggest detriments to travelling with a friend, a lover, or a group. When things become unbearable, ditching your travel companion(s) is not considered good form. Even if not doing so means ruining your holiday. Knowing the people you travel with well, before the trip is a must. Discovering what it is like to live with them for weeks on end while in a foreign country is almost a surefire recipe for a disaster. On any trip there are things that go wrong, things that you didn’t expect that happen, and tons of little annoying things that crop up that can tax your patience. How you deal with those on your own is one thing, how you deal with them in a group dynamic is another. For some those little molehills quickly become mountains and the next thing you know you’re standing at the foot of Vesuvious. Those little problems often become one of the more memorable experiences of your trip. They can be memories that you laugh about later, or cringe at the row the whole thing became because of the reaction by someone you were travelling with. Solo travel avoids those type of conflagrations. But then for some, even travelling alone, means travelling in a dysfunctional wolf pack.

Not long ago I read what I still consider one the saddest statements about travel I’ve ever run across. I think the reason it bothered me as much as it did is because I usually expect more out of those of us who travel. We’re supposed to be the thrill-seekers. Or at least the enlightened ones. Some, evidently, are the exception to that rule:

“After so many trips to the Land of Smiles the awe and wonder about the place has dimmed, but only slightly. Most times I’ve found that it’s been my fellow visitors and the havoc they wreak in pursuit of their Ultimate Holidays that’s been to blame much more than any legitimate complaint about the country or people themselves. The further I get from the less savory areas, the more I enjoy my time there.”

He’s cute and single. And if you are travelling by yourself, so are you.

Huh. I can’t imagine how anyone fortunate enough to fly off to an exotic locale, even when doing so – as for many of us – has become routine can allow that joy to be diminished to any degree by nothing more than the conduct of complete strangers. How completely screwed up do you have to be that the manner in which others – people you do not know and with whom you are not travelling – go about enjoying their holiday has such a negative effect on your own enjoyment? The only thing worse would be if that person was your travel companion and you had to listen to their whining for the entire trip. Travelling solo means not having to deal with other people’s baggage. Or dour dispositions.

I still consider travel to be about discovery. I’m intrigued by the places and people, their way of life, their customs, their oddities, and the differences between their world and mine. Angkor Wat was incredible, the conversation I had with the little urchin selling postcards more memorable. Bora Bora was stunningly beautiful, almost missing my plane ride home from strolling the beach collecting shells with an old British couple I’d met is the memory of that trip that first springs to mind. A visit to Taiwan is a blur thanks to downing far too many boiler makers with a group of straight Aussie guys I met at a bar. None of which would have happened had I been travelling with a companion or group of friends.

Solo travel is comparable to the difference between striking out on your own and taking a group packaged tour. It’s not for everybody; some are willing to give up the experience for the comfort of being shepherded about. But for those willing to stand on their own, the rewards of solo travel can’t be beat. Solo travel is about pleasuring yourself. And that’s a good thing. Because even with travel, it really is all about me.

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