I haven't been to India - I hear the stories from co-workers who have been there (for work, not primarily as tourists). A story or two about touristy things, but hours of stories about nastiness, filth, smells, and beggars. One of my co-workers apparently had beggars putting their hands in his pockets! Another co-worker was giving something (money?) to poor kids, and one of our Indian co-workers got angry with him, for encouraging that behavior. Like, really mad. Mostly, the Indian colleagues coach everyone before going out to studiously ignore the beggars, not to eat food or drink that has not been vetted, etc.
Everyone comes back saying you can't believe the poverty till you see it. Again, no personal experience, just stories.
On the upside, the Indian office is very diligent about ensuring that visitors get attention, and get shown around Mumbai, everything worth seeing that there is time for. We are not nearly as good at entertaining them when they visit. :-(
Oh, and the traffic! None of our engineers drives while visiting India - they are universally provided drivers as needed. Very alien for Americans, where you drive yourself around. Having a driver would be ludicrously expensive in the US, well outside the means of engineers. Also, its culturally very popular to drive in the US, so that is just a very different thing, apparently.
I hope this is sarcasm. Being the trod upon is always harder than doing the treading.
