[This sounds pretty dated to me, but I've left it here because it's truly how I felt after one trip to India. After several more visits, India seems less grandiose and more familiar to me. I think. - Doug]

Tourist travel to third-world countries is a hobby for many Americans, and I'm as hooked on the concept as anyone else. For those of us who have spent our lives in the wealthy, safe, comfortable United States, it's fascinating to go to places where people are truly poor, places where chaos and suffering and corruption and compassion and grace are woven into the fabric of everyday life. And if you like that sort of thing, India is as good as it gets.

There are hardships in travel to India, but that's just part of the appeal. For example, there's the issue of disease and sickness. Most Western travelers will suffer at least one bout of some type of intestinal distress, but there are also many worse diseases lurking. When I went to get my immunizations before traveling to India, the nurse showed me a list of the top 10 disease threats in the world, as compiled by the CDC (Center for Disease Control), and said with a sarcastic smile, "the good news is, in India you don't have to worry about yellow fever." Just the other nine, in other words.

The threat of disease isn't the only uncomfortable aspect of Indian tourism. The constant in-your-face begging is another thing many tourists find disturbing. There are starving people in every Indian city, and many of them work the tourist areas begging for handouts. It's not unusual to have a cloud of people around you, many of them obviously sick or crippled, their eyes locked on yours, their mouths mumbling and drooling and begging. If you have a heart — and it's hard to imagine why you'd travel to India if you don't — this can be a painful situation with no easy way out.

Corruption is another challenge for the tourist traveling through India. Bribes, or baksheesh, are often required in order to make things work the way they should, whether you're dealing with a ticket agent, police officer, waiter, or almost anyone else. But it's not as simple as throwing money around everywhere to get your way: some people are very proud of their integrity and will accept no compensation for doing their duty, so you'll create hard feelings and misunderstandings if you're too quick to offer a bribe. So you stagger between confusing exchanges, never sure whether you've made things better or worse, never knowing whether you're experiencing a bit of bad luck or the predictable consequence of baksheesh naievete.

The widespread suffering of people and animals is another constant in India. Walking near my hotel in Delhi one day, I saw a man quietly sitting on the sidewalk with a deep gash in his emaciated leg, flies feasting on the blood and pus. In Agra, I saw a dog with a recently crushed leg dangling, hopping painfully on the other three; later that day we saw a dog sitting in a pool of its own blood, calmly lapping up the warm liquid. If you get off the beaten path even a little bit in India, you'll see things you'll wish you hadn't.

And then there's the toilets, a common topic of conversation among Westerners considering travel in India. The classic Asian toilet is simply a hole in the ground that you squat above, which is actually quite clean to use because you never touch anything. The good news is that we mostly found Western sit-down porcelain toilets in hotels and restaurants. But we rode the trains a bit, and the toilets on them were simply a hole in the floor with a view of the railroad tracks flying past a few inches below. Using that toilet on a bumpy train bouncing over bad rails in the middle of the night is an experience you won't soon forget.

So why would anyone go to India? The answer is simple: India offers experiences you can't get anywhere else on earth. The photos and sub-pages above offer some good examples, and there are many others. And in the midst of the chaos, you'll find people living lives of calm acceptance and true joy, people that make you ashamed to have ever complained about a single thing back in the plush and clean United States.

India is both disgusting and inspiring. I couldn't wait to leave when I was there, I swore I'd never return when I got home, and now I long to go back just one more time.