Brazil is also an emerging country. After China and India, it is considered the next largest and potentially the most important emerging country. My impressions of Rio de Janeiro are very positive. The only real negative thing is their notoriety for crime. I was not very free in going around — in fact carefully avoided walking alone. Luckily I did not become a victim. It is a pity that such a beautiful city has this problem.
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Rio is definitely one of the most beautiful cities that I have seen. It is blessed with all good elements of nature – nice hills, lots of beautiful beaches, rain forest like vegetation, and beautiful valleys. For an emerging county, it is quite clean and neat. I did not go to their slums, but other parts are quite well maintained. Copacabana area is very well maintained and does not even look like a developing country — looks like a nice rich country. Their touristy area — the Christ Redeemer statue, which is one of the 7 new wonders, and Sugarloaf Mountain — are also easily accessible and very well organized.
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Of course like many countries in developing world, I found that their sense of time is like that in India. My tourist bus came 45 minutes late and dropped me back about 1 hour 15 minutes late.
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Overall, Rio is a very beautiful city — a nice experience.