Today was my last day in Singapore and I was doing a walking tour of Little India, the last of the three historic regions in Singapore (although we learned on the tour that the region only became known as “Little India” in the 1970s when Singapore wanted to promote tourism).
Anyway, at 9:00 a.m., I took the subway to the Little India stop and as I exited the subway station the first thing I noticed was the overwhelming smell of curry. YUM! It literally permeated the entire area. I quickly found my guide, Ping, who would be taking us on a tour of her neighborhood. (Turned out that Ping owned and ran a hostel in the area for 20 years before COVID shut it down and had recently turned to guiding as a way to make a living.) By, 9:30 a.m. there was a small multi-national group of us assembled and we began our tour by taking a stroll through an underpass to the other side of the street (it was raining buckets). Once on the other side, Ping gave us a bit of history lesson about Little India (including the factoid above) and the reality that Indians only make up 9% of the Singapore population, that Tamil is an official language in Singapore (one of only two countries with the other being Sri Lanka) and that most Indians who live in Little India are blue collar laborers whose only day off is Sundays. Yikes.
So after the brief overview, we proceeded to take a walk down the street (the rain was subsiding) past fruit vendors, flower sellers (flowers are big in the Hindu culture and are used as offerings to the Hindu gods) and tailors (all men).
We then walked into a building up two flights of stairs to take in the Little India wet market. The place looked quite clean, but had a VERY strong fishy odor. Fortunately, we did not stay long. We then wandered through the clothing markets, featuring northern Indian clothing (as opposed to saris), which we learned were the preferred choice of clothing for Singaporean Indian women, before going downstairs past a gorgeous mural dedicated to hawkers and into the area containing the hawker stalls.
Ping found us a couple tables and told us that we could go find drinks of our choice (I picked sugar cane juice) while Ping went to fetch us a snack called medhu vadai, a donut shaped pastry made from black beans and dipped in spicy red and green sauces. Turned out to be really quite tasty.
So after the quick break, we wandered through the hawker market past the butcher area and then watched a guy cut up a durian (it was VERY smelly) before walking back out onto the street.
Next up, we walked through the Little India Arcade, an area filled with Indian sweet shops, more fruit and vegetable stands, women in traditional Indian attire (ironically wearing saris) and lots and lots of flower shops with men making traditional Indian leis before eventually reaching Masjid Abdul Gafoor Mosque. Now Little India is very close to the Kampong Glam quarter (Malay/Mulim area) so it was not surprising to see a mosque here since after all there was both a mosque and an Indian Hindu temple in Chinatown. However, we soon learned that this mosque had been founded by an Indian Muslim and the present iteration of the mosque was constructed beginning in 1907. Unfortunately, the mosque was closed to visitors.
We continued walking along the narrow street past a restaurant that once served birini to Anthony Bourdain (I swear Tony ate everywhere in this country) before turning down a street and taking in Kampong Kampor Methodist Church and another church by the name of Church of the Light before reaching the Beo Sand Hoo Chor Temple, a beautiful, albeit tiny Buddhist sanctuary founded in 1920 which provided sanctuary to both the faithful and women fleeing abuse. Pretty cool little place.
Now I ended up standing at the back of the group, right in front of the incense that was burning near a shrine and after about five minutes I thought I was going to pass out. I finally told Ping I had to out into the fresh air. Whew!
So after the lovely, albeit overwhelming incense laden, temple, we moved on down the street to the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, a Hindu temple that turned out to be packed with faithful. The temple started as a shrine dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali and Parvati in 1855 before a temple was built by Bengali labourers in 1881.
Anyway, we took off our shoes and donned the requisite coverings before entering the temple and surprise, surprise, the temple was absolutely filled with burning incense. I ended up wandering around taking in the sites, the chanting, the periodic blessings by the holy men before being so ovewhelmed by the incense that I had to leave. Incense back to back was a little too much for me.
Nevertheless, the temple was more than impressive with gorgeous depictions and statutes of the Hindu god Kali and the mother of Ganesha, Parvati, located throughout the interior and on the exterior of the building. The Hindus really know how to construct a temple!
So after they temple visit, we all put our shoes back on and we walked through the jewellry district that came close to rivaling the Gold Souk in Dubai … there was 24K gold everywhere with some shops packed to the rafters. (Indians use gold jewellry as an investment.)
After passing through the jewellry market, we rounded the corner past a mural featuring traditional Indian trades before crossing and walking down the street to the last remaining Chinese villa in Little India, the Tan Teng Niah house built in 1900. The house featured brightly painted shutters and Chinese calligraphy. It was really quite beautiful.
By now we had completely circled Little India and were back where we started from. I thanked Ping and then headed to the subway. Now I had a decision to make. Should I go to the Singapore Botanical Gardens 3 subway stops away or should I go back to the hotel. I really wanted to see the botanical gardens (which are supposed to be among the best in the world), but the skies were not looking so good and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in the rain at the gardens. I finally decided to pass on the gardens. I will be flying through Singapore next year and if I plan the connection right, I can get a 16 hour layover, which will be plenty of time to see the gardens then. (And yes, it did rain buckets again.)
So I headed back to the hotel and walked the ten minutes or so to the Maxwell subway stop to turn in my subway card and receive my $10 deposit back (they charge for the cards as a way to promote recycling) and then wandered over to the Chinatown Market for some lunch. I ended up having a fantastic Szechwan Chili dumpling dish and a mango juice before heading back to the hotel to start packing up.
At 4:30 I headed to Robertson Quay where I had a reservation at Longbeach Restaurant to try the famous Singapore Chili Crab. Now maybe I am spoiled living in the Pacific NW where we have fresh Dungeness Crab A LOT, but I think that this was another case of the dish not living up to the hype. I ended up ordering the cracked chili crab for one as opposed to the whole crab and while the dish was nice (a hint of sweetness amid chili spices), I will take fresh Dungeness Crab dipped in butter any day! (Sorry Singapore….) I will add that the bun that came with the dish was off the charts awesome.
And with that, my time in Singapore was over. I have an early (and I mean butt crack of dawn 7:10 a.m. early), flight to Kuala Lumpur. My guide for the next three days in Kuala Lumpur told me to take to the early flight … and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now not so much. Anyway, off to bed for my lovely 3:45 a.m. wake up call. Time to head to Malaysia.
