I think my favorite advice of all times came from a security officer in the Amsterdam airport. At the gate, just before boarding the plane to Delhi, there was one last security checkpoint. I held open my passport for the man standing at a kind of podium, he looked at me, then at the page with my picture, then at the page with the visa stamped in it.
"Your first trip to India?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Brace yourself."