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Over the years I have constantly upgraded my traveling style. I dabbled in Grunge-Indigent (beta version) until my Norton Anti-Schmuck zapped that sucker dead. I have since been using the Windows Me!Me!Me! format for all my travel needs.

Being married, I don't have to impress anyone and I long ago got my travel merit badge for condescending cantina conversation and haughty hardship tales. I've slept in parks, forests, rooftops, made bamboo rafts, become proficient in dysentery on 3 continents and eaten snake, rats and bugs. I now leave it to the new gangs of migrating hemp unionists to gild the Asian lotus of Culture, Adventure and Diversity. I have seen the (twi)light and since reset my travel gauges. Culture: Careless handling and mingling with my dirty clothes renders any Duty-Free item "authentic." Adventure: "Will there be meat?" Diversity: Rare or medium-rare?

So, for Chinese New Year I took my wife to a place that I have been to before but which she has not - Sinandigan Lodge in the Puerto Galera area of the Philippines. It's the perfect place for me and my wife will soon come to agree. Sinandigan is on the back side of Sabang. Sabang boasts many dive shops, bars, and hawkers selling Viagra labeled " Vagra " , " Cilitex " and unlabeled such as Zip-Loc and Hefty.

The tourists seem mainly European and male. Large, porcine males with numerous love handles, footholds and toeholds - easily scalable in minutes. The remaining few who have yet to obtain the rank of Yokozuna all look to be roadies from The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. I'm not disparaging them. If more Americans were bold and cosmopolitan enough to sell off their business, wife and/or their soccer club jersey to live a month, a year in some Asian country to be able to learn to play bad guitar, rent a girl ( or near enough ) for as long as wanted and to display boldly-styled lower-back, upper-crack hair into the male equivalent of the female lower-back, lock-on-target tattoo, I would say the same.

Since I failed to meet the weight and hair requirements deemed necessary to make it in Sabang - oh, yeah, I was also disgusted - I choose a completely different setting.