Pronounced "
Belau", it is home to the world’s most
unmolested reef and ocean wild life, thus the worlds best diving. It has a few
WWII relics sunken off its coasts and does not allow
commercial fishing within its waters. In Palau the worst crime you can commit is to own a
gun, you cannot buy land there unless you are of Palauan descent (in that case the land if given to you for free by your
relatives).
The most commonly used
drug is
Betel Nut (which is often chewed by
children as well as
adults).
Palauans are kind people and yet are not too keen on
Americans and hate the
Japanese (with rather good cause
methinks), they recently (within the last few years) approved a US naval bases construction on the island. This was achieved by simply taking the traditional "
majority rules"
democratic process and bumping it down vote after vote it so that a 20% yes vote constituted "
majority".
After about 6 votes it passed (each time the percentage was bumped down, first to 45%, then 45% then 30%, etc...), and the entire thing was run and
supervised by none other than the
US government.
Democracy in action.