As soon as you start traveling to so-called developing countries, it is virtually impossible not to be confronted with poverty and with living standards that simply cannot to be compared to those you are probably used to.
Especially those first times you find yourself moving around a country where you easily spend more every day than their monthly income, or carry stuff worth more than the entire belongings of a local family, can cause a very uneasy feeling. The gap between you and the inhabitants of the country you're visiting can feel enormous, and it can easily invoke feelings of guilt, of indignation, of wanting to help, of solving, or of being unsafe. After all, won't the most straightforward solution be for one of those poor guys to just steal everything you have? And if you would want to give something back, how would you do so?
After having been to many of those countries over a long period, I can still have any of those feelings described above. The reactions of your visit to the locals really depends on several factors. Are you one of the few visitors, or are you visiting a prime tourist destination? Are you behaving like you own the place, like you don't care about local customs and manners, or are you behaving like a guest, genuinely interested in your hosts? During my travels, I have always taken a low-profile approach, at least for the first few days, to get a feeling of the country, to see how people reacted to my presence - to test the waters. Moreover. I don't travel to tick off sights, but a prime goal of traveling for me is to get to know the locals. Try to speak a few words of their language, try their food, try to get in touch, see how they live, how they think, what they think.
This has resulted in my travels to be quite easygoing. I have hardly been confronted with violence, thiefs, assaults, or other annoying situations that might occur. Instead, I have often found that almost all those people who live totally different lives from mine, are the most beautiful people around. They often have a positive attitude, no matter how difficult the lives they live may be. They often have a surprisingly open mind, and genuine interest in knowing more about the remote places you have been to.
