No. 56

Living Like The Other 1/4 Lives: There's a special kind of joy you get from finding the perfect ten dollar beachfront nipah hut, with its clean-enough mattress on the floor and frequent-enough indoor cold water plumbing. We know that joy. There is also, it turns out, a special kind of joy you get from staying in a full board luxury resort on a remote island in the South China Sea while pretending to be nouveau riche. We now also know that joy.

Our host family treated us to several days in the province of Palawan, at an island resort near El Nido town. Not surprisingly, this is our new favorite place in the world. It's twice as obscene as it looks, the sort of place where someone dives to catch your dropped napkin before it hits the ground and then apologizes for the fact that it's so breezy outside. I took a 30 minute walk through the jungle one day and ended up on a deserted beach in a deserted cove. When I finished swimming, a smiling man emerged on cue from the empty forest to ask if I wanted him to radio for a boat back to the resort. "Why not," I said. Why not. Wait a minute, who are we? There are dozens of these stories from El Nido, each one as improbable as this place was beautiful. Crystal clear lagoons, limestone cliffs, spotless outrigger canoes and more good food than you can shake a diet book at. You feel indestructable in a place like this, so when you're not napping, you take time out to conquer your fears. Amy took on her fear of underwater-breath-holding and tried scuba diving for the first time. I took on my new fear of monkeys and hiked alone in the jungle. We're having some certificates of acheivement printed up when we get home. Try and stop us.