Going Greek - A Look At LGBT Life In Greece

As St. Petersburg effectively puts a ban on LGBT tourists, I decided to take a closer look at the scene in Greece to see how it compares with other countries in Europe particularly now that Spartacus has published its gay travel index for countries around the world! So just for this once the Gay Crete Blog becomes the Gay Greece Blog!

I don't know about you, but I always love the charts and statistics that get produced showing how gay friendly or un-friendly places are and the current Spartacus chart shows some quite amusing results this year, you can find it here at Spartacus World.

Now I was quite pleased to see that Greece scores a resounding zero on the chart although I was a bit mystified by the fact that Greece got a minus 1 for 'locals hostile' when in fact Greeks are some of the friendliest people you can come across and will welcome virtually everyone, the fact that they are not really interested in your sexuality shouldn't really come into the statistics at all! Strangely the UK also got a minus 1 for the same reason, and Peru got a minus 2 for the same reason, and yet I found during a recent trip to Peru that they were some of the friendliest people in South America, particularly when you compare them to the reception you get from people in Rio de Janeiro.

As you would expect Turkey gets a minus 4 overall (the same as Peru but for different reasons), which makes a bit of a nonsense with Out Traveler listing Turkey as an 'Up and Coming Destination', while at the same time getting humpy about the situation in St. Petersburg!

But I digress as we are supposed to be talking about Greece.......

To say that Greek people are conservative, religiously and socially, would be an understatement, and to many of them the concept of 'gay' is almost impossible to grasp, for this reason many Greeks are not, and never will be, 'out', having said that there are many younger people who are, and will even admit to it on their Facebook profile, presumably they work on the basis that none of their family or friends are on Facebook. Of course many visitors to Greece 'worry' about this and the fact that there do not appear to be any anti-discrimination laws when in fact existing Greeks laws already outlaw discrimination.

Naturally enough a result of this conservatism means that Greeks rarely upset other countries so acts of terrorism against Greece are very rare making it one of the safest countries in the world to visit!

Of course there is the occasional skirmish with Turkey, but then the Greeks have long memories and I always put this down to the debacle over Helen of Troy.

So while the Greeks are mainly totally disinterested in your sexuality, this does not extend into other areas of your personal life, and you can impress a Greek by being au fait with your family history for the last 300 years (at least), and they will have no qualms about asking what you do for a living, whether you own your own home, how much you paid for it, or how much rent you pay etc. etc. etc.

As with any other country you are expected to obey the accepted moral and social behaviour and while, undoubtedly, the sight of two men walking down the street hand in hand would raise eyebrows (but possibly be excused on the grounds that you are 'foreign'), it is perfectly acceptable for a man to greet a close friend or relative of the same sex, that he has not seen for a while, or on a special occasion, with a warm embrace and kiss on each cheek. It is amazing at the way some tourists seem to think that they can do anything they like as a tourist, and seem to regard visiting a foreign country as a right when of course it is actually a privilege to be allowed to do so!

Enough of my moralising and tut-tutting.......As you would expect the most amount of LGBT nightlife exists in the largest cities in Greece, i.e. Athens the capital, and Thessaloniki, and since the Greeks discovered the Internet a couple of years ago there has been a burgeoning of web sites, some of them very nice and some of them exceedingly awful. As with most things Greek they are all in competition with each other and I suspect that most of their owners expect to make a fortune by putting up a web site which they will sell at a vast profit at a later date without ever promoting it or updating it. Nonetheless for the LGBT traveller they can be useful, of course many LGBT travellers head straight for Mykonos or Lesvos and would never dream of going to Athens which is a shame, as there is a lot of incorrect information about Mykonos for instance, when statistically there are likely to be more LGBT tourists visiting, say, Crete, than there are to Mykonos. (Ignore one web site that says Mykonos welcomes millions of gay travellers each year as Mykonos only gets about a million visitors a year in total!)

So let's look at some of these web sites.....One of the oldest is Gay Greece and one of the few that has a reasonable translated English version, it even has a section on Crete although I am not in it because I decline to pay for an entry, apparently it is OK for me to promote the Gay Greece web site for free, but not the other way round.....

Then there is Gay Radio and its sister dating site Gay Book Star and then there is the gay chat and guide site Gay Hellas and these are just a few of the general sites. Many of the various bars in Athens and Thessaloniki also have their own site.

For such a conservative country we also have a number of magazines and blogs such as Fagazine, City Uncovered which has a good English version too, and my favourite just for the name and slogan alone Screw - Because Fags Can Read not to mention AntiVirus and 10Percent and our local blog for Crete Lesbian and Gay in Crete

How are we doing so far for a country that is so 'in the closet'??

Naturally most of these sites are in Greek so you will need to have an auto translate installed on your browser, most of these do a reasonable job but sometimes translate peoples' names with hilarious results.

You can also find many of these sites have 'Pages' on Facebook which has the Bing translate on it automatically although it falls flat on its face when it comes across Greek that has been transliterated into Roman characters.

There is a plethora of web sites about Greece generally too, many of these repeat the same things over and over, but one called Travelscope, has taken a slightly different approach, you can read here what they have to say about Crete and prospective visitors to Mykonos might like to take a note of what they have to say about Mykonos here.

Meanwhile here on Crete which statistically almost certainly welcomes more LGBT visitors than Mykonos in an area 100 times greater and therefore, with a lot more to see and do, (unless you really want to spend 10 days in an expensive alcoholic haze fighting for a space on the beach) we will battle on regardless and drop a gentle reminder that we now have two gay bars!

The Gay Baby Boomers – Are We The Forgotten Generation?

I make no apologies for this post as it goes worldwidebut sometimes things just have to be said. I was reading through postings in a group on GTN and it got me thinking about times past...Never a good thing to do when you get older, but at the time I was having a trawl through gay web sites generally and noticed that wherever you go, most of the bars, clubs, and other venues for gay men, seem to revolve around younger people.

I should point out at this stage that I am actually a bit too young to be a ‘baby boomer’, well almost anyway.

Now this could just be me of course, but although us older lot still like to go out and have a good time, do we, when we are on holiday, want to spend our nights clubbing and our days sitting on the beach or by a pool with a hangover, getting fried to a crisp, and then repeating the whole process over again the next night?

Yes, we do like the occasional visit to a nightclub to watch the crass, callow eye candy dance the night away aided by two bottles of beer and a pocketful of illegal substances, but in spite of what they think, we are not dead from neck up, or from the waist down, (as more than one young gentleman discovered when I was visiting Peru and Chile last month).

And while they drink their two beers, us mature ones sit there and consume an entire bottle of gin with not too much tonic as we don’t have malaria as the barman seems to think.

OK, we are on holiday so we can sleep the following day but for most of us sleeping in the sun for hours on end is out of the question. We are more likely to want to spend the day submerged in a tank of moisturiser to try and reverse the ravages that time, (and too much alcohol), has wrought upon us.

And yet many gay ‘destinations’ offer little else to do.

Let’s take the Greek island of Mykonos, probably one of the most famous gay destinations in the world. And don’t get me wrong here, Mykonos is a pretty island, but it is not the almost exclusively gay Greek island that it was back in the 1970’s when I first went there. There is gay nightlife and some gay beaches, and in August it is inundated with Greeks and Italians of both sexes out for a good time. But the admirable burghers of Mykonos, and indeed the businesses themselves, more than certainly discovered that you cannot run an entire Greek island just on gay clientele.

So what do you do on an island the size of Mykonos, once you have visited the museums, a couple of churches, and been to the island of Delos?

Apart from spending evenings drinking, and days sunbathing, the answer is not a lot, and for many of us older gay men this is sometimes not quite enough. We are not so far past it that we just want to sit about and play bingo. We still want to go and see things.

New things.

Different things.

So what do we do?

We invent our own destination. A new destination more suited to our needs. And some of us have already done this in a small way. And because we are not dead from the neck up many of us know how to use the internet so we can travel independently not just follow the crowd and go where a travel agent sends us on a package tour.

The Greek island of Crete, for instance, welcomes many gay visitors each year, although we do not shout about it too much because that is the Cretan (or Greek), way. But for the older gay man, and woman, Crete offers much more than just beaches and clubs.

For a start Crete is a large island with some spectacular mountain scenery dotted with small hill villages just asking to be explored, and although I don’t suggest you take up mountain climbing, there is some great walking, (mainly downhill), that can be done such as the Samaria Gorge, the longest in Europe (yes, Crete is part of Europe), and a wealth of historical sites such as Knossos.

And if it is mythology you are after than what better than Psychro’s Cave where Zeus was born, (and no, I never met him personally, although on a bad day you can be forgiven for asking), followed by a drive around the Lassithi Plateau with chance to see the lammergeyer s that live there (and they are not so difficult to find as some people make out!), so there is something for the keen birder to look out for as well! Around the Plateau are a number of small villages and a couple of larger towns including Tzermiado, where, according to visitors from France, ‘you can get the best goat in Europe’.

Sadly most of the windmills that you see in photographs of Lassithi, are now gone, the water being pumped by electricity generated by wind turbines (!), but around the island you can see the remains of the many stone built windmills from a bygone age, along with some fine examples of Byzantine and Venetian architecture.

But after all this history and physical activity, you need to relax sometimes and Crete has a wide range of beaches including nudist beaches.

And bars.

In fact Crete has two ‘dedicated’ gay bars, Eros Bar in Malia, which has been running for some years, and the newer Roze Maandag (Pink Monday) Bar in Port Hersonissos which opened in summer 2011.

Different in style, they both play similar music but at different volumes! Eros is more of a night/dance club often frequented by Greeks and tends to start late and finish very early the following day so be prepared for a long night out. Roze Maandag bills itself as European, and has a much ‘loungier’ feel to it. You are likely to hear the same ‘gay anthems’ from the same ‘gay icons’ in both bars, but in Roze Maandag you can hear yourself think.

And for a place to stay (and here comes a bit of absolutely shameless self-promotion), there is Villa Ralfa, conveniently located just outside Port Hersonissos, and thirty minutes walk from the village of Pano Hersonissos. Villa Ralfa was Crete’s first LGBT guesthouse and gay homestay, which opened in 200,4 and since then has welcomed independent LGBT travellers from around the world. Of course you may find other hotels on Crete listed as being ‘gay friendly’ but in general these are large ‘all inclusive resorts’ which are really just ‘gay anonymous’ as you are just one or two guests in amongst several hundred. These sort of hotels are naturally the ones favoured by the so called gay travel agencies who really are not interested in true gay owned and run hotels for the simple reason that they cannot make any money by sending you to these, instead they seem to think that everyone will be happy to pay several hundred euros a night for a room without breakfast just because they have booked through a ‘gay travel agency’.

Which lead us on to a final point. The price.

Looking again at various articles it seems that some of the ageing LGBT population are having problems with ‘affordable housing’. Which seems to blow the argument that gay and lesbian people have more money, right out of the water. Sure we may own our own homes but we have been working for 35 years to pay for them. And as we grow older our incomes become fixed either because we are on a pension, or the companies we used to work for have ‘disposed’ of us, or as naturally happens our opportunities for advancement and salary rises no longer exist.

So what is the cost of a holiday on Crete?

The answer is surprisingly little.

Crete (and indeed Greece), has some of the cheapest accommodation in the world and you can get very good accommodation in a family run apartment block from as little as 20 euros per night even in high season. But bear in mind you will often have to book direct with the apartments as the travel agents will mark that up to 40 or so euros per night. Villa Ralfa charges a little more but you do get the pleasure of knowing that almost certainly your fellow guests will be LGBT, (you don’t get money back if they aren’t because they are probably friends of mine and I have them well trained), and we do look after you well, and we know our way around the gay scene, and which are the best places to go for that essential mojito before dinner.

And for food and drink, pricewise probably the best comparison that there is, is South America. A good main course and a glass of wine or bottle of beer will cost you about the same as in Lima or Cusco, or indeed in Santiago de Chile. If you want to ‘splurge’ then there are expensive places, the same as there are everywhere.

So if thinking about a Mediterranean holiday and travelling independently, and want a place to go where there are things to do then Crete, Greece is a very good option for the mature LGBT traveller.

The Gay Crete Blog Visits.....New Zealand!

The last part of this series looks at LGBT accommodations in New Zealand with my experiences during my holidays last November/December 2010, just in time for your holidays this year!!

Although I am spending most of my time staying with relatives and friends for some nights I needed to have hotels and wherever possible I headed to those listed as gay owned or run, rather than just gay friendly, now surprisingly enough New Zealand comes out tops with more gay owned accommodation than anywhere else so far, but then this is hardly surprising as tourist accommodation in NZ is characterised by small family/owner run guesthouses or as they like to call it there, homestays, very much like Crete, Greece used to be before they started building all those awful impersonal 'all inclusive' resorts.

New Zealand is a very pretty country, there are mountains, lakes, volcanos, glaciers, and beaches but few would consider it a 'gay' destination because they haven't been there! In spite of the fact that at times it seems to be a few years behind the times, New Zealand is ahead of its time as well, it was the first country to allow woman to vote for instance, and certainly in terms of LGBT accommodation it has many more than you would expect, including some gems where I was fortunate enough to be able to stay.

Unless you are staying in Auckland forget about noisy gay clubs and bars, although you will find some LGBT nightlife in other places, New Zealand is for those with a taste for good wine, good food, some stunning scenery, (and a little bit of architecture), and a lot of very good 'arty' gift shops. In fact coming to NZ is a bit like visiting Scotland..The idea is to tour around see the sights and in the evening return to your lodgings whether you are staying there for one night or several doesn't really matter as travelling distances around NZ are not too demanding and the roads are good.

So to some nitty gritty reviews.....I had originally booked with a couple of guys in Auckland for one night on my arrival, three flight time changes later and the fact that I had to be up early to catch the 'Transcenic' train from Auckland to Wellington meant that I ended up staying at Rydges, not a mistake but very well placed for some of the sights especially Sky City. It took forever to get from the airport on the transfer bus (NZ$30), because some women seemed to think it was her own personal taxi and we had a scenic tour of the Auckland suburbs so that she could be dropped outside her house, nice for here I am sure, but not for the rest of us as it took hours to get into the City itself. Rydges I will not talk about, you can read my review on TripAdvisor, suffice it to say that the bathroom taps were considerably shinier when I left than when I arrived......

Sky City is an experience but whether it is worth NZ$28 is up to you....There is an Irish pub round the corner where you will pay NZ$8 for a pleasingly large brandy and coke, the gay area is a bit of a walk from this area and I had neither the time nor inclination to visit it as I had laundry to do and had to be up early for the train.....

Please take the Transcenic from Auckland to Wellington, it will give you some idea of what delights are in store for you in the way of scenery as it rattles and sways it merry little way southwards, just hope that you don't have any Russians sleeping off too much vodka in the observation car at the back as they seem to take up a lot of space.....And you can get hedgehog pies from the buffet and a really good cup of coffee too! (NZ$7.50). The views of the moody mountains on the way goes to explain why they used NZ for filming 'The Lord Of The Rings'.

Sometimes it takes Google a while to work out that are really serious with your searches so it was only after I had booked places that I found this web site Gay Stay NZ, nonetheless I found Wellington City Gay Stay through Facebook, where the guys were so upset because they were already full, but undaunted I had already found The Korimoko Homestay on the Rainbow Tourism web site....

Now the boys, (all three of them), at Korimoko bill the place as an 'architectural curiosity', and don't let that put you off, nor the mention of steps as they are not as bad as they make out out (I had left bags at the YMCA in Wellington City because I was only staying one night and was off on the bus the following day), what you will have problem with is a taxi driver who can actually find the place.

I flatly refused to pay the fare on the meter, because we had been going round in circles for thirty minutes until he managed to home in on the place, and that was using GPS!

Once there they welcome was sufficient to make me feel at ease, and this is a house where people live, you become part of the family (I couldn't help once again making a comparison with the b and b's you get in Scotland where you are staying in a place where people spend their lives).

Cosy, comfortable, the everyday accoutrements of daily life, books, a kitchen with 'things' in it, messages on the front of the fridge, and a bottomless teapot with a decent cup of tea in it. I got the room in a goldfish bowl, which was slightly disconcerting until I woke in the morning and realised I wasn't at all overlooked and had a view across to Wellington city, albeit through a very rainy morning.

Gardens around Wellington, and in New Zealand generally, are an experience not to be missed and Korimoko located on a steep slope is no exception. The temperate climate (compared to Australia or Singapore) combined with (more than adequate) rainfall, and soil, results in the 'jungle' effect of which I personally am so fond and the garden here is enhanced by the natural slopes ot the ground. My favourite area is in front of the garden shed and if you fancy a bath then there are two outdoors in the garden!

If we are going to give points then 10/10 and that is from someone who runs a gay homestay themselves.

Regretfully I am leaving the following day and the

guys are kind enough to give me a lift to the bus station which is really platform 12 and three quarters at the railway station as I am heading north to the Hawkes Bay area, to Havelock North and Ngatahi Lodge. The bus trip takes some hours and like most of NZ the buses are regular and cheap and this is good way of seeing the countryside without the stress of driving, but really to get the best out of New Zealand you really need to hire a car for that extra bit of flexibility.

Whenever you book accommodation like this on the web you need to have a certain amount of trust and be prepared for the unexpected and like Korimoko in Wellington, what you get at Ngatahi is unexpected to! Having had a an exchange of emails you start to get to know people, rather like I do at Villa Ralfa, but I was surprised when John offered to pick me up in Hastings where the bus dropped me off, even better, as it was a bit late in the day, he waited while I did some grocery shopping for a basic evening meal as I didn't feel like exploring too much that night.

The accommodation at Ngatahi is mainly a 'motel style' block, but what is inside is anything but motel style. About the first thing that hits you in the eye, in the Queen room, is the bed, we have all seen metal framed beds, but never like this!
Not only is the bed impressive it's comfortable too and there are other nice touches in the room, like a good, solid, old fashioned chest of drawers, and the shower cubicle in the bathroom is plenty big enough for two (!), and I just love the tap on the washbasin.....

Of course by the time I get there it is just about dark so the real treats have to wait until the morning.

Apart from the great location, for visiting the art deco towns of Hastings and Napier both of which have some beautiful gift shops selling a lot of art deco sculpture and ceramics, and also for visiting the number of wineries in the area one of the most outstanding features of Ngatahi is the garden, or rather gardens, as it is divided into various areas surrounding the accommodation and the common room blocks. Without giving too much away there are meandering paths through trees and shrubs (and let's face it, us boys, we love a meandering path through trees and shrubs), there's a lake, there's rose garden with an outdoor bath (I told you NZ was a bit old fashioned!), and even a couple of chairs hidden in a corner covered with almost as much moss as I am.

While I was there I was also able to see the cottage that John and Henk also have to rent, separated as it is from the rest of the buildings, the cottage is ideal for those wanting a little more privacy!

Roughly in the middle of the grounds is a modern communal block containing a kitchen and a comfortable lounge area overlooking the lake, and with a barbecue area this provides a focal point for social activities.

Regretfully the demands of family and flights meant that I had to cut short my stay, otherwise I could have spent another week just exploring the garden!

The town of Havelock North is within walking distance, (John and Henk lent me a bicycle), so although you could self cater on site there is really no need to do so. I must make a comment here though, and although I cannot speak for the other rooms, mine did not have its own fridge, it would only take a couple of cases of wine or champers to fill the fridge in the common room and at busy times it would be difficult to keep your wine and food chilled, but apart from that I cannot fault this haven of tranquility which makes it ideal for those wanting a get away from it all place with mod cons! Well done guys!

The Gay Crete Blog Visits.....Australia!

Everyone visits Sydney, Australia, but other cities are available depending on what you want to do while you are visiting the sun burnt country....

Catching up a bit on last year's holiday can sometimes be a bit difficult but so far I have managed to cover Singapore! Hopefully this will catch prospective LGBT visitors to Australia before they have finalised their travel plans for this (northern) winter!

My journey began in Perth, Western Australia which is where I lived for a number of years back in the early 80's, and I am staying with friends and 'family' so I have no need for hotel accommodation although there are a couple of listings for accommodation on some web sites, Gay Traveller, for instance. Sadly the gay scene in Perth seems to have 'shrunk' since I lived there when everyone used to go to The Lion (and before that The Clarendon, commonly known as The Pink Palace, where Danny the ex-bus driver from Sydney was to be found behind the bar), and the main venue seems to be The Court.

The Court is located to the north of Perth city centre and is close to the main railway station and I must admit that I was a bit put off by their web site which said that everyone needed proof of age and would be photographed on the way in, nonetheless I headed there on a Friday night, only to find a long queue of teenagers waiting to get in, and I am sorry but nowhere is worth queuing for so I headed off to that most famous of haunts, Connies' in James Street.

It is nice to know that some things do not change, well not too much, and Connies is still there up that lethal staircase although when you get inside things are a little different with the bar now in a different place, and more glitter balls than you can poke a stick at. But where is everyone? It's Friday night it should be packed.

The bar staff are pleasant, the beer reasonably priced at A$9 for a small bottle, and only when I said I was going for a cigarette did I discover that they have a roof terrace for the smokers, complete with an outside bar and this is where everyone seems to be!

Although I do not really like to say it, if you are looking for a hectic gay nightlife then forget about Perth, I have no doubt it has its moments but really with only one or two bars to choose from, and a couple more 'up and coming' so I was told, there is not a lot going on. There is a Perth Bears page on FB for those interested though!

However Perth and the area still has attractions for some sectors of the population, notably some fine beaches including the more secluded beach at Swanbourne. Take the West Coast Highway north from Perth city and turn into Challenger Parade where you will find small car parks on the right, a short walk through the sand dunes will bring you to the beach close to the military base, and then use your eyes!

For those more sophisticated, Perth has some excellent restaurants and one big bonus is the number of wineries within easy reach both in The Swan River area and also further south at Margaret River.

Within Western Australia there is also some stunning scenery but your biggest problem is getting to see it all because of the vast distances involved (most of Europe would actually fit in the south western corner of the state), you really need a camper van and six months to get around it all! To the east the Goldfields and Kalgoorlie are also worth visiting.

I am leaving by train on the Indian Pacific to Adelaide, and this trip is a must for those who want relaxation while they watch the landscape roll by, the journey to Adelaide takes one and a half days, leaving Perth at lunchtime and arriving in Adelaide early in the morning two days later.

I was once told that Adelaide was a fine old city.....And I guess this is still true with some remarkably well preserved colonial buildings, most of which seem to be pubs! Like Perth, Adelaide seems to be stuck in a minor time warp and trying to find truly gay accommodation is like looking for a virgin in Sydney.....At the time I was trying to book a place I found only one listing for a b and b who informed me that they didn't have accommodation although they didn't make it clear whether they were full or perhaps they just didn't do accommodation...If you get my meaning.

I ended up booking through Rainbow Tourism and got a room at the Adelaide Paringa which is centrally placed for sight seeing and transportation, it is also a shortish walk to the Hampshire Hotel (near The Markets) which is one of the nicest gay/LGBT pubs I have been in for a long time, lively, noisy, but not too much so, and with bar staff who actually want to serve you. I went there for two nights in a row and saw all the same people both times so I guess the gay scene there is only limited which is surprising at South Australia was the first state to legalise homosexuality!

The second night of my visit it was so cold and wet that I ended up going to the sauna at Pulteney 431 to get warm.

So like Perth, Adelaide is not the place for the LGBT tourist looking for all night raging, but none the less a place where you can get elegantly pissed.....Like Western Australia, South Australia is renowned for its wineries and if you had the time you could spend weeks just wine tasting (and months drying out when you got home), I recommend that short afternoon wine tour that you can book at the tourist office.

Central Adelaide has its fair share of shops including one at the end of Rundle Street Mall that only sells chocolate, and a shop opposite that also only sells chocolate!

For the more cultured, Adelaide could be called the 'Festival City' as they seem to have festivals for just about everything during the course of the year...They also have cricket, while I was there there was a test match on but I managed to avoid it!

Having arrived in Adelaide by train. I left the same way, but this time on the Ghan to Alice Springs.....

Contrary to popular belief there are gay and lesbian people in Alice....I met up with one of them through GTN, who was kind enough to meet me off the train even though it was 9 hours late and show me the sights including the famous Bojangles Bar which is renowned for its steaks and also the vast amount of crap hanging from the walls and ceilings and the old Rover car in the backyard. In Alice there are one or two nice buildings including the one where Chas and Di got food poisoning, a botanic gardens named after a famous local lesbian, some extremely expesive souvenir shops selling some very nice glass, ceramics, and other 'art' and a variety of places to eat. There is a wonderful cafe near one end of Todd Mall that does an amazing chocolate gateau which the waitress assured me was chocolate/sugar/fat/carbohydrate free.

Of course the main reason for being in Alice is as a starting point for trips to Ayers Rock and King's Canyon (unless you are there to lose the family fortune in one of the casinos) and unless you want to do a lot of driving I recommend you take an organised tour which also includes one night accommodation in the middle of nowhere.

I took the Emu Run Tour the guys running it where hilarious and all the time kept telling us that in a minute we would see camels, wedge tailed eagles, and kangaroos. When we did finally see a kangaroo it was actually dead on the side of the road with a wedge tailed eagle busy feeding off it, but having said that their commentaries were knowledgeable and succinct and if you wanted to ask more then they had all the answers. They also provided an excellent BBQ at Uluru to watch the sunset with bubbly and wine whereas other tour outfits were only providing juice and water! Other tour companies are available and TailorMade Tours is another who provide private charters if you are feeling really flush!

Leaving Alice by Tiger Airways proved to be as dodgy as I was led to believe, as the flight was cancelled due to a bird strike so I spent an extra day/night in Alice, which made me a day late getting to Melbourne, I am still waiting for the compensation payment from Tiger Airways......But they are soooo CHEAP!

Arriving in Melbourne is like finding an oasis in the desert, and as you would expect from Australia's second city it does have night life for the LGBT traveller....Lots of it, but I suspect considerably more sedate than Sydney.

There is not a lot of truly 'gay' accommodation in Melbourne, much of what you will find listed is really only the normal 'chain' hotels and some expensive boutique accommodation, but you will find The Laird where, arriving a day late, I found Mark and Brett getting ready for the evening, not at all perturbed by my late arrival (they could have charged me for the night I was not there), or by the fact that my credit card did not work in their machine.....They have a cash machine in the front bar and it doesn't even charge you for withdrawals from a foreign bank account...They welcomed me to The Laird and gave me the key to my room which was easy enough to find on the first floor overlooking the beer garden at the back.

The only was to describe The Laird is as a Bear's Den...Decorated in wood and dark colours the room I had was big with lots of proper furniture and a big metal bed which only rattled a little bit, and a nice bathroom with a decent sized shower and lots of towels along with a request that please do not ask for towels to be changed unless you really need it, pretty normal these days, even I do it! Across the hall is a lounge for guests (there is a security door between the public areas of the pub and the accommodation), and next to it a kitchen, well stocked with food for making your own breakfast, including a machine that makes decent coffee!

At the top of the stairs is an internet point which turns out to be something of a meeting point as sooner or later you get to meet all the other residents as they sit checking their emails, the clientele down in the bar are pleasantly mixed in age group and style and the beer garden is where everyone seems to gather (beware of the possum which likes to sleep up in the pergola, like all possums it has a weak bladder and will piss on you if it gets half a chance, I was keeping an eye on it and moved as soon as it came my way). As this is specifically a gay male establishment there is a relaxed atmosphere everywhere something that you do not find in 'gay friendly' places no matter how many training courses they have been on, or how many certificates they have to say just that.

I was a bit worried about the fact that my room overlooked the garden as I thought it might be a bit noisy but I needn't have worried, the music is not that loud and the gentle buzz of conversation seemed to aid my sleep especially after I had relieved the bar staff of several measures of brandy.

Location-wise The Laird is close to some other gay/lesbian venues and they have a small map which shows them, you also get a free pass to Club 80 for the duration of your stay.

One other such venue is Sircuit which is within walking distance and I visited there on the Saturday night with one of my previous paying guests at Villa Ralfa. As a complete opposite to The Laird you could not get much further away. Sircuit is a big ground floor room, one end of which is taken up by pool tables (plural), the other end is standing room mainly centred around the bar. At one side is scaffolding so you can sit at an oil drum and watch the entertaining crowd below., the decorations are minimal (non-existent) with exposed pipes and conduit on the ceiling and not a lot of money spent on paint either.

At the front within the building, but outside on the street is a smoking area which is well attended, like you do I walked out there and bumped straight into a Greek guy from Heraklion, the world is a very small place sometimes.

At the back of the main room is a staircase which goes up to another smoking area on the roof and a cruising room...On the night I was there they had a free boot shine on the way up the stairs so I got my silver Reeboks dusted off, and on the next floor they were giving buzz cuts which probably gives you some idea of what Sircuit is all about. The toilets on the ground floor are stunning.

The Melbourne transport system is excellent and involves buses and trains networked together with a common ticket, take the Sunday special which you have to buy at Flinders Street station before the day and you can go just about everywhere for a few dollars, I went all the way to Knoxfield via Waverly for next to nothing to see my 'mother in law' and it all worked fine. The Laird is opposite Collingwood station so don't bother with taxis to get from the centre/airport as there is virtually no walking to do even with a heavy suitcase. Having said that do take the walk into Melbourne central, it is not a difficult walk and you pass through some of the old residential district with incredibly twee houses beautifully preserved, there is also a delightful park with some excellent plantings. You enter the city just about in the Greek quarter although it is not quite as Greek as you might expect. I stopped for a coffee at one of the Greek cafes only to find the guy behind the counter didn't speak any Greek!

My verdict on The Laird? Probably the best hotel I have stayed in for years, clean, comfortable, and friendly but if your style is Travelodge, Radisson, or Holiday Inn, then give it a miss as you will probably not enjoy living over the top of a gay bar. On the other hand give it a try, you might find that staying in a proper gay owned and run place is infinitely better than a place where you could be anywhere in the world!

By the way Melbourne in case you didn't know, is a cultural city with theatre, art gallery, and a lot of other things to see both in the city and around it. I was only at The Laird for three nights but could have happily spent a week or 10 days there, but this bunny is off to New Zealand early on the Monday morning!

Greece Bias Against Gays-Lesbians Compounds Debt Crisis as Tourism Suffers - Now Read On

A lot of LGBT people are likely to see this headline without reading the article and immediately think that far from being the cradle of Democracy that Greece has become the cradle of homophobia

To begin let me reassure prospective visitors to Greece that Greek people are some of the most welcoming people in the world. While they may not 'understand' homosexuality, as such they have no objection to gay people so you will not find yourselves singled out for 'special' treatment, you will be treated as a visitor to their country and hospitality will be extended to you on the same basis as any other visitors.

You know me I do not get political, I am usually too busy talking about holidays, but every so often I find something which really gets my goat......And this is it.

Doing the rounds of the gay (and other) press over the last couple of weeks has been this article from Bloomberg News, Greece Bias Against Gays-Lesbians Compounds Debt Crisis as Tourism Suffers Now as if the bad publicity that Greece has received because of strikes, demonstrations, and rising taxes were not enough, we get this......One of the best examples of irresponsible journalism that I have ever seen in my life, nothing like kicking a man when he is down!

So let's have a look at the article in more detail to see what it actually says.......

"Gay and lesbian tourists, who for decades flocked to the islands of Mykonos and Lesbos, have removed Greece from their list of top destinations because of discrimination, according to surveys by Amsterdam-based OutNow Consulting."

OutNow consulting are a company specialising in LGBT marketing, i.e. they tell companies and governments what they should do and how they should behave towards LGBT people which I personally find insulting as it suggests that I am a person with 'special needs'! So I had a look at their web site to see if I could see this survey, nowhere could I find a survey that said 'Are you avoiding Greece because they do not allow civil partnerships'? I did find last year's Global survey, and the ongoing 2020 survey, but neither of them has a question along the lines of 'Would you avoid a country that does not have same-sex partnerships'?

So how do they come to this conclusion?

"Greece failed to make the list of the top 10 countries where gay travelers were interested in taking a holiday in the next three years, according to the survey. Athens didn’t appear among the top 20 city destinations."

It is true that many people are avoiding Athens, not just the LGBT population, many visitors have been put off by seeing demonstrations, but if you look at the OutNow Global survey for 2010 you will notice that Athens is not even listed as a possible destination within the next 3 years, small wonder then that it doesn't appear in the top 20! Athens does appear in the 202o survey, but as this is not very representative, being only available in English, it can hardly be taken as fact!

So why are LGBT tourists eschewing Mykonos and Lesvos?

In the case of Mykonos the answer is easy....Mykonos is old hat. Forty years ago it was a gay island, until the mass tourism companies got hold of it and realised, probably along with the Mykonites themselves, that you couldn't make money just out of marketing to LGBT travellers, and as anyone can tell you LBGT visitors to Mykonos have long been a minority, indeed, in August and early September, Mykonos is a party island for Greek youth of all sexes! I suspect that the same applies to Lesvos. Whether we as LGBT people like it or not, we are only a small sector of the population and from my own experience we do not spend proportionally any more than anyone else does.

The Bloomberg article, and OutNow, conveniently ignore that fact that over the last forty years a veritable of host of new destinations has become available to travellers with the resources to visit them, which can also account for some of the reduction in tourism to many 'traditional' destinations. In fact, in spite of what the Greek government statistics may say, here on Crete, for many businesses July was the worst month they have had for many years from all sectors of the population not just LGBT.

To be fair to Bloomberg who published the article, they are only passing on information given to them, and the real culprits here are OutNow who are hoping to ingratiate themselves with the Greek government and earn a bit fat consultancy fee by pretending they have the answer to the problem (sorry Ian, I know you are a friend on Facebook, but you really are just looking for opportunities for new business).

"About 75 percent of gay travelers will seek a hotel that welcomes same-sex couples, according to Hannah Burden, spokeswoman for the Thomson, Thomson Cruises and First Choice holiday brands ofTui Travel Plc (TT/), the U.K. majority-owned unit of Germany-based Tui AG (TUI1)and Europe’s largest tour operator.

Thomson last year started marketing vacations for gay and lesbian travelers, including wedding packages to the Spanish island of Ibiza. The company uses the GayComfort Certified accreditation system, developed by OutNow and endorsed by the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association."

Well yes, but then again possibly no......While I do, to a certain amount, applaud the efforts of Thomson, a brief look at their LGBT brochure reveals that only one of their hotels is actually specifically LGBT and that is on Mykonos and a quick look at the most recent TripAdvisor reports reveals that they all say the same thing, which is that particular hotel is expensive....And this is another feature which has been reported about Mykonos over the last couple of years, it is an expensive island. In fact looking at Thomson's hotel details they have a very negative statement about the hotels 'being open to anyone over the age of 16 but be aware that gay people might be staying there'.....Well that applies to any hotel in the world, and is an open invitation for homophobic people to book into the same hotel and jeer at the gay people or even worse physically attack them. It is also guaranteed to put off straight people with children!

The only real involvement as far as TUI is concerned is putting bums on (uncomfortable) aircraft seats and putting bodies in beds and if you believe they are in business to make anything but a profit then you are sorely mistaken.

The point that is most often missed about tourism is, that it is going to take place irrespective of gay marriage or civil rights. In the case of Greece of course we have several thousand years of history and civilisation and it is rather a case of, 'if you want to see the Pyramids you have to go to Egypt' so if you want to see the Acropolis you have to go to Greece, and if you want to see Angkor Wat.....

As an LGBT person you might like to think that everyone at your holiday destination gets treated the same way as you do in your home country, but you should always remember that wherever you go you are supposed to respect the laws and customs of that country. As things change only slowly in Greece you could well be waiting some time if you intend to boycott Greece until the legalise same-sex unions! It is highly unlikely in the near future that same-sex marriages will be recognised, as such a thing is not within the realms of understanding of many Greek people, even if it were made legal there would be very few Greeks who would take advantage of it as the social structure does not allow for it! You can hardly describe the lack of same-sex partnerships as 'bias' in any case. And legislation does cost money in spite of what the article says and the financial gain by enacting legislation is in any case open to question as the evidence for the 'Pink Dollar' is rather anecdotal......

So what can Greece do to improve its tourism when it already gets 19 million tourists a year?

Where the Greek tourism industry falls down is by not extracting enough cash from the existing tourists because, in spite of what you may hear, Greece has some of the cheapest accommodation in the world, what makes it appear expensive is the mark up put on it by the foreign mass tourism companies and until the Greek government address this by specifying a minimum rate for accommodation or by openly discouraging mass tourism not a lot is going to change and this of course has nothing to do with the sexual preferences of the prospective visitors!

The Gay Crete Blog Visits......Singapore!

Is this man off his trolley??

Why....I hear you ask.....Would someone who runs a gay and lesbian homestay on Crete, Greece, be writing about Singapore? Is he off his trolley or what?

And why in the middle of the summer season?

Not at all...As some of you may remember I took my holidays in Australasia last year and I do like to share myexperiences, and also around this time of year is a good time to think about booking if you are heading towards Australia or New Zealand for a holiday during the southern summer, so here are is a little bit about our trip last winter and what I found in Singapore for the gay traveller.

Singapore is not a name that springs to mind for a holiday and sadly many travellers use it only as a stopover on the way to somewhere else not as a destination in itself, and certainly not a gay destination. Which is a shame because Singapore has much to offer in its own right, and of course, it is also close to many other destinations so can be used as a part of an 'Asian' holiday itinerary.

First off, as usual, book your flights early. I made my bookings in August last year for outward travel in November and return in December, (you can look at the blogs below to see how I got on!), and got some excellent prices on flights with Singapore Air. Of course I am travelling from Europe, and Singapore is something of a hub for many flights from Europe to Down Under so there is plenty of choice of airlines and schedules.

Bear in mind this is a long trip and not something you can leave to chance, so plan ahead!

I flew from London Heathrow on one of SIA's new fleet of A380's not long after Qantas had had an engine failure on one of its new A380's, but hey, life is an adventure.....

Singapore is not a place that is associated with gay or lesbian travel, and in some ways it does have a bit of a bad history with its treatment of LGBT people. But like many other places, things change, and the Singapore scene is quite lively with a number of venues.....Or so it turns out because when I was booking my trip, Google was producing nothing of value in searches for 'gay Singapore', nevertheless, undeterred I asked a few questions on Gay Travellers Network and got back a very useful reply!

I had already found a hotel that was listed on one of the Australian gay travel web sites, and as it also appeared on the Singapore tourism web site, and as I liked the look of it, I had already booked at The Berjaya which is just on the edge of Chinatown, and as luck would have it, this is exactly where most of the gay bars are situated and there is a handy MRT station too.

Although I found the Berjaya listed as gay friendly, it is not a gay hotel. It is however, comfortable, fashionably old fashioned, (not only do they make the room up every morning, but in the evening they come and turn the bed down for you), and from the outside seems to say to me 'Tunbridge Wells'. The staff are delightfully helpful and actually greet you as you walk up to the reception desk, instead of walking off into the back office like they do in Europe.

It is not the cheapest place around, but then visitors to (and residents of), Greece, are spoilt by having some of the cheapest hotel and apartment accommodation in the world! Expect to pay upwards of S$150 per night for a room here (about €90), but the beds are huge, and in my bathroom the shower cubicle stretched the width of the room with enough space to accommodate at least half a football team (and maybe more). Not only that a bit of fruit comes for free and also a daily newspaper and tea and coffee. Breakfast is available as an extra, but to be honest while I was waiting for my room to be prepared for me (I had asked for an early check in which actually took three hours!), I did take a cup of coffee, (which I expected to be free, but actually cost me S$5.85), and it was dire, so for those who need their early morning caffeine fix I recommend the coffee shop across the road.

The room was air-conditioned (no extra charge) so the first thing I did was turn it off and open a window, I had a bit of a struggle with housekeeping for the next 24 hours as they came in and turned it on, I came in and turned it off, but finally they got the point.

On the downside, and this goes for most of Singapore, if you are addicted to your iPhone or Blackberry, then forget accessing free WiFi anywhere... The Berjaya charges S$8 per hour for use of their WiFi, and you have to use the whole hour in one go! If you once log off the network you have to pay for another hour! However I can let you into a small secret, but not just yet.......

So let's get off with the places to go.......

Just around the corner from the Berjaya is Neil Road.......Here, discreetly placed in a porticoed terrace of shops are three gay bars virtually in a row. I am only here for three nights and even I cannot drink that amount especially when I am trying to get over the jet lag, so visits are necessarily brief.

First off is DYMK, which is short for 'Does Your Mother Know', the clientele are mainly in pairs or in groups, so it is very much a place where you go with friends, even at the bar everyone seems to be in couples. The music is not loud so you can hear yourself think, the barman (on the day I was there), has spent a reasonable amount of time in the gym, and has some fascinating tattoos, and a beautiful smile, and a 330ml bottle of beer costs S$10. They were having a promotional night with sparkling rose (cannot remember whether it was Martini or Asti!), which was running out at S$75 a bottle, and literally it was running, they were opening them as fast as they could. They do cocktails and they are not cheap either, at the other end of the bar where two people sharing a cocktails that seemed to have everything in it, was actually on fire at one stage, and then had a few more shots of various spirits thrown in it as they drank through their respective straws.....The 'Mother' in the name could well refer to the guy on the till, who looks at you through a pair of designer spectacle frames and very efficiently relieves you of your cash and seems to know exactly what you have had even though you were right up at the other end of the bar. Pleasantly relaxing place with plenty to watch if you are on your own!

Next door is 'Lockerroom', which describes it very well....Most of the furniture seems to be lockers with a couple of shower cubicles thrown in....They were having a 'dark night' the night I visited although whether they were trying to conjure up a 'dark room' atmosphere or just saving on the electric bill was unclear, in fact nothing was clear because it was pitch black and full of smoke from a smoke machine. The music is loud. Reading the menu was impossible, but at this stage I did gather that in Singapore, even if you are sitting at the bar you are expected to order drinks from the waiters not from the barman. A 330ml bottle of beer here is S$9

When my eyes got used to the light I did manage to discern that sitting at the bar were a row of 'expats', and the staff seem to be wearing very skimpy shorts.......

Further along is Taboo, they were having a promotional night as well...Well actually it was a 'as much as you can drink for S$20 night', but the flesh is weak, even if the spirit is willing and Taboo and Tantric (just across the road) are going to have to wait for another time as this bunny is off to bed after 24 hours without a sleep!!

Chinatown is not far from the Berjaya Hotel and here you will find a wide selection of Asian foods day and night, I ate here two nights of my stay, for S$18 including a 500ml bottle of Tiger Beer and three dishes to go with it, don't forget you will have the usual Singapore problem of getting rice if you want it!

But also in Chinatown is The Backstage Bar, now I spotted the rainbow flag easily enough during a shopping trip through the market (Chinese silk cushion covers S$2 each!), finding the door is a little harder but it is there in the portico on the main street....

Wherever I go there is always a bar that makes a mark and this on has got to be it in Singapore......In a way it is quite 'pubby', but you know you are in a different country, the music is there all around you, the surroundings are not too bright, (in fact on reflection it could maybe, do with a coat of paint), the staff are lovely, and although you order a drink at the bar they take you to a seat and bring it too you....Best of all there is a balcony where you can sit outside (in the humid Singapore night!) and look over and see what the poor people are doing down in the street........The clientele is mixed, racewise, with expats from more than one country, along with a good selection of the locals, and if you are on your own they will stop and talk to you as they pass, if only to see what you are doing there. Don't get me wrong the other bars are not un-friendly, but here there is more interest in you!

Needless to say I spent some time in the Backstage Bar, and more than once.......

In fact the LGBT visitor to Singapore can visit a different bar at least 6 times in a week....Not a bad average compared to a lot of holiday destinations.

But what else can the gay traveller do in Singapore? Well really much the same as any other one!

Singapore has always been a good place for shopping and little has changed there, in Chinatown the street markets yield textiles and other decorative items, including some that are far too big for your suitcase, but on the other hand many shops will arrange shipping for you. I found that you get a better deal in the older, smaller, shopping centres such as the People's centre near Chinatown, they tend to be more flexible on prices than the newer centres! Around Chinatown too you can buy very cheaply those items for the more alternative lifestyles such as dried white chrysanthemum flowers at bargain prices. There are also a wide range of textiles in both Chinese and Indian styles for the home decorator.

A small piece of advice if you are continuing your journey from Singapore to Australia, the Australians X-ray your bags on the way into Australia, they do not take kindly to high value items being brought in from Singapore, in fact they will charge you tax on them! If you are buying anything expensive, then buy it on the way back!

At the time of my visit I was having a problem with plantar fasciitis, and after a couple of days walking around Singapore it had certainly not improved, just around the corner from the Berjaya Hotel there is small acupuncture practice, a 30 minute treatment cost only S$15, far less than you would pay in the UK for instance.....Although it didn't cure it, it certainly relieved it!

In general, Singapore can be quite cheap for the LGBT traveller provided you watch where you eat as many places are 'tax free' look for the signs saying 'Nett Prices', elsewhere you will get GST/VAT added on! As ever avoid the tourist traps of which Old Boat Quay is one, although a visit to Harry's Bar is still essential while in Singapore. And if you are going to Raffles for a Singapore Sling, then take your credit card with you.

From zoos, to botanic gardens, to mini cruises, to the Singapore Flyer, to SkyPark, to museums, there are a number of attractions to keep any visitor occupied. You can even go to the beach!

A little hint for the Internet....Many places will give you the access code for their WiFi if you are a customer.....Find a coffee shop with a convenient place to sit outside but not in the cafe or restaurant, as they never seem to change the pass code you can continue to use it during your stay. While I was staying at the Berjaya, I discovered that you could pick up the network from the Uluru Steakhouse behind the hotel, for a few dollars I bought a glass of wine and also got the code for the WiFi.

Getting around Singapore is easy and can be cheap too. The MRT goes from the airport into the city, there is also what they call the 'Ground Transport Bus' which will take you to your hotel door from Changi Airport for S$9, although it will stops in the road outside Raffles, presumably because it makes too much of a mess on the gravel drive! And you can do a lot of walking!

For information on gay venues try www.utopia-asia.com there are now a number of hotels/homestays listed, more than there were last year. More information on Singapore generally go to www.visitingsingapore.com

Villa Ralfa Goes ‘On Tour’ Down Under - Part Two.....More Flights, and The Knotty Problem of Finding ‘Real’ LGBT Accommodation.

Having booked the main flights, and trains, for my gay travels down under, your intrepid traveller finds that there can be a problem booking exclusively LGBT accommodation, and that Greece is still a cheap place to stay!

A couple of my fans have mentioned that there are a couple more things which you should have to hand when doing this sort of thing, these are your passport as many airlines want your passport or ID card number when you book, and more importantly lots of ink and paper in your printer! The airlines must save a lot of money not having to provide you with an expensive multipart ticket these days, and do make sure that you actually print out your ‘e-ticket’ and not just the receipt for the booking!

Of course I am well aware how big Australia really is, as I lived there for a number of years, but having booked the train journey from Perth to Adelaide, and then on to Alice Springs where I pick up a two day bus tour to King’s Canyon and Ayer’s Rock, there is the problem of getting on to Melbourne to leave enough time there to see friends and my partner’s mother.

About the only airline that comes up on Google is Virgin Blue and at A$600 one way from Alice to Melbourne it is hardly cheap, (and takes forever because they fly via Sydney), as usual with these airlines everything seems to be an extra!

After a look at my favourite airline site Attitude Travel (http://www.attitudetravel.com/), I discover Tiger Airways. What starts out at A$47 for a one way flight soon turns into A$154 by the time I add my luggage, pay A$8 for a seat, and they add on a ‘Convenience Fee’ whatever that is!

And finally I have to get flights from Melbourne to Auckland, and from Wellington to Auckland to pick up my return flight to Singapore. Air New Zealand proved to be the cheapest choice for Melbourne to Auckland, Jetstar the cheapest and most convenient for Wellington to Auckland. It is amazing how trouble free things can be when you have a credit card that actually works!!

And then we come to accommodation....For much of my journey I am staying with friends and family which is the cheapest way!

But to be honest I also want to do a bit of a ‘consumer survey’ during my trip and see what other LGBT hotels have to offer and whether there is anything I can do better (or worse!). And there are a couple of places where I do not have friends (yet!), like Singapore, Adelaide, Alice Springs, and Auckland.

Now when I say LGBT, I mean LGBT owned and GLBT run, not one of the enormous international chains, or even a national chain, where you could actually be in any hotel in any city in the world and not know where, and where your money goes to head office wherever that is! Let’s face it we are gay and we want a proper gay establishment, not one where the staff have had special training as if we are people with ‘special needs’.

My priorities here are in this order,

1. LGBT owned and run
2. Location
3. Price.

As you know I can be a bit mean so it might seem odd to put price last, but many ‘gay’ hotels are very much boutique style which always tend to be more expensive, although I think some places still believe that there is a ‘pink’ dollar, or pound, or euro, so tend to be more pricey, (I don’t know why they think we have more money as recent surveys suggest that the 6% of the population that are ‘gay’ are responsible for 6% of spending, so they don’t spend any more or less than any other sector of the population).

As for location, there are some very nice GLBT places around but some of them are way out of town which is a bit inconvenient when the bars and local attractions are miles away, unless you have your own transport of course, which I don’t. And a couple of times I have to get up early to get to airports and railway stations!

Searching gay and lesbian directories, and the various sites dealing with ‘gay’ accommodation proved very disappointing for the locations where I wanted it most. For instance, Google produced only one result for Singapore, which on closer inspection looked like the rooms were for rent by the hour, and were sparsely furnished at that, although since then I have seen a review from somebody who stayed there and said it was fine......Fine if you like staying in a bathhouse that is, but when you get to a certain age you need somewhere with a few creature comforts!

Below are links to some of the sites that proved useful although I ended up in going to ‘gay friendly’ places which happened to be located just where I wanted them to be.

Australia proved to be the most difficult, and I don’t think anyone will be surprised when I say that Adelaide and Alice Springs proved to be the worst, New Zealand on the other hand proved very easy!

Trying to book LGBT accommodations in Adelaide did have it’s amusing side, as after the Qguide site proved fruitless (the one place listed came back and said ‘We do not have accommodation’), I tried the old favourite ploy of sending messages to people on line on Gaydar. Out of six messages sent, two didn’t reply, one said ‘I do not know of such things as I am not gay’, (I didn’t understand that one either), two came up with logical suggestions, and the last sent me the following message, and I quote verbatim...... “Hey Tim! Thanks for your message. God! You poor bugger! Adelaide is a complete gay desert! An inbred cesspool of cheating 'happily married' queers and mental retards! Not a normal gay bloke to be found!”. Which probably explains the ‘I’m not gay’ response! In the end I chose a hotel listed as gay friendly, but just happening to be in a convenient place.

I did make contact with someone in Alice Springs who proved very helpful with advice about tours, but as both nights that I would be spending in The Alice were late to bed and early to rise days, I didn’t worry too much and just booked something convenient.

For Melbourne there were a number of listings on various web sites, strangely these proved to be gay-friendly only, when in fact Melbourne has a couple of quite good gay owned/run places the names of which I got from a friend who lives there.

And what about prices?

I deliberately avoided ‘budget’ accommodation as in many cases this is going to be youth hostels or back-packers accommodation, not that I have anything against backpackers, I have met some very nice ones in my time, so I took the lower end of mid-price accommodation. Strangely accommodation in Australia and New Zealand seemed to be the same price in both dollar currencies which for us Europeans means that New Zealand was the cheapest place! Working on this basis a room for two costs around $120 per night in both A$ and NZ$, and in Singapore, S$175 per night for two. As a rough guide NZ$120 is £60 or €70, A$120 is £80 or £90, and S$175 is £90 or €100 respectively. Note that these prices are for two, no reduction for single travellers like we do at Villa Ralfa, (and quite common in Greece and Europe generally!)

For more about where I stayed and what I got up to you will have to wait until I write up all my notes and do some more blogs, but for now I will give you the web sites I found most useful.

http://www.topgayhotels.com/, http://www.qguide.com.au/, http://www.gaystay.co.nz/, proved most useful for accommodation, the Gaystay NZ web site lists a lot of gay accommodation, probably more than there is in the UK, especially useful for those touring around. The Qguide web site is very strange as sometimes it is there and another time not. I didn’t look to see where it is hosted but there seems to be problems with web sites in Australia generally. When I was planning my trip I took this problem to be at my end, only when I got there did I realise this was not the case.

http://www.utopia-asia.com/, is an excellent site for things to do in Singapore and Asia generally, there was a bit of a shortage of accommodation in Singapore so I used http://www.rainbowtourism.com/ , which also gave me useful accommodation in Adelaide.

http://www.galta.com.au, is a generally useful site, it has many listings around Adelaide too but as these were not central and I had a train to catch they were generally too far away!

http://www.starobserver.com.au/ and http://blaze.gaynewsnetwork.com.au/ are both news sites, they are also the home of some free gay newspapers and mags which have a lot of info in them, plus there are some classifieds on the web site. Good for looking at current affairs and events.

http://www.pinkboard.com.au also provides some accurate information and maps on various locations in Australia, while http://www.outinperth.com/ provides information specifically on Perth WA.

This sounds just like the Oscars doesn’t it!!??

And finally my thanks to a long time friend in Melbourne who suggested I stay at The Laird in Melbourne, an Australian pub in the true tradition, http://www.lairdhotel.com/, and also to the fellow members of the Gay Travellers Network, who came up trumps with things to do in Singapore http://www.gaytravellersnetwork.com !!