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no gaydar in zanzibar<br />
Fresh from Africa,<br />
Faith Bosworth<br />
warns us not to be<br />
complacent about<br />
picking a gay-friendly<br />
destination when<br />
choosing our holiday.<br />
Living in Britain, it is easy to forget<br />
that the rest of the world doesn’t<br />
have the same views on<br />
homosexuality. In some African<br />
countries you can lose your life for so<br />
much as a lusty glance at someone of<br />
the same sex. And, just because the<br />
surroundings may seem like paradise, it<br />
doesn’t mean that attitudes towards<br />
women are as perfect. So, is it worth<br />
going to a homophobic country? On<br />
the one hand, it’s a cultural experience,<br />
but on the other, nobody has jail or<br />
public stoning on their list of things to<br />
do whilst travelling abroad.<br />
When the travel guide tells you<br />
that you could get locked up for kissing<br />
your girlfriend in public, you’d probably<br />
place the book quietly back on the shelf.<br />
However, I ignored all common sense<br />
and my girlfriend and I went off on a<br />
holiday in Zanzibar. It’s one of those<br />
places which constantly beckons you,<br />
from the reruns of Place in the Sun<br />
to pictures on magazine covers with<br />
turquoise sea and swaying palm<br />
trees. It’s difficult to imagine any<br />
unpleasantness in a place so beautiful.<br />
Nothing bad did happen. However, our<br />
wonderful holiday in the sun just<br />
turned into six weeks of constant<br />
anxiety and fear, and we ended up<br />
coming home a week early.<br />
I don’t know what was worse, going<br />
there as a lesbian or just as a woman.<br />
The place is patriarchy’s star student.<br />
The men sit around, socialise and do<br />
business while the women scurry about<br />
caring for the family. Women are worth<br />
nothing and the men make sure you<br />
TRAVEL<br />
NEWS...<br />
lesbos/<br />
sappho travel<br />
festival<br />
travel<br />
Sappho Travel has announced that<br />
it is holding a two-week<br />
International Women’s Festival in<br />
Lesbos celebrating womanhood.<br />
The event will run from the 6th to<br />
the 20th of September and is set to<br />
include music, dance, theatre,<br />
sports, competitions, workshops<br />
and exhibitions.<br />
www.sapphotravel.com.<br />
worldwide/<br />
lonely planet<br />
scandal<br />
Popular travel guide publisher<br />
Lonely Planet found itself in an<br />
embarrassing situation when one of<br />
its writers confessed that he hadn’t<br />
actually visited the country he was<br />
meant to be writing a guidebook<br />
for. Thomas Kohnstamm admitted<br />
that he had written a guidebook for<br />
Colombia while he was actually in<br />
San Francisco.<br />
www.lonelyplanet.com.<br />
china/<br />
town where<br />
women rule<br />
The Longshuihu village in<br />
Chongqing, China, claims to be the<br />
only ‘women’s town’ in the world,<br />
where women have the upper hand<br />
and men obey their commands.<br />
Officials have decided to encourage<br />
tourists to visit the village and see<br />
how life there operates. The town’s<br />
motto is “Women never make<br />
mistakes and men can never refuse<br />
women’s requests.”<br />
www.travelchinaguide.com<br />
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