gay-friendly hotels - in india?

anar

i just wondered if such a concept existed here. given that homosexuality is such a huge taboo, probably not. speaking from my own experience, whenever i have travelled around small-town india with my partner, it has never been an issue (our sharing the same room). however, in delhi recently, a fuss was made by a hotel. we just took our business elsewhere. the reverse is true in the west - it's the small places where same-sex couples are likely to experience difficulties, never the big cities.

crvlvr

Can you please elaborate in the "fuss" that was made? Did you make it obvious that you were partners, before the fuss was made?

anar

on arrival, we were asked 'what is the nature of your relationship?'. when we said 'we are friends' (we are about the same age so it couldn't have been that), the matter was referred by the receptionist to the manager who was not discourteous but stated it was not their hotel's policy to allow two men to share the same room. it could have been they had experienced a problem of some sort in the past (this was not stated, i'm just guessing). he said he would be happy to have us take two rooms but this was not acceptable to us. we expressed our displeasure (there was little else we could do) and left and as it happens, found alternative accommodation (where not an eyebrow was raised) without much difficulty. it was a medium-priced hotel, not a five-star hotel (if that makes any difference). luckily, we hadn't prepaid and no money had to be refunded, etc.
i'm of indian origin, my partner is caucasian - perhaps that was what it was (we weren't holding hands or anything, lol, and we aren't outrageous queens or anything!).

manreet_16

ha ha ha its an strange gesture by Hotel authorities..But it should not happen..u must sue them..
Thanx for sharing

Sama

I wonder if that's what the fuss was really all about. wonder if it would have been different if both of you were indian, or if both of you were "western".

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crvlvr

anar,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I think what you faced was an anomaly. In india, males frequently stay in the same room. Even the question regarding the nature of your relationship, seems odd to me. Possibly the hotel was trying make money by forcing you to get two rooms. Anyway, its good that the hotel lost your business.

To answer your intiial question., there are no "gay friendly" hotels in India. Middleclass people do no wear their sexuality on their sleeve (or ear). Public Display of Affection (PDA) of any kind is frowned upon. So as long as public sensitivity is taken into consideration, gays from abroad should not experience any discrimination.

Howver, an important point to note is that men are not as homophobic as the west (men holding hands on the street does not mean anything more than they are friends).

In the west, we look at it a little differently, men holding hands or kissing will be percieved as a gay couple. In India, holding hands is meaningless, but kissing is a big no no..

Nick-H

Still against the law in India

There are moves afoot to repeal that law, but until it happens...

I guess it is possible that certain police officers might make some income from some hotels from roomn records they find suspicious. Just a wild thought.

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batistuta

As Crvlr pointed out earlier,men holding hands in India is quite common and does not denote that they are gay.Same with staying in the same room with is a means of cutting costs.These guys were tryig to make a quick buck.

Nick-H

...It does depend. The places where Indians stay will be well-used to brothers, cousins, colleagues, even entire families sharing rooms. Star hotels may well discourage it.

machadinha

In addition to the above,

No I don't think so. Keeping a low profile you should be alright however -- as you seem to be

This site's search function wouldn't permit a search on a short word like "gay" before, but maybe it does now. Anyway there are plenty of earlier threads on the subject, maybe some low-key outfits in Goa or something (*it still doesn't seem to work -- use Google's "advanced search" for instance).

I think this may well have been it. I don't know what kind of place you stayed but many "touristy" (including, or especially, the "backpacker" hey-dude-we're totally-free) kind of places seem to have more-or-less anti-locals policies. It's far from always like that, but it happens.

Anyway as has been noted and like you said, most places will just leave you alone I think. I know I've shared rooms with weirdos that I didn't know how soon to get rid of them.

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cyberhippie

This is not a one off experience a gay couple we know has constant problems trying to get a double room.

machadinha

That's funny. How is it straight men don't? New developments? Matter of area?

(btw You should fix your URL signature I think.)

cyberhippie

Hotel owners seem to have a sixth sense!!

They mentioned Delhi as being particularly difficult!!

My signature doesn't work for some reason, not sure why it used to!!

machadinha

Yes well just a little surprising. Don't you think it may still have to do with them having awkward thoughts at Westerners and Indians mingling? Lord forbid! Not to mention two men getting along very well of course.

That's coz it points to http://goneindia/ . Go fix it ya lazy Scot

cyberhippie

No it's the broswer and the PHP software that does that!! The www is included in my signature the brower resolves it without!!

Using mozilla 50.8 I can't open the wesite, using MS explorer 7.0 I can,
Others can't open it using any of the two!

NADREG