I am in Puebla. Anthony Bourdain claims that most of the cooks in New York
come from Puebla, and that the food is very good here. I wouldn’t know. I
accidentally ordered a media kilo taco in a restaurant across the
street from my hotel. That’s a full pound of meat, some limes, and a large
dish of tortillas. I got about a third of the way through, and I will be
eating it for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Five bucks is five bucks is
five bucks. (Or should that be are?)

Afterwards, at sunset, I carried my beefy bag to the main square, where the
public speakers played a Sergio Leone spaghetti western theme. For a second
I was sure no one else could hear it.

Then I found this Internet cafe, which is remarkably cheap with
long opening hours. I am the only woman here—this is normal—and I had to
wait for a computer. Finally, a young man walked out, head down, and the
nice woman at the desk sent me to his former spot.

Lots and lots of moist pink flesh popped up on screen. Many, many browser
windows. I tried to close them, playing porno Whack-a-Mole, while the
other men laughed and hooted, distracted for a moment from their own perusal.
Finally, I hit the Power button, hoping to feel powerful.

The nice woman at the desk came running, retyped the password, and
apologized. There were still snickers, though the man next to me explained
kindly that normally people logged out of porn sites before leaving.

In the kitchen of the Mexican restaurant where I once worked, the guys
favored donkey porn, which they would dangle at the waitress station. Caitriona
and I never managed the studied cool Bourdain gives the female chefs in
Kitchen Confidential—
    ‘My, Miguel, how well your mother is looking.’
Caitriona’s Celtic blushes were likely very satisfactory breaks from slinging
chimichangos, and the boys rarely tired of them. I sometimes managed a string of
Spanish curses, but usually they were long gone, leaving me with the burros.

Ten years later, I’m here in the heartland, where Pedro and Carlos’s mamas
still live. It’s nice to see the future cooks of Gringolandia are keeping up with
technology, though being in an Internet porn caf&eacute makes me feel
a bit Pee-Wee Herman.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to wash my hands.

I’m an urban creature, as only someone forced to grow up in the countryside can be. I figure out new public transit systems the way Grizzly Adams reads bear tracks. Shortly after arriving in Mexico City, I was happily jumping off Line 3 at Hidalgo to switch to Line 1 towards Pantitlán, without a map. My overly cautious Footprint Guide gives dark warnings about tourist muggings, but I found the Mexico City metro cheerful and efficient. Little cardboard tickets cost a flat two pesos. Unlike the New York subway, there are few endless escalator descents and mile-long tunnels. You pop your ticket in the turnstile, and the train is right in front of you—they arrive every 90 seconds.

Inflight entertainment is supplied by hawkers. On the Tasqueña train, a man behind me intoned a bizarre mantra.
    “Ámame. Plázame. Te quiere.” (Love me. Please me. He loves you.)
This went on, until he came to ‘Submarino Amarillo’, and I finally twigged that he was reciting the songs on the Beatles Greatest Hits CDs he carried in a cardboard box.

Blind singers of varying talents stagger up and down the train, holding their change cups trustingly. Today’s biggest hit was a book of salad recipes for four pesos, which was snapped up by the passengers who boarded at Central Market.

Lulled by my metro mastery, I was surprised to find the platform jammed five-deep at 7.30 on Friday night. The atmosphere was menacing, though I couldn’t work out why. I was being stared at more than usual. Where were the women? A full train arrived, and the men hurled themselves with frightening force at the passengers trying to get off. Mosh pit.

The women, it turned out, were at the other end of the platform behind a barrier guarded by police. After dark, the men are separated from women, children, and the disabled, and the air gets ugly. I scurried into the women’s pen, where as usual I was the only gringa and a head taller than anyone else.

The segregation felt odd. Some men leered over the barrier, like long-term lags on a prison bus passing a convent. Three trains arrived and left, so packed I couldn’t get on. When I finally squeezed on, holding my breath, I was glad that only women’s bodies were pressed against mine. The women were mostly quiet, tired-looking after a week’s work, and patient with the heat and the crush. I felt safe and grateful for their company. But it was a quick reminder that I am no longer in Giuliani’s Manhattan, which always felt as safe as Disneyland, even at 3 am.

Birds do it. Bees do it. And boy oh boy, do Mexicans do it.

They make out in the metro, they neck in caf&eacutes, they snog in the street. And not just the kids; middle-aged couples roll around in Chapultepec Park, hands up one another’s shirts. I think they put ecstasy in the enchiladas.

In Southeast Asia, carrying a girl’s books counted as first base. On the other hand, men expressed the kind of public affection for one another that would have guaranteed a head-kicking in downtown Limerick. Fifteen-year-old boys strolled around Phnom Penh with arms around each other, shyly checking out girls. Little boys walked to school holding hands, heads on one another’s shoulders. Girls, though, were not to be touched, except in the racier cities in Thailand. The only public kisses I saw were paid for.

The issue of daughters and public displays of affection was dealt with ingeniously (and disturbingly) by my own parents. There was a fateful Saturday when my fourteen-year-old sister was caught kissing her new boyfriend outside Todd’s department store in Limerick, surrounded by her gang of friends. My mother wanted to call out to get her to stop shaming the family. Instead, Dad grabbed Mum—at least, this is what was reported to me—and snogged her in front of Claire’s friends. I was twenty at the time, and living away from home, but in sympathetic horror I’ve never kissed outside a department store since.

In New York, Time Out magazine keeps running cheesy features on the best bars for making out, and which restaurants let you have sex in the toilet. I’ve never seen much evidence of this uncontrollable passion (though granted, I’m often oblivious). It’s a romantic city, but New Yorkers are a puritanical lot. Any couple enjoying themselves too much will hear ‘Get a room!’ from passers-by.

Who decides who can and can’t be kissed in on the street? In Catholic Mexico, where people often live with their parents until marriage, it makes sense that courtship is public domain. But why can’t Mexican (or Irish, or New York) men be tender with their straight male friends? And why can’t a nice Vietnamese boy kiss his girlfriend at the pho stand?