SINGAPORE’S LITTLE INDIA – hotels, restaurants, and a guided walk

Regular readers of RT’s LOTR will know I was in Singapore a few weeks ago.

Here’s the full story of my stay in Little India, the part of the city that I’ve come to know best, and which I was writing about for Sydney’s Sun-Herald newspaper.

DON’T MESS WITH KALI – Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, Singapore

I was assured that Kali only does this sort of thing to people who've been very bad.

My favourite Hindu god is Ganesha, the one with the elephant head, the god of wisdom, patron of arts and sciences and the Remover of Obstacles.

He’s the god we non-Hindus all recognise, but I didn’t know much about him until my guide Charlotte took me into the Veeramakaliamman Temple in Singapore.

I like him even better now, though I’m not so keen on Kali, who eats people’s entrails and seems to enjoy it.

LITTLE INDIA, SINGAPORE – cheap as chapatis

Colourful, spicy, aromatic...and cheap - Singapore's Little India

If I can’t find someone to pay for my five star accommodation, and I seldom can, going down-market has its charms too.

I don't know what these are but look at the price! Give me a set of four, please.

“What hotel are you staying at?” our Indian/Singaporean taxi driver wanted to know.

I told him, slightly reluctantly, because I know where discussions with taxi drivers sometimes lead.

“You like it?”

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t a place to boast about; not up-market enough to sound like we were important or rich, not funky and cheap enough to sound like we were savvy travellers. It was a convenient, central, generic hotel, four stars at a three star price on the internet booking service.

“How is the breakfast? Is it good?”

“It’s fine.” Meaning it was the same as any chain hotel breakfast anywhere in the world. Bacon too crisp and curly, scrambled eggs dry and cool on the bottom of the bain marie. Sweet fruit yoghurt in little tubs, tinned peach slices, packets of cornflakes and cocopops, scoops of sugary toasted muesli, stewed filter coffee…

“Next time you are coming here, you should be staying in Little India. Hotel 81. Very, very clean, and you can get breakfast at restaurant around the corner. Very, very good price.”

I’ve visited Singapore many times since then, and often taken his advice, because surprise, surprise, it was very, very good.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL – burning bodies in public

Life in Kathmandu happens on the street. I expected that. I wasn’t quite prepared to witness a public cremation on my first day in town. The Hindu temple at Pashupati area is a favourite tourist attraction here. It’s not particularly beautiful as temples go, but tourists come here to see the monkeys scooting around, to photograph the painted holy hermits, and to see bodies burned.