Plus 10,000 head of prime beef cattle, which provide a gross (which isn't far from the net) of about US$350,000 a year. I promise you, I've seen lots of property, and this is a good piece of dirt. I spoke with its receiver, and US$3 million should take it away.

Two questions probably come to mind: Why haven't I bought it? And why is it in receivership?

I'd like to buy it, but a man's got to know his limitations. And managing an operation like that from afar is intimidating. And the highest and best use of it isn't as a plantation. I see it as a resort. You may know that a few friends and I, along with my publisher, Agora, partnered up to buy a 1,700 acre ranch on the west coast of Nicaragua a few years ago. Since then, we've put in necessary infrastructure and a club house, and have been selling lots on the ocean. We started at the bargain price of $17,500 and the best ones are now going for over $70,000. That is what should be done with this ranch.

My partners in the Nicaragua deal (see www.ranchosantana.com) tell me that Vanuatu is too exotic and too far from the United States to be successful, but I'm unconvinced. Certainly the return on capital would be breathtaking if I'm right; the world is ready for a truly exclusive development in the South Pacific.

The formation of offshore companies, trusts, private bank accounts, shipping flags of convenience and the like is a significant source of income for Vanuatu. It's not enough that the United States and other OECD members have Draconian laws against their citizens using offshore structures to reduce their onerous tax burdens, or gain some measure of privacy. They're making noises about imposing sanctions on countries that offer financial freedom.

I don't know to what degree they might succeed. It seems to me that it's another straw in the wind that bloated nation-states are on their way out, as more citizens take steps to get their assets beyond the grasp of their rulers. And the citizens that do that increasingly see their governments as their enemies. U.S. and OECD efforts to force small, poor countries to impose income taxes and abolish financial privacy are criminal, of course, but that's true of almost everything the United States, the EC and their minions do internationally. About the only way countries like Vanuatu can develop is to attract capital, and about the only way they can do that is by having no taxes and low costs. But OECD members see that if they let some of their citizens escape the dragnet, then a flood of others will try; so they'll go to almost any extreme to prevent it.

And it's not only in taxes or privacy that the governments of developed countries are quashing the competition. Destructive organizations like the WTO are trying to impose outlandishly expensive and often counterproductive environmental regulations, the ILO is trying to enact pro-labor union sanctions against low-wage countries and the World Bank and the IMF offer them loans on moronic projects which can only be repaid through huge taxes on the impoverished locals.

These things simultaneously impoverish taxpayers in rich countries. When I was on Tanna, the island where the John Frum movement is centered, the EC was in process of building a huge international airport. To what purpose? Nobody will ever use it, and in a few years vines will be growing across the runway. But I've seen this nonsense throughout the Third World. Is it malevolence, or just stupidity? Hard to say. But it's definitely the nature of government.

What's the future of Vanuatu? I think it can, despite the obvious negatives, both homegrown and imported, be excellent simply because the population is so low, the people are so backward, the place is so beautiful and the prices are so low. Actually, I first became involved in the country back in 1979, when a tribal chief by the name of Jimmy Moly Stevens, in the Luganville area, attempted to have the island of Santo secede from the rest of the country. The movement was put down by British and French paratroops, but the natives there are still restless. If a thousand, or even a hundred rich guys set up shop on one of the properties I mentioned, would the tail start wagging the dog? The odds are excellent it would. The chances of Galt's Gulch happening are much higher in the South Pacific than they are in the United States. I suggest you look into it. The place is definitely on my dance card. It was also possible to from Pakistan through the Khojak Pass (between Quetta Kandahar).

The main route for overlanders was Herat - Kandahar - Kabul, or vice versa. Both the Russians and the Americans had built the roads. On the Russian section they had built a gray concrete hotel complete with swimming pool, but it had no water. It was used as a bus stop for passengers to get tea - no one actually stayed.  Mostly, the buses stopped at a "chaikana" or teahouse. I remember being on a bus with some Americans whose request for Coca-Cola was met with much derision. One girl asked, "Where is the toilet?" and was taken into the chaikana and shown a door. She went through it find herself in the desert. She asked again, "Where is the toilet?" The owner of the chaikana waved his hand at the vast expanse of desert and replied, "The whole world is a toilet!."

There was a certain etiquette observed in chaikanas.A customer would be bought an enamel pot of very hot tea and some glasses, usually not too clean, and the customer's first duty was to rinse glasses out with hot tea. I was to meet some interesting people in chaikanas.  I got talking to an American girl who told me that she and her husband and her two kids had been travelling for six months. They had a limited budget, just like the rest of us. Her two kids were aged two and four.

Her husband had calipers on both legs and used sticks to get around. The sticks had elbow supports.