Reflections on Our Trip to Mexico

Sometimes, even when traveling on the far side of the world, it’s possible to find similarities with home where you least expect them. That is what we recently encountered in Mexico. Biting into the sweet vanilla crust atop a concha bought at La Vasconia, Mexico City’s oldest bakery, I drew an immediate parallel with the pineapple buns of my Hong Kong childhood.

As we breezed through the countryside of Tabasco and Chiapas on an intercity ADO bus en route to Palenque, Bama remarked that it felt exactly like a corner of rural Java, Indonesia’s most populous island. The look of the tropical landscape, the humble villages we passed, even the informal roadside stalls selling supplies and knickknacks seemed deeply familiar. As did the sight of palm oil plantations, which reminded us both of the much larger island of Sumatra. Halfway into the trip, we agreed that some Mexicans could pass for Indonesians and vice versa.

The flip side of the coin was that there were plenty of moments that made it clear this was another continent 10,000 miles from home. Below, I’ve rounded up 10 things that either surprised us about Mexico or were completely different to what we’re used to in Jakarta. It’s an honest appraisal based on our observations and personal experiences, and I hope it conveys a genuine appreciation of both the Latin American nation and also the country we live in.

Mexican Cuisine is Not That Spicy

A breakfast of fried eggs with salsa roja at the B&B we booked in Mérida

After hearing about its reputation for spiciness for many years, what surprised us about Mexican food was the fact that it didn’t set our mouths on fire. “That’s because you live in Indonesia!” A well-traveled friend recently told me. He’s right — no Indonesian meal is complete without sambal, and some recipes here throw in devilishly hot cabe rawit setan (a kind of fiery bird’s-eye chili). At Castacán, a Michelin Guide–recommended taqueria in Mexico City’s hip Roma Norte neighborhood, Bama and I enjoyed the tongue-tingling sensation and the kick of the bottled habanero salsa, which came labeled with the warning “¡muy, muy picante!”. The chili heat we encountered during our meals in Mexico was always balanced alongside deep, complex flavors (like in the three different mole we tried) and never overwhelmed the tongue.

Mexico Has a Tipping Culture

The ground-floor dining room at Café de Tacuba, a Mexico City institution

One of the first words Bama learned during his Spanish-language crash course while traveling through Mexico was propina, or “tip”. The practice is not dissimilar to what goes on in the U.S. Tipping was something we had to quickly get used to as visitors coming from Asia, where the service charge is already factored into the bill, and any tips on top of that are not mandatory and left to the customer’s discretion. We learned the general expectation from restaurants in Mexico City was about 15 percent and tipped accordingly. That did not apply at the casual eateries and street food hubs in the Yucatán, but we still tipped out of courtesy, especially if the food was delicious (as it so often was) and the servers welcoming.

Food Portions in Mexico are Huge

Chiapas-style dishes with tortillas at lunchtime in Palenque

Bama and I both have big appetites, especially when we’re in a foreign country and we want to try as many of the local dishes as possible, but Mexico bested us on two occasions. What we saw at mealtimes reminded me of the enormous plates of food that are common north of the border. At a restaurant near our hotel in Palenque, servers even had trouble fitting all the things we ordered on the table. Somehow, we managed to wolf everything down but skipped dinner that night. Bama and I both grew up in families that encouraged us to polish everything off our plates, and we felt a little guilty that we couldn’t accomplish the deed in CDMX (the common nickname for Mexico City). At the 113-year-old Café de Tacuba, my curiosity about chiles rellenos got the better of me. Each of the two massive poblano peppers that arrived at our table came stuffed with a prodigious amount of stretchy cheese. Even as a lifelong cheese-lover, that was far too much for me to stomach.

Mexico is Serious About Its Smoking Bans (Which We Love)

Looking down the main strip of Palenque’s leafy La Cañada ecotourism zone

Indonesia has the world’s highest rates of smoking among men — three in four Indonesian men use cancer sticks on a regular basis — so the Mexican government’s strict attitude to discouraging tobacco use in hotels, restaurants, and all public spaces was a welcome change for us non-smokers with a history of childhood asthma. Bama is especially sensitive to second-hand smoke, and we’ve found that the smell of burning tobacco alone can ruin the experience of a meal. Eating outdoors in Indonesia is something we generally steer clear of, as terraces are almost always taken over by smokers. But in Mexico City, Palenque, or Mérida, we loved being able to dine alfresco without worrying about people at the next table lighting up their cigarettes.

Mexico City’s Public Transit and Airport Need an Upgrade

This phone shot was taken on Line 3 of the Mexico City Metro

The aging transport infrastructure of the Mexican capital reminded me a whole lot of the U.S. and Canada. Being outdated, cramped, and congested, Terminal 1 at Benito Juárez International Airport did not make for a pleasant first or final impression of Mexico. Not many passengers were waiting at immigration when we arrived, but the whole process took so long a Mexican expat we befriended on the flight from Istanbul wondered what had happened to us. (Terminal 2 is somewhat better, if similarly constrained — we also found it odd that domestic and international passengers freely mix in the departure areas.) In our experience, the Mexico City Metro was functional and reliable enough for getting around, but the stations and trains themselves clearly needed some TLC. Given our limited time in town, we chose a hotel close to Balderas, a station on the same metro line that would get us directly to Chapultepec Park and the National Anthropological Museum. But upon getting there, Bama and I discovered that the entire section west of Balderas (including Chapultepec) was closed for a major months-long renovation. We ended up plotting a new route with multiple changes on alternative lines, and figured out where to get on the replacement bus back to Balderas, though the standard of cleanliness and maintenance left much to be desired.

Aeroméxico Offers American-Style Service

The volcanoes of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl seen from an Aeroméxico flight

That is to say, not much at all. I’ll admit we are totally spoiled with the Asian hospitality that is standard in our part of the world, but even so, we were not impressed with Aeroméxico, which seems to inhabit the grey zone between a full-service airline and low-cost carrier. Our domestic flights from Mexico City to Villahermosa and back from Mérida took 90 minutes and just over two hours, respectively. Both times, we flew at midday and Aeroméxico offered only a bag of peanuts and one drink. (Flights of over an hour aboard any full-service Asian carrier typically come with a hot meal.) En route to Villahermosa, we paid extra for priority seating and quicker disembarkation since we had an ADO bus to catch to Palenque. But then a flight attendant sternly told us and our seatmate to take down our backpacks from the overhead bins to make space for the suitcases of other passengers sitting much further back. This was even though the bags clearly would not fit under the seats in front. Only after boarding was completed were we allowed to pile them into the overhead compartments on the opposite side. It may seem like a minor inconvenience, but being forced to cram a backpack into one’s already limited legroom for 90 minutes is not something I’d expect of a full-service carrier. These experiences made us thankful we chose Turkish Airlines for the long-haul flights to and from Mexico and not its national airline.

Mexico is Stricter When It Comes to Taking Photos

Part of Diego Rivera’s “Man, Controller of the Universe” mural at the Palacio de Bellas Artes

We found out about this the hard way. While riding the Mexico City Metro to the UNESCO-listed campus of UNAM, the country’s top university, Bama and I came across the history-themed murals above the platforms at Copilco station. So, we did what travel bloggers do and began snapping away with our cameras. A gruff security guard quickly showed up, asked us where we were from, and made it clear that photographs were not allowed on the metro. The same thing happened at Mérida’s recently opened La Plancha Park. We’d wandered into a former railway depot converted into a food hall and events space, and thought it would make a lovely addition to our blogs. Then an approaching staff member said we needed to apply for a free permit at a nearby booth to take pictures. At Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, the photography permit is something visitors must pay for; guards stationed around the building will check camera bags for the relevant paper tag or wristband.

Mexico Does a Complicated Form of Visitor Pricing

At the Temple of the Jaguar in Chichén Itzá

I’m not completely against the idea of offering local people discounted admission fees to see heritage sites and museums in their own country. This is practiced in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other nations around the world. However, some places take it to the extreme: Turkey charges foreign tourists an exorbitant price to enter the Hagia Sophia, while Turkish nationals walk in free. Dual pricing exists in Mexico, too, but what makes it a little more head-scratching is the common practice of needing to pay twice at the major Maya sites. A noticed printed on A4 paper taped to the windows of the ticket booths at Chichén Itzá explains that one charge is levied by an agency at the state level and another by a federal organization. At Palenque, visitors are required to pay the entrance fee for the archaeological ruins alone, and then admission to the national park the ancient city is a part of. Admittedly, it’s not an efficient system; one wonders whether it would be best to streamline everything into a single ticket.

Mexican Cities Have More Parks, Plazas, and Promenades

Parque Hidalgo in downtown Mérida

Indonesian urban planners can learn a lot from Mexico. A walkable footprint set down by the Spanish in colonial times and subsequent developments after Mexican independence make exploring on foot a real joy in both Mérida and CDMX. Their downtown and inner-city neighborhoods are dotted with small parks and lively squares featuring pop-up markets. Indonesian cities, by contrast, hardly have any green space. Tiny pocket parks in the concrete jungle often emerge from leftover plots or as part of a dining or shopping precinct. Urban forests on a large scale are almost unheard of: there is no equivalent of Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park in Jakarta. (An exception to the rule is Bogor, which by a historical quirk ended up with an 87-hectare or 210-acre botanical garden at its heart.) Another thing we love about Mexican cities is the presence of tree-lined boulevards featuring expansive sidewalks for jogging, dog-walking, and relaxing strolls in the early morning and late afternoon. Paseo de la Reforma in CDMX and Merida’s Paseo de Montejo stand out as fine examples; these shaded pedestrian-friendly avenues are sorely missing in car-centric Indonesia.

Mexico’s Historic Urban Centers are Truly Impressive

Details on the east facade of Mexico City’s 18th-century Metropolitan Tabernacle

After wandering through Mexican city streets lined with vibrantly painted buildings, noble churches, and mansions featuring ornate stone facades, the whitewashed and austere Dutch-colonial buildings of Indonesia seem utterly boring by comparison. The compact old town here in Jakarta was once the nerve center of a vast colony that gave the tiny Netherlands a great deal of its wealth, but you don’t really get a similar sense of importance or grandeur as you might while walking around Mexico City’s UNESCO-protected centro histórico. None of Indonesia’s colonial-era old towns (not even the rather charming one in Semarang) can hold a candle to the ones we visited in Mexico. That said, Bama and I are well aware that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Abdiel, the incredibly hardworking Cuban immigrant who drove us around the Yucatán, remarked that Jakarta was “muy bonita” upon seeing a photo of its boring boxy skyscrapers on Google. When we asked him about Campeche, a walled port town (and UNESCO World Heritage site) that fellow bloggers Alison and Don loved, Abdiel shrugged. “Campeche is nothing special. It’s like Havana, but very small.” ◊