Nepal taps gay tourist market
03.15.2010
As if Nepal wasn’t mesmerizing enough, the country recently announced it is going rogue, marrying–gasp!–gay couples, according to The New York Times. ‘‘They are high-spending consumers,’’ a spokesman for the Nepal Tourism Board said of gay tourists.
Back in January, the Times predicted this move based on whispers about the world’s most famous base camp: Started by Sunil Babu Pant, an openly-gay legislator, Pink Mountain Travels and Tours promises to marry adventure travel[ers] with gay weddings. With talk that Nepal may legalize same-sex marriage this year as the country hammers out a new constitution (and, perhaps more importantly, deals with recent bouts of civil unrest), Mr. Pant is offering to hold nuptials at the Mount Everest base camp, jungle safari honeymoons and bridal processions on elephant back.
Whether these marriage certificates will be honored once back home depends entirely on where home is, but destination weddings to Nepal are about to become a whole lot more common, and adventure tours of such places as Island Peak and the Annapurna Circuit a whole lot more colorful. Let’s just hope those pride flags don’t clash with the Buddhist prayer flags.