The poorer the country, the larger the monument. And the Dominican Republic has one of the largest, the Columbus Lighthouse, built in the shape of a giant cross that shelters the alleged remains of the great traveler himself. On weekend nights, an immense battery of high-intensity spotlights projects a crucifix into the sky, frequently causing all the other lights in Santo Domingo to go out, including the stoplights. This wouldn't hinder the traffic, though, since nobody pays any attention to them anyway-except the police.  Still recovering from my Ex-lax overdose and in desperate need of a bathroom, I was hopelessly ensnared in Santo Domingo's chaotic traffic. Suddenly, a traffic cop stepped out and waved me over.  “Hay un semaforo, se–or,” he said, pointing to the stoplight.  “It’s not working,” I replied, already reaching for my wallet.  “When the stoplights are not working, you must come to a complete stop.”  Nobody else was. A constant parade of derelict cars limped by, bumping into one another like cows on a stampede. An entire family on a tiny moped wove through the traffic-going the wrong way-the smallest child perched on the handlebars like a sacrificial hood ornament. “Follow me to the police station.”  “Can’t I pay you directly?” I asked, anxious to get to a bathroom.  “A policeman who takes money on the street is corrupt,” he said. He paused a moment. “Let’s be friends.”  We shook hands and exchanged names, and he showed me a photo of his family.  “Carlos, what is money between friends?” he asked.  “Usually a catastrophe,” I said. I gave him a $5 bill and he let me go after giving me a hearty handshake.  A block later, the same policeman came up behind me on his motorcycle and flagged me to the side. My God, I thought, do I have to pay this guy by the block? “Carlos, you look lost, and friends must help each other. Where are you going?”  “El Embajador Hotel,” I said. “Sigame,” he said, as he turned on the red flashing light. Blowing his whistle and motioning wildly with his hands, he cleared a path through the stalled traffic while I followed behind somewhat self-consciously, trying hard not to look like a DEA agent. What a country. Where else can you buy friends like this for $5, and get a private motorcade to boot? The Hotel El Embajador was Dictator Trujillo's glittering showplace of the 1950s. Now it looked like a container ship stranded in the backwater of time. Despite the Chippendale and chandeliers, a mildew smell permeated the lobby. I went to the restaurant, and noticed the same stench. The guest rooms smelled like wet athletic socks. As I was writing up notes in my car-bring noseplugs-the odor kept haunting me. I decided to investigate further. Eventually I found its source. It was the shirt I was wearing.  Laundromats are hard to find in most Third-World countries, and usually cost more than my clothes are worth. Whenever my threads get too dirty, I shed them and buy new ones. El Conde street in Santo Domingo's historic district turned out to be one of the Caribbean’s great outlets for imitation designer clothes. I spent  eight bucks for an Yves St. Laurent shirt with epaulets, and another six bucks for a pair of Girbaud pants with more pleats than a window curtain. A pair of ersatz Ray Bans completed my wardrobe, just in time for my next island hop to St. Barts, the fashion capital of the Caribbean. Fake designer clothes. Tres chic. On Spanish-speaking islands, food and lodging are cheap and plentiful, on English-speaking ones you pay a bit more, but the French ones are by far the most expensive. What you pay for is largely an attitude and yellow sauce on your food. This trip was starting to wear on me. To keep going, I needed almost hourly infusions of caffeine. In a little sidewalk caf? in Marigot, I ordered a cup of coffee that cost as much as my quarterly life insurance premium, but all I received were a few drops of brown syrup in the bottom of a plastic cup the size of a sewing thimble.  “I’m confused,” I said. “Do I put this on my tongue, or just rub it on my skin?” The fashionable caf? crowd looked at me as if I had a sign around my neck, “Homo americanus.”  I drove the steep narrow roads of St. Barts at breakneck speed in a rented a jeep with a broken windshield and a spring sticking up in the driver’s seat that quickly put a tiny hole in my new Girbaud pants. I had ten hours to review 20 hotels before catching a flight back to St. Maarten. Flying in and out is the only way to visit St. Barts without spending the night, as the ferry only runs in one direction once a day. In this way, the island weeds out ordinary people from among the rich and famous.  At the most expensive hotel on the island, the Taiwana, they don't even publish their rates. When I insisted on knowing what it cost to stay there, the exasperated owner said, “One thousand dollars a night to start. Would you like a room?” This drew a giggle from his bronzed guests lounging around the pool. “One thousand bucks for one night,” I said. “About what it takes to keep a Haitian family alive for five years.”  He rolled his eyes, and dismissed me with a wave of his hand while letting loose with a mouth fart, a uniquely European habit in which a pocket of air bursts up from the lower lip, a contemptuous gesture often accompanied by a theatric closing of the eyes, a facial drama meant to convey a subtle existential message: You're dog shit.  When I turned to leave, the oiled people around the pool erupted in laughter. I stormed out of there, my pants flapping in the breeze. They didn't know it, but the Red Brigade just found a new recruit.  At the hotel next door, the receptionist asked me in that charmingly blunt way of the French, “Monsieur, you have had an accident with your pants?”  “Just a little rip,” I said, but as I reached back to check the seat of my pants, there was just bare flesh. My Girbauds had ripped from the belt loop all the way down to the back of my knee and I hadn’t even noticed. So that’s what people have been laughing at. On an island where the women brazenly expose their breasts, my thigh seemed to be getting all the attention.  Travel fatigue had definitely set in, my body numb of senses yet moving one step ahead of an overactive mind. I should have recognized the first symptoms that morning at the St. Maarten airport. Whenever I had flashed a big smile, people recoiled in horror. Little children ran to their parents. Perplexed, I went into a bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My teeth and gums were colored inky red from sucking on a pen already weakened by so much high altitude flying. Leaking pens are another occupational hazard of the travel writer. My wife is always threatening to buy me a pocket protector. What I really needed was a pocket protector for my mouth.  The last hotel on St. Barts I reviewed while making a new fashion statement: bare-chested, with an Yves St. Laurent shirt looped around my Girbauds, revealing just a flash of lower thigh-the deconstructed look. This is when I formulated my latest travel rule: Never look back, somebody’s laughing at you.