Eat My Globe Part 6

Everyone helps with the harvesting and sh.e.l.ling of local peanuts in Yangshuo, China.

Hunting eagles in Mongolia.

Below: It's good manners to stir tile airag Above: Pertti the victorious hunter.

Right: Pertti and the Prinsessa.

Above: The Great Majumdar rubs b.u.t.t at the American Royal Barbeque Out of my comi ^ zone on the Tra Siberian Express bacl< in="" my="" 'happy="" place'="" once="" we="" react!="" st="" petersburg="" stan="" and="" lisa,="" pat="" and="">

As I drained my second powerful Martini of the evening, a gruff but not unfriendly voice came from the person on the stool beside mine at the bar of the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in Philadelphia.

'You in town on business?'

'Sort of, I replied, barely looking up. It had been a long, hard day of travel and the juicy, rare T-bone I had just polished off, with its strip of fat and salty, charred crust, was the only thing between me and b.l.o.o.d.y murder. Few things can cheer me up when I am in this sort of mood and, since I did not have the latest Victoria's Secret catalogue to hand, a steak and a couple of Martinis would have to suffice.

I turned from my empty plate to be faced with a man in his fifties, with greying hair and the sort of strong features that made me think I ought to be a little more polite. He introduced himself as Stan Cohen. He was a regular at the steakhouse, as his wife worked at the hotel above and he was waiting to take her home. I began to explain about my journey, just as she appeared.

'Lisa,' he turned to his wife, 'this is Simon. He's travelling around the world to eat.'

She turned to me. 'So, are you going to have a Philly cheese steak?'

It was the only reason I had come to the city. I knew there was a lot to like about Philadelphia, I had been before. I knew that it was the home of soft pretzels and the Italian hoagie. I also knew that the Philadelphians were proud of the Reading

1.

Terminal Food Market, with its stores selling the produce of the Pennsylvania Dutch. But I had one full day in town, and I had set that aside to go in search of my first ever Philly cheese steak.

Stan bought me another Martini and Lisa gave me a history lesson. The first cheese steak sandwich was created by Pat Olivieri, who sold a sandwich he made for his own lunch to a pa.s.sing cab driver, who was so impressed he brought his friends back to try them. His store, Pat's King of Steaks, opened in the 1930S and had the monopoly until Joe Vento opened Geno's, directly across the street, in 1966. Battle commenced, and they have been rivals ever since.

'So, when are you gonna go try one?' he barked.

'Tomorrow lunchtime', I replied.

'Nah', Stan replied. 'You have to go at night time when they are all lit up.' He looked at his watch, looked at Lisa and then back at me.

'C'mon. We'll take you now.'

It was approaching i a.m., on top of which I had just eaten 26 oz of T-bone steak and was buzzing from three Martinis.

'Sounds good', I replied, despite the possibility of exploding at the thought of more beef My trip was not going to get any more real than having a couple of locals drive me across Philadelphia in the small hours in search of a cheese steak.

'If you don't know how to order, they won't serve you', Stan shouted over his shoulder as he drove through the streets of south Philadelphia.

'You gotta order "whiz with", which means a sandwich with cheez whiz', Lisa explained.

'And you want to get it "handicapped", so they cut it in half, Stan added.

Even in the small hours both Pat's and Geno's had long queues and, while Stan went to park the car, I was sent to get in the queue and collect our order. By the time they reappeared, I had our sandwiches wrapped and ready to eat. We took a table on the pavement, and I went to add a Httle hot sauce to half my cheese steak.

It may have been the context, eating a meal not only in the town in which it was created but also in the very restaurant, but that soft Italian roll, filled with sweet onions, wafer-thin strips of good beef and topped with cheese, was as good as anything I had eaten on the trip.

'They are never as good anywhere else', Stan mumbled between large mouthfuls. 'It's the water we use to make the rolls.'

As I sat in the glare of the large neon Geno's sign, with two people I had met barely an hour earlier, I was as happy as it would have been possible to get, unless, of course, someone produced that Victoria's Secret catalogue.

That's so New York.

However good New York is, it will never be quite as good ; New Yorkers believe it to be. Nothing will ever be quite as gc as New Yorkers believe everything in their city to be. If it good, it is 'the best'; if it is high, it is 'the highest'; and if it is ol< it="" is="" 'the="" oldest'.="" they="" deal="" in="" superlatives="" and="" have="" an="" enthusia="" capacity="" for="">

It is a childlike enthusiasm, which finds its final expression in that wearisome phrase 'That's so New York', a demand fo uniqueness that springs from the city's and the country's relativ youth. It's a phrase that would never find a home on the lips the residents of its elder European siblings, who have had thousands of years to, quite frankly, get over themselves. It may tiresome, but it is this enthusiasm which makes New York wha it is and makes New Yorkers what they are.

Few cities are predicated on eating in the same way that Newl York is, and few people spend as much time eating and argu-- ing about food as New Yorkers do. Every block of the city, it in Manhattan or one of the other four boroughs, will provide! multiple opportunities to stuff your face with great food from all corners of the globe. The same childlike approach is true whenj they describe restaurants, and I have regularly heard ethnic place described as the very best of their type in the world without at thought that there may well be some half-decent examples in the] countries they represent or that the person saying it may neverl have been further than Queens. Mind you, go to Queens and] you could probably eat the globe right there, with just about'

every race and nation represented in the shops, storefront diners jnd restaurants. The often blind, black-and-white pa.s.sion for things and people can be hard work, but it does also make New Yorkers among the most loyal friends you can have, and I am lucky to count many of them among mine. But if I have many friends in New York, I also have some very special relatives.

Sanjoy, my father's cousin, and his wife, Evelyn, are contemporaries of my mother and father. They have become my second parents, and it is with them that I always stay when I am in the city. Sanjoy is a typical Bengali male, whose life seems to involve sitting beatifically in the centre of a maelstrom of his own creation. Bengali men feel that it is the duty of the rest of the world to make their life comfortable and their duty to point out the failings of others - for their own benefit, of course.

When I arrived from Philadelphia, Sanjoy had just returned from work, changed into his loose Indian clothing and was already creating havoc as Evelyn prepared supper for guests who were arriving shortly.

'Sweetie, can I have a soda?' Sanjoy asked, sitting less than a metre from the fridge.

Evelyn rolled her eyes and walked across the kitchen to hand it to him. She is n.o.body's doormat, but, in the years since they were married she has recognized the fact that Sanjoy would starve if he were left to do anything for himself He popped open the soda and read his newspaper, circling random words with a pen, something he has always done, although why I have never quite figured out.

Evelyn, although originally from the Philippines, is one of the great cooks of Bengali food, another thing she had in common with my mother. She had prepared a simple but delicious meal of dahl, chicken and vegetables, and invited a group of friends over to share our food. The meal went on until midnight. Both Sanjoy and Evelyn were happy: Evelyn because everyone declared the food delicious, and Sanjoy because he had offended everyone at the table and prompted a political argument that had us at each Other's throats while he just sat and watched with a smile on face. I had a big smile on my face too. It felt like I was ho: In many ways New York does feel like home. After London is the city I know best, having visited it countless times for ness and pleasure. I know its streets, 1 know how to get aroi and I keep up to date with its restaurants and bars. I had bai my first day on visiting three places I knew and loved and whi represented the incredibly diversity of the city.

Katz's Deli, down on the Lower East Side, has been an insti tion in New York almost since it opened in the late ninete century and is most famous for one thing: a sandwich stu with pastrami - beef which has been spiced, brined and smoi before being steamed and then cut into thin slices and piled between slices of rye bread. The bread itself is nondescript a: acts merely as a delivery system for the incredible flavours a: textures of the meat. With a little Deli mustard to dip it i: and a plate of pickles at the side, each bite is like a taste of N York; it would never taste the same anywhere else in the worli It is a hefty lump of protein, however, and as I had lu reservations, I took the opportunity to walk from Katz's, Houston Street, up to midtown Manhattan. By 1.30 I had walk( sufficient miles to make s.p.a.ce for lunch and sat in awe at the su; station of master chef Naomichi Yasuda, one of the great eati: experiences of New York, as Yasuda's hands move at lightninj pace preparing piece after piece of nigiri or maki sus.h.i.+ for t five or so lucky people.

I particularly requested uni (sea urchin), unagi (freshwai eel) and onargo (salt.w.a.ter eel) but was also presented with fatty tuna, scallop and salmon roe marinated in a blend of different soy sauces, which led to a mouthful of popping, mildly salty, fish eggs, which is hard to describe. I racked up a small bill of around $60 before heading off" into the afternoon sunlight for a good long walk to prepare for what I knew was going to be a major supper.

The Kebab Cafe may be only a short hop by subway, but is far away from Yasuda as it is possible to get. On Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens, it has, since I was first taken there 2002, become one of my favourite restaurants anywhere, not just because of its food but also because of its Egyptian owner, AliElSayed.

It's a tiny restaurant, with a kitchen the size of a small soap dish, in which Ali produces some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted, with influences from across the Middle East. One of my oldest and best New York friends, Cathy Loup, had warned Ali that I was coming and, knowing my tastes, as I arrived, he came around the counter, put his huge arm around me and said, 'Here, Indian boy, have some brains'.

He handed me a piece of veal brain that he had just breaded and fried. It melted away on the tip of my tongue. This was only the beginning, and, as I caught up with Cathy, he began to bring out dish after dish from his Lilliputian kitchen. Roasted aubergine and beets, calf's brains, tripe soup, stuffed hearts, tongue dumplings, roasted marrowbone and, of course, some t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. New Yorkers may be p.r.o.ne to hyperbole, but everything you hear about these three restaurants is true, and only in New York could they exist so happily together.

I had experienced two boroughs of New York on my first day. My second day was going to take me to the far reaches of a third, the Bronx. I wanted to get a taste of old-school New York and one of its oldest communities. Another dear friend, Sandra Levine, agreed to show me around, and I met her at Grand Central Station, now fully restored as one of the great landmarks of New York City.

We headed out on the short journey to Arthur Avenue, for many decades the primary Italian neighbourhood of New York. Sandra is the perfect companion: no one knows more than she does about the history of the people and buildings of the city. The area is not what it was, she told me: many of the original Italian families had moved out and were now being replaced with the latest influx, from Albania.

We mooched around for an hour or so, looking at the selling pastries, mozzarella and Italian meats, before we our way to Dominick's Restaurant, one of the old stalwarts! Arthur Avenue. It was already bustling inside, and we squee into a place at a communal table.

Just as 'curry house' food in the UK bears little relation to 1 in India, so 'red sauce' American Italian bears little resembla to what I was to eat later in Italy. That does not mean tha cannot be tasty, but this wasn't. Overcooked pasta in a he shrimp sauce was joined by a chicken scarpiello, which she have been a crispy, garlicky treat, but was stewed and rat nasty. With a gla.s.s of wine I did well not to spit across the roc when the bill came to $40 - way overpriced. 'Because of] camera and your exotic accent', Sandra a.s.sured me. I knew 1 would both get me into trouble one day.

Italy's other great contribution to New York is the piz After I said goodbye to Sandra, I headed back into Manhattan! meet with two other friends, Beth Pizio and her husband, Pe Coughlin. They had been charged with trying to persuade that pizza is not one of the most disgusting foods in the wor an onerous task because I am very much of the pizza as 'snot 1 toast' school and have expounded this theory on many occasion to any willing to listen, and plenty who weren't.

They had chosen a well-known place in Spanish Harle called Pasty's, famous for its use of excellent ingredients. Tt room looked the part, and it all smelled wonderful. That's thing, pizza often does. We started with a couple of pa.s.sabl salads, and I left the ordering in the hands of Peter and Beth. Tv enormous pizzas arrived at the table, bubbling promisingly. Or was topped with garlic, anchovies and basil, the other with fres ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes. I was aware that two pairs of eye were watching me expectantly as I helped myself to a slice from' each. I wanted to like them, to have a Damascene conversion and to fmd yummy noises escaping from my mouth despite myself But I just smiled politely and ate little more than the slice I had taken Perhaps I am just wired incorrecdy, but I don't get pizza, Tsuspect I never will.

I certainly get steak, however, and there is nowhere on earth like a Manhattan steakhouse - unapologetically masculine, vvood-panelled walls, leather booth seating, enormous wine lists and even more enormous cuts of steak. If you ask most New Yorkers, however, they will tell you that the best steaks in New York are to be found not in Manhattan but across the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn, at the legendary Peter Luger Steakhouse, which has been serving steaks from the same location for over a hundred and twenty years.

The Peter Luger porterhouse steak is the stuff of a meat-lover's dreams, dry-aged for at least twenty-eight days and richly marbled with fat to keep it succulent and juicy. There are other things on the menu, but it has never crossed my mind to order them. Strips of sizzling bacon are perfectly fine but just pa.s.s the time until the steak arrives cooked, rare to perfection, sliced for you in sizeable chunks, one end of the large plate resting on a bowl so the juices flow to a s.h.i.+ning pool at the other. It is not your typical steakhouse - the room is utilitarian, the waiting staff famously grumpy and the wine list appalling - but it is worth it all for the steak.

I shared my meal with two friends from London who were in town. They both like their meat but were still full from breakfast, which left much of a porterhouse for three to me. I did not fail them and cleared the plate, gnawing the last flesh off the bone before mopping up the juices with an onion roll. They looked a little queasy, but steak this good, and its juices, are simply too good to miss.

A meal at Peter Luger could have been the perfect way to end my trip to New York, but my friend Cathy had other ideas and offered to host an Eat My Globe party for me. I readily agreed, in part because it would allow me to catch up with a lot of the friends I had not had the chance to see but also, more selfishly, because Cathy is a b.l.o.o.d.y good cook and, when she turns her attention to the large smoker in her garden, I have been knov to do a little dance.

She had procured 40 lb of pork from Flying Pigs farm upstate New York and, after rubbing it with French's must and spices, had left it to smoke gently for fourteen hours. I arrr early and helped her carry it up from the smoker and pull it ap into moist shreds ready to be served, making sure, of course, 1 sneak regular chunks of the charred crust for myself When the others arrived, all had brought wine and mo had brought side-dishes or desserts, and there were soon ab twenty of us making pulled pork sandwiches with Wonder Br and pickles and tucking into cole slaw, collard greens and : roni cheese before we turned our attention to wonderful pie cookies, brittles and gelato.

In the end I realized that Peter Luger would never have bee the perfect end to my time in New York: this was. I was some of my favourite people, eating some of my favourite foe in one of my favourite cities.

No hyperbole there, it was just 'so New York'.

19.

Mexico, Mi Corazon.

I was not a fan of Mexican food before I set out on my journey, primarily because my only experiences to date had been of the cheese- and meat-heavy variety in London. I suspected that there had to be more to the cuisine of an entire nation than a handful of dishes resembling raw sewage, and posted about my intended journey on one of the food discussion websites. Almost immediately I received a reply from Cristina Potters, who lived in Mexico, pointing me in the direction of her excellent website Mexico Cooks.

I spent the best part of a day reading it, and it soon became obvious that not only was there a lot more to Mexican food than I had ever imagined but also that Cristina would be the perfect guide. When she suggested I fly down to Guadalajara to meet her and her partner, Judy, for EI Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, a major holiday in that region, I jumped at the chance.

We swapped many e-mails in the next six months, so when we finally met at Guadalajara airport, I already felt like I knew and liked her, a fact reinforced as she gave patient and detailed responses to some of my stupid questions about the country and its food as they drove me to my hotel.

The rumbling in my stomach reminded me that I had not eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, so Cristina suggested that we set off straight away for a supper of tacos at one of her favourite stands, Los Altos. It was already swarming with people when we arrived and joined the queue. Cristina instructed me on the etiquette of taco construction. We took our first two, containing shreds of goat meat on top of a double layer of fresh layering them with salsa and chillies from communal pots I dousing them with lime juice. My first bite of taco was my bite of real Mexico and made it pretty obvious that coming 1 had been the right decision. The combination of crunchy, gaj flesh with the lime juice and chilli was a taste that could not 1 come from any other country.

'I thought you might like these', Cristina smiled. 'They ] a saying in Mexico. Sim mats, no hay pais - without corn the no country. You are going to see a lot of tortilla.'

I was already up and in the queue again. I wanted to try i more, this time stuffed with soft, melting goat brains, were just as good, and I could had squeezed in even more for Cristina rightly crying 'Enough' at the sight of me eatiij and distracting me with the thought of dessert from the hela shop next door. There men were busy stirring pots of Mexic ice cream, flavoured with local fruits, in tubs of salt and ice.l ordered a small scoop, the perfect way to round off"the meal,; indeed the day.

Jet lag had me awake hideously early the next morning, because I was not meeting the others until later in the day, I' out to mooch around on my own for a while. Guadalajara iS lovely city - small, with a population of around one million, an filled with charming squares, intriguing alleyways and beautif churches. It was certainly interesting enough to fill a few he until my body demanded breakfast. I followed the crowds ail found myself in a small, central market, where counters we already crowded with people munching on more tacos, tamali and enchilada.

Above one stall I saw a sign that read 'Tacos de Tripa' and sat^ down on a high stool at the bar underneath. Tripe has always been a favourite of mine. At sixth-form college, while others played football at lunchtime, I would walk to Rotherham town centre and treat myself to a sandwich from a shop that sold only two things, one of which was tripe and the other slices of roast mexico: guadalajara to mexico city.

Here che tripe was boiled and then deep-fried until crispy ^'^^^'^ being served on the inevitable warm tortilla. Having [jetore^ the technique from the night before, I scooped up plenty '^f fresh salsa from a bowl put in front of me and squeezed lime " * g to wake up all the flavours. Another winning combination, {"had eight of them, costing well under i, before heading back to the hotel.

Cristina and Judy wanted to show me a local tianguis, a market set up especially for the Day of the Dead. Cristina explained that all over the central states of Mexico the day was taken very seriously. Shrines called ofrendas were erected to remember those who had pa.s.sed away, and these markets were where people came to buy ornaments and food to decorate them. The Mexicans have a unique take on death, which is both joyous and slightly macabre, and the stalls were packed with skulls made of sugar, models of skeletons, known as Katrinas and Katrines, dressed in outlandish clothes and miniature versions of headstones and coffins.

As we walked, the smell of baking wafted towards my nostrils, and Judy pointed towards a man grilling traditional holiday cakes, gorditas de nata, made with cream. I wanted to order straight away, but Cristina held me back.

'Wait until he puts a new batch on', she advised. 'You have to eat them straight off" the griddle.'

She was right, of course. When we did buy a batch, they were fresh, hot and rich, with a slightly soft centre that oozed out as we bit into them.

That evening, over dinner at a local restaurant, Cristina and Judy began to map out our plans for the next day's lunch of birria, from their favourite restaurant. El Chololo. Birria is a signature dish of the city and involves roasted meat, usually goat, served with a strong broth flavoured with dried peppers. In the case of El Chololo they braise the meat in the broth first before removing it and roasting to develop colour and a crisp texture, while the broth is served with bowls of hot salsa made of onions and coriander leaf, chillies and lime juice to spark up the flavours.

As we arrived at the restaurant early the next after a group of mariachi musicians were already unloading instruments from a small mini-van. Resplendent in unifo studded with sequms and topped off with wide-brimmed '. they moved from table to table playing impossibly sad song The restaurant was huge and already beginning to fill we took our table. Cristina told me that it was such a popul place that they prepare over seven hundred goats a week. In the huge open kitchen large pots of broth were bubbling and bowls of goat meat were being shredded and placed in the oven to crisp rapidly in the high heat. The moment the food arrived, I could see why the place was so popular. I took a tortilla, smeared it with the salsa and piled it high with savoury roasted goat meat be rolling it up and taking a huge bite. I didn't need any secc lesson. In between bites of the tortilla 1 took sips from the brc so spicy it brought tears to my eyes.

Cristina waved over the mariachi band and, after a brief c versation, she palmed the bandleader some notes. They gather around the table and began to sing directly to me. In Mexicc would appear it is illegal to sing any song that does not make least one reference to mi corazon, 'my heart'. This one, of cour did.

They got to the chorus: 'Volver, volver, volver! Judy lear over. 'It means "return".' As I mouthed another bite of bir and thought about how much I had enjoyed my first few days; Mexico, I was pretty sure that was not going to be an issue.

From Guadalajara we made our way towards Cristina ad Judy's home-town of Morelia. By the time we arrived it was earl^ evening, and the five-hour drive had taken its toll on us all. i let my hosts head off to their house and checked into my bote which I was thrilled to see was described as the most romant in Mexico. Unless I suddenly developed an unhealthy fetish for] Big Red, that was also not going to be an issue for me.

When we met up again the next morning, the town was] already awash with the vibrant blue and orange marigolds used r mexico: guadalajara to mexico city decorate the ofrendas for the Day of the Dead. People were ^^gjjjning to dress in traditional costumes, and the shops had built their own shrines, on which they had placed loaves of the ~ specially baked bread, pan de muerto. Cristina was the perfect guide. Her pa.s.sion for the food of Mexico was obvious, and she was as excited about the opportunity to show it off to a guest 3s I was to eat it. At each turn she would point out something new and memorable, and for supper that evening she had a particularly unusual suggestion.

'We are going to church', she told me.

The construction of the church of the Immaculate Conception had been partly funded by a kermesse, a food court run by locals. It had become so successful that, even now the church was finished, the locals kept it going on a weekly basis, in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the completed building as a way to bring the community together.

As we arrived, it was already packed with local families, whose members ranged in age from new-born babies to elderly men and women with walking frames. Around the edges of the bas.e.m.e.nt makes.h.i.+ft kitchens had been set up, each serving food and refreshments. We had to shout to make ourselves heard through the happy din of chattering families, and the smells of fresh cooking were already thick in the air. We bought a book of vouchers to be used as payment and took a tour around to see what looked best and most popular, using the age-old theory that the stalls with the biggest queues must be the best. There was a vast choice, and we each took up a position in a queue regrouping ten minutes later carrying trays laden with fresh tamales, enchilada, quesadillas and pozole, which we washed down with large gla.s.ses of frescos. Mexican food is certainly not the prettiest I experienced on my trip, but it is never less than tasty and always made with great honesty and served with a generosity of spirit that makes eating in Mexico one of the great food experiences in the world. Here in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a local church, as the locals milled about, pans clattered and fryers spattered, was one of my happiest meals of the trip.

Cristina was keen for me not just to taste the food but also^ see other aspects of the Mexican way of Hfe, to understand' famihes are so important to them and why family members cc before anything else.

'Even if they are no longer alive', she said cryptically.

The next morning we drove out to pay our Day of the Dead respects at the cemetery of Tzintzuntzan, about 40 minutes' drive from Morelia. Half of the state of Michoacan had the same idea, and the roads were clogged with cars and pick-up trucks loa with entire families.

Inside the graveyard all the headstones had been decorate and some of the more recent graves were surrounded by la shrines with pictures of the deceased and a selection of the favourite things: records, books, foods and sporting equipmen As we walked through the graveyard, our respectful glanc were greeted with genuine smiles of welcome. A crowd gathered around an elderly priest who was blessing the shrit and, as he did so, the crowd began to sing a quiet, impromp hymn. It was another of those moments on the journey when had to pinch myself to remind myself where I was.

We returned to Morelia, and Judy and Cristina invited me 1 have lunch with them. It was my last day, and we had not yet ha the chance to share a home-cooked meal. Their lovely home 1 a small but well-maintained garden, and we sat outside chatt while Cristina made chilaquiles, a dish made from eggs, day old tortilla, onions and chilli. I was heading to Mexico City 1 next day, which was exciting, but I could not help but be a lit disappointed that I would not be able to see it through the of my new friends. They had shown me real Mexican food an introduced me to the people of this friendly and extraordina country. A song was playing on the radio. It was the same that the mariachi band had played at El Chololo. I sang aloE 'Valuer, volver, volver.' I was definitely going to come back.

Mexico City has a reputation for pollution, corruption and I being one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It's all true: i mexico: guadalajara to mexico city.

a dirty city, with some areas that make the Bronx look like the Upper East Side and a fug of car fumes so thick in the morning I could barely see past the end of my bulbous nose. I rather liked it. ]Vly opinion is, however, based only on a two-day stretch there, and I know I did not do it justice. I did not have time to leave the city and see the astonis.h.i.+ng sights of the Aztec pyramids and I spent more time doing laundry than inside its many museums, art galleries or churches.

It will make people who know me from my past life laugh to know that I arrived from Morelia on a bus. I don't normally do buses. They remind me of my trips from Rotherham to London in the 1970s, when my parents would gleefully deposit me on a National Express coach, with an egg mayonnaise sandwich wrapped in foil, in the vague hope that my grandparents would be there to meet me at the other end. The coaches would often break down, leaving us stranded on the hard shoulder of the Mi for hours on end, and I can still recall the grim service stations with their perfume of old fat and urine.

Mexico's buses are another matter, however - smart, clean, efficient and comfortable. They have to be, because there is no train service in Mexico. Quite what that means Mexican nerds do on a Sat.u.r.day when their mums make them a burrito and a flask of weak cactus drink, I don't know. But five hours after leaving Morelia, I was at my hotel in the heart of Mexico City.

Cristina had suggested I should visit the Mercado de la Merced. 'It's not like any market you will have seen before', she said when I suggested that I was already a little marketed out. So 1 took her at her word and almost as soon as I arrived, set out for the long walk from my hotel. I stopped for a short while in the Zocalo, Mexico City's main square, one of the largest in the world, built in the same spot as the centre of the Aztec city. It was already heaving with people. In one corner queues of people lined up in front of native Indians, who were cleansing them with ritual smoke. In another corner an early, open-air ma.s.s was being said, and in another, a rally supporting gay rights was being held by hundreds of men naked but for a picture of the Me president covering their crown jewels. I could have easily taken j seat in one of the surrounding coffee shops and spent a good fev^^l hours watching the spectacle, but I wanted to get to the market] before it began to wind up for the day.