Indonesian farmers are seething with anger at the government's penchant for building golf resorts. To make way for the greens, the peasants are being forced to move out in search of other pastures, which are becoming increasingly difficult to find. As if to add insult to injyry, golf greens will be kept manicured with irrigation water.

The authorities, determined to turn tourism into the largest source of foreign revenue by the end of the decade, are out to woo rich foreigners who are the chief patrons of these resorts. The Indonesian state is legally also on surer ground than the dispossessed: it does not recognise most traditional land rights.