One of the more spectacular drives in the world is traversing the Pyrenees mountains, which separates Spain and France, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

Jackson and I started in Barcelona and ended in Bilbao, but we went up through Andorra and stayed mostly on the French side, taking La Route des Cols over a succession of high passes such as the Col de Tourmalet, the toughest challenge in the Tour de France bike race.

Can you imagine pedaling a bicycle up this?



But it sure was fun to drive.  And hike to places like this amazing foot bridge flung across the Gorge d' Holcarte:



It was also educational.  For while Barcelona and Bilbao are both in Spain, the difference between them is stark.

Barcelona is the capital of Spanish Catalonia, while Bilbao is the capital of Euskal Herria, the Land of the Basques.  Both regions have struggled for freedom from the control of Madrid and the Spanish government.  One has been smart in doing so, and the other really stupid.

In 1974, I took a year off from my doctoral studies and teaching philosophy at the University of Southern California at the suggestion of the Chairman of the USC School of Philosophy, John Hospers.

John had been the 1972 Presidential Candidate of the Libertarian Party and was involved in the New Country Project.  Financed by wealthy libertarians such as Mike Oliver from Nevada, this was an effort to locate some viable piece of real estate in the world that could be transformed into an actual sovereign nation founded on libertarian principles of minimal government.

Such a country was to have total free trade with no customs or tariffs on any imported goods; no corporate, income, or sales taxes; and a government restricted to a police force, a small professional military, and courts. 

Government expenses were to be paid from contract fees - for the courts to recognize any sort of contractual relationship, the parties would pay a fee for the contract to be legally binding.

John Hospers and Mike Oliver sent me out into the world to locate where such a new country could be established.  I spent a year going to some very weird places.

This is the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean across from Italy.  The English playwright George Bernard Shaw declared on a visit here in 1929, "If you want to see heaven on earth, come to Dubrovnik."

Over a million visitors a year from all over the world agree with Shaw, marveling at its huge fortress walls, swimming in the sparkling clear Adriatic, choosing which hidden restaurant in a myriad of tiny alleys to enjoy marvelous food and wine, and partying all night at the Troubador Jazz Café owned by my friend Marko Breskovic.

Only the smallest fraction of them pay any attention to this sign affixed to the stones at the city's entrance:

The border between Pakistan and India is one thousand eight hundred miles long, running from the Karakorum-Himalaya mountains next to China all the way to the Indian Ocean.  Along its entire length, there is one land crossing for foreigners, between Lahore, Pakistan and Amritsar, India, called Wagha.

To make the crossing, you take a taxi to the Pak side of Wagha, where porters are waiting to carry your bags.  After going through passport and customs control, you walk a thousand yards over bare ground to the Indian side, where your Pak porters turn over your bags to a swarm of Indian porters who fight amongst themselves to carry them.

When the porters start grabbing your bags from each other, you have to physically intervene to keep your bags from being torn apart.  It is over 100 degrees in the shade.

If I ask you to think of India, the image that most likely appears in your mind's eye would be the Taj Mahal. Arguably the most famous building in the world and considered by many to be the most beautiful structure mankind has ever created, it was completed in 1648 by the ruler of India, Shah Jehan, to immortally entomb his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

There is a painful problem with this image, however, for the great majority of folks in India: the Taj Mahal isn't an Indian building. It's Moslem, and thus for Indians a symbol of Islamic imperialism.

The Moslem invasion of India had begun with Mahmud of Ghazni (now in present-day Afghanistan) in 1001. Historian Will Durant observed:

The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.

Bangkok. Western tradition associates royalty with the color purple.  Not in Siam, or as it's called today, Thailand.  The royal color here is yellow - and the whole country right now is wearing yellow, yellow shirts, hats, sashes, or ribbons, in celebration of their beloved King Bhumibol's 60^th anniversary of his reign. 

The King's picture is everywhere, and not because of a personality cult.  He is genuinely revered as the embodiment and father-figure of the Thai nation.  And at the same time, the streets of Bangkok are clogged with protestors in yellow shirts waving yellow banners, demanding their democratically elected government be overthrown.

The Siamese are an interesting people.

You couldn't imagine a more peaceful place than Cambodia in 1961.  Sure, the Vietnamese to the east had split into a Communist North and Free South after the French defeat at Dienbienphu - but that was a problem of despised Cham (the ancient name for ‘Nam).

A flight on Royal Air Cambodia from Phnom Penh (the capital) to Siem Reap (near the ruins of Angkor) provided an unforgettable example of just how laid back the place was.  It was a DC-3, and the stewardess served us a small cup of orange juice, then strapped herself in the jump seat near the exit door and fell fast asleep.

The plane landed, taxied to the tiny terminal, the ground crew opened the door, and we all walked past her to deplane - she was still out cold in Z-land.  Must have been a long night in Phnom Penh.

I stayed in this small hotel, Auberge de Temples, run by a French lady, right across from Angkor Wat.  There were a handful a visitors and I was the only American.  As I explored the magnificent ruined cities and temple complexes of Angkor Thom, Ta Prom, Ta Keo, Angkor Wat and others, they were like deserted lost cities that I had all to myself.

Wow, is it different today.

It was an interesting way to spend the 4th of July.  And instructive.  I climbed Fujiyama - Fuji-san, as the Japanese reverently call it - once before when I was 17.  That was in 1961, and I still have the climbing stick I used with the year burned into the wood.

It's funny that I have no recollection of the climb being hard.  It requires starting from 7,900 feet at 4 in the morning, and trudging steeply up through volcanic scree to reach the rim at 12,200 feet some five hours later.  No problem when I was 17.  I guess 45 years does make a difference after all.

Actually, the big difference is in coming back down.  Going up it's your lungs that take a beating, going down it's your legs - and I'll take the former any time.  My lungs still work OK, but the endless, endless steep pitch down, down, down, hour after hour made it achingly clear I don't have teen-age legs any more.

But my 14 year-old son Jackson does - and standing on top of Fuji with him made all the effort easily worthwhile.

For the rest of his life, Jackson will remember the 4th of July in 2006.  Fujiyama, one of the world's most famous mountains, is now a part of his life.  Hopefully, it will inspire him to learn more about the country of which Fujiyama is the symbol:  Japan.