Mexico - July 1-4, 2000

Disclaimer: I may or may not hold these opinions any more!

I had a short 4 day trip to Mexico in July with 3 of my friends at IBM who were summer interns there alongwith me. I spent about 2 days in Mexico city and a day and half in Oaxaca. Walked around Mexico city and visited some historical sites. I'll probably put up a travelogue sometime.

My observations about the country

My first thoughts on Mexico were reinforced more and more each day. The place was very much like India, with the traffic, the crowds and the honking. The traffic was maddening and after being used to organized US traffic, it looks pretty dangerous. But since people drive at only 50-60 Km/Hr it probably isn't very dangerous.

The other feature that makes Mexico very similar to India, is the building constrtruction. Most of their main roads are exactly like Mount Road and Paris corner in Chennai. The buildings are built haphazardly, each building in its own style, unlike the downtowns in the US.

I also noticed the lack of work ethic. People dont seem to take their work seriously. We saw this in banks in Mexico. I even saw this in the Mexican embassy in Austin. People are laid back enough to just sit and watch stuff happening in the Zocalo.

The rich people really get to throw their money around. I saw this distinctly in the boat ride. All the Mexicans going on the boat rides looked like spoilt rich kids!

They have a lot more technology than India. Phone cards are ubiquitious, as are ATMs. The bus station reservations are all computerised and networked. Also the metro system is much more computerised than India. They seemed to have a nice balance between technology and the labor force.