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Comment by shiroiuma | Hacker News Reader

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It's hard to fly between the East Coast/Europe and Asia without flying Etihad, Emirates, Qatar, or Turkish Airlines at a reasonable rate.

You must mean central Asia, not east Asia. To east Asia, flights always go across the Pacific, even from the east coast, so Asian carriers are typical.

Nope. I literally flew from ASEAN to the East Coast a week ago. The only options below $1400 round trip for economy were Doha (Qatar), Istanbul (Turkish Airlines), and Dubai (Emirates)

Korean Air and JAL have handful of direct options from NYC, BOS, and DC, but they are very marginal and appear to be prestige routes.

In most cases you have to either fly to the West Coast, or fly to the Middle East if you want to go someone that isn't Incheon, as the Incheon to X hop becomes much more expensive than the Middle East to X hop.

Most airlines codeshare and piggyback off Turkish and Qatar anyhow because both are heavily state subsidized

Every time I or any of my friends fly between the east coast US and Tokyo, it's across the Pacific.

Tokyo and Incheon has direct, but there is more to Asia than those 2. Every other airport requires a transfer, and even those are $1400-1600 round trip unless from NYC

Modern people, especially upper and upper middle class people, have a distinct tendancy to think of nations as just glorified place labels because of their position of privilege. They think they're entitled to go places with entirely different histories and cultures without adapting their behavior at all. I may not agree with the laws in question but there's a certain degree of poetic satisfaction when someone whose sum total of international travel research was an Instagram post gets a rude awakening.

I'm not sure why you feel religion is important to mention.

It's them that are making it about religion, as they use it as a foundation for the more unsavoury policies like oppression of women, LGBT etc. Don't forget that these countries explicitly have very little separation between religion and state.

If you let religion dictate laws, then criticism of your laws will reflect on your religion as well.

>Don't forget that these countries explicitly have very little separation between religion and state.

Despite what is written, the same could be said for the USA: the money states very clearly in what is trusted.

So an authoritarian country is not enough to discourage you from visiting? You only avoid authoritarian Islamic countries?

Have fun in North Korea, I suppose.

Cue you me in on Democratic, Respecting Human Rights, Modernist, Islamic Countries?

Not sure I’m able to do that, but I can tell you about non-Muslim countries that are just as bad, and plenty of practicing Muslims that are progressive and totally cool with lgbt people.

That suggests to me the issue is more about authoritarian governments than it is the particular religion the authorization govt is tied to.

You're unfamiliar with Azerbaijan?

Honestly, I'd feel much less endangered as a secular progressive in Azerbaijan than I would in - say - Alabama.

Azerbaijan is not safe for LGBTQI+ persons [1]

[1] https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-...

The Azerbaijan which just ethnically cleansed its last remaining Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh?

Honestly Indonesia is kind of close.

Definitely not anywhere in MENA

Indonesia is fairly authoritarian, and if you visit Aceh you will have to subscribe to Sharia.

I dunno, the morality police can be pretty aggressive if you leave the tourist areas.

I’m not sure why you feel it isn’t.

Because authoritarian regimes should be plenty to dissuade tourists.

Or is North Korea a good tourist spot, because it's not an Islamic country?

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