They are very different from glitzy Orchard Road and downtown areas with each one having its own special cultural atmosphere with ethnic food, temples and businesses. Little India has more to see than Geylang / Katong and it is certainly a lot more busy. Serangoon Road has gold shops interspersed with shops selling cheap clothes and everything in between. Occasionally a temple appears and within there is a calmness from the hustle and bustle outside that could be Delhi. This picture is from the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple. It shows that even in different cultures and religions there is an element of feminism where it is said women can do more than one job at a time. This Goddess has nine pairs of hands and can brew tea and cut wood at the same time. Perfect.
The Little India temple of shopping is called the Mustafa Centre and is dedicated to the God of Consumerism selling electrical goods, clothes and thousands of other things. It is open 24 hours every day, it's packed all the time, and it's full of things I realised I don't need or want.
I visited a Buddhist temple called the Sakaya Muni Buddha Gaya. It is a fairly pleasant place but lacks the solemnity and atmosphere of the temple in Thamuang. It is actually a different 'branch' of Buddhism and the temple was built around 1930. The Buddha statue is made from 300 tonnes of concrete and relatively pleasant to look at.
Just across the road is another Buddhist temple but much darker and a different mood altogether. It turned out to be a small monastery and a place to remember the deceased. A bit like a Buddhist garden of remembrance. I got chatting to a Singaporean man who had dropped in on his way to work. He gave me some cd's on Buddhism and kindly took me to another temple which is much more active and devoted to Tibetan Buddhism. One thing about Buddhists is that they are very friendly and helpful!Many of the streets in Little India have 'shop houses' where the ground floor is the shop and the upper floor is the home. These are Singapore's architectural heritage and quite a contrast of the modern downtown and the tendency for other Asian capitals to tear down the old buildings and build new. The first picture is of a shophouse built around 1840, and the one below is a style from around the 1930's.
The Geylang / Katong area is said to be reminiscent of the the 'Old Singapore'. Today it is occupied by the Malay and Straits Chinese ethnic groups. It is a bustling district but not as hemmed in as Little India and a bit less hectic. There are plenty of hawker eating centres and a few temples to look into. The picture below was taken in one of them, but the name of the place was in Chinese. However I think it has something to do with wanting to give up smoking judging by the gasping tongue of the image in the middle and the sign in the left hand corner which says; ' Please do not deposit cigarette ash on the gold body'.
Probably the highlight of the area is the Geylang Serai market which is a traditional Malay market selling fine fabrics and clothes.
I'm not sure I will be rushing back to the Geylang / Katong areas. It is very friendly like the rest of Singapore and has some fine cheap eating places and markets, but Little India offers something more unusual and interesting, and it is full of life.
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