I love Thailand. It's standards in many areas are far higher than Australia. It's because the country is run so efficiently, and the people are so well educated, trained and efficient. Yes there's problems there, but name me one country that's perfect. We will always be held back while we have an incompetent opposition like we currently have: They desperately need to get rid of the Victorian era throwbacks like Abbott, Hockey, Pyne and a few others and become an actual "Liberal" party like they have been for most of their history.

Otokonoko,
I did a trip through the pacific some 20 odd years ago and found the people of Vanuatu to be warm and welcoming. I have no doubt that they would love to see their standard of living improve a bit, but i wonder if their roads are any worse than the ones i drive on. I am not kidding, the roads in my area are so bad i have not seen anything like them since India. They fell to pieces during the floods of 2008 -2009 and despite promises of money from government nothing happens. we still have bridges closed with no hope of repairing them as no one will pay, now that is third world.
I often wonder if wealth and an improving standard of living are such great things, When in India 15 years ago i found them to be happy, humble and at peace with themselves. Now the Indian people have become arrogant, angry and dissatisfied with the world since they discovered development and the western economy. I wonder if the same disease is infecting the Chinese.

In 1970 Australia spent 8% of GDP on infrastructure.
We have not spent more than 5% per annum in the years since 1970.
Rising demand, lower budget, and the results are evident in every decrepit state and territory we own.

> I wonder if the same disease is infecting the Chinese.
Sadly, yes, nairbe. I lived in China briefly in 2007 for several months - Beijing, Changchun, places beyond and between - and came away broken-hearted. Having spent a delightful and rewarding decade in Singapore, where I felt more at home than I've ever felt in Oz (and I'm fourth-generation Anglo-Irish) it was in many ways like going home, and in others like finding that home had become a frantic, filthy, alien place.

> become arrogant, angry and dissatisfied with the world since they discovered development and the western economy.
The same. You've put it concisely and exactly.

> I found them to be happy, humble and at peace with themselves.
I found the same thing when I lived in Bali decades ago; undoubtedly much changed nowadays.

I'm not a religious person, but have always had a strong interest in the spiritual (and the psychic, but that's a very different thing). In today's materialist world one doesn't like to attribute circumstances and events to psychic and spiritual causes, but all of the social evils spreading throughout today's world are described in the ancient Vedic literature as inevitable consequences of spiritual decay, both personal and social. Buddhism is essentially a philosophy, but is often practised as a religion, and it offers similar critiques. There's no doubt in my mind that the former happy, naturally healthy and contented lives of Asian peoples comes from their traditions, and that these disappear as soon as they embrace modern Western attitudes.

Beelzebub,
Spirituality is what led me to India in search of Guru to meditate with, i found him and then over time found it all no different to a religion. Buddism was always very attractive and above all peaceful. The problem i found with all these forms of spirituality is that either they are or have become religious. I just can't swallow church's of any type or form, once organised it always leads to control of peoples thinking and domination of the society.
I am sad to hear that China is suffering the same disease, unfortunately like all great empires the western world has become hell bent that their way of life is the only right one and that the rest of the world should do it too. Thankfully history tells us that the empire will fall and following will be some degree of cultural independence for the peoples of the world. For a while anyway we may be able to rebuild the community and family values and independence that seems to be the membrane that keeps some cultures still flowing with contentment and cohesion.
It would seem in the end that most folks on this site that have traveled don't view Australia with the teary eyed lucky country tale that keeps so many of our country men hypnotised. I can only hope for some kind of social revolution by the next generation as the last great one of the 60's only produced the "ME" generation and they are costing us dearly as a nation now and into their lavish retirement.

I'll say this for the roads in Vanuatu. In December last year, quite late at night (the only time such an experiment is safe in a city with no speed limits, traffic lights or pedestrian crossings), I "measured" a pothole in the main street of Port Vila by lowering my leg into it. I sank knee-deep.

That said, I can't speak very highly of our own roads. When I lived in Brisbane, I lived on top of a one road up, one road down hill. During the "storm of the century" (a roughly biennial occurrence according to the Courier-Mail), water gushed down the hill for several hours, resulting in a road corrugated so badly that it was like driving over a couple of hundred metres of cattle grid. Two years later, nothing had been done about it. Now, back in Townsville, the roads are no better. Flooding is an annual occurrence in my neighbourhood, and the attitude to damaged roads seems to be "why fix them? They'll only be wrecked again next summer".

The difference is that the people in Vila learn to cope with it, don't care so much when their cars get a nasty jolt and get on with life. They seem to remember all those wonderful things that make life special. We, here in Australia and elsewhere in the "better" half of the world, seem to have an incredible ability to let a single pothole wreck our entire day.