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Comment by kilroy_jones | Hacker News Reader

I never felt at ease backpacking. In places like India and Nepal you spend most of your time playing tourist alongside other people's poverty while enjoying advantageous exchange rates that exist for all sorts of horrid reasons both past and present.

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Hmm, I guess we do it differently then. I am not saying I didn't also experience of what you describe, poverty is literally inescapable in India unless you bury yourself in some 5-star hotel. And Nepal is still one of the poorest countries of the world.

But these things were never core of the experience. Frankly, quite opposite. Generousness of the poor is not something to shy away from, I am happy to be helped, share a dinner with them, listen to their life stories, and help them out if I can.

I don't feel any ancestor's guilt like folks from some parts western Europe could, I come from country which never enslaved another one. Maybe its just about optics on same things - my beer is definitely half full when travelling. My budget spent in the poor remote area will trickle a bit into local economy.

Maybe its a bit about expectations - I don't travel to have it easy or only positive. Intensity is what matters more.

The Nepalese are extremely friendly, and I don't regret going, I just walked away with different feelings. For me it's not about guilt, it's about the shock of being part of a global economy that is at its core exploitative. That I live comfortably while these people don't have basic medical care, and my little splurges are equal to a days wage for them. Basically it was a window into the incredible, and unnecessary, inequality that exists. Something that didn't really hit me fully until I experienced it first hand.

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