Little India

After a fortifying Singaporean breakfast of kopi, toast with kaya and coddled eggs courtesy of Ya Kun Kaya we headed to Little India – where the incense of the weekends Diwali celebrations was still in the air – and visited four temples – three Hindus and a Buddhist, the former all highly decorated, vibrant and buzzing with activity of various kinds, the latter, appropriately enough, somewhat more sedate and meditative*. Then, after coffee and just for balance, we visited a couple of mosques – the Malabar and the Sultan – and a very atmospheric Muslim cemetery. In the afternoon we visited Chinatown, took in the enormous Buddha Tooth Temple and graduated to the Maxwell Hawker Market where, by the simple expedient of queuing at the busiest stand Beck introduced us to the joy that is Singaporean Carrot Cake – a savoury dish that features stir-fried rice cake and white radish but absolutely no carrot**. Then we did the Asian Civilizations Museum - the Tang shipwreck is a highlight – and prepared ourselves for the nightly lightshow at the Gardens by the Bay – luckily we thought to take our umbrellas with us, as we endured a mighty downpour between that and the ending up in the Long Bar at Raffles for a Singapore Sling and the most expensive coke I’ve ever drunk…!
 




*If anyone wants the details, they were: the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple – some fairly bloodcurdling Kali statues – the Srinivasa Perumal Temple (pictured) – some brilliant guttural chanting – the Sri Vadapathria Kaliamman – lots of smoke and a particularly ornate portico, notably featuring Haruman, the Monkey King and the Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple. Don’t worry, I’ve checked the spellings.

**There are white and black varieties, the black featuring extra soy sauce. We had that, it was really good…