The Caudle Family: Little India

Today, we decided to go visit a neighborhood in Singapore, called Little India. According to WikiTravel: Little India is, as the name promises, the center for the large Indian community in Singapore. While a rather sanitized version of the real thing, Little India retains its distinct identity without degenerating into a mere tourist attraction and is one of the most colorful and attractive places to visit in Singapore.

We're staying rather close to Little India right now, but we decided to take the MRT. Little India is quite large and we didn't think the kids would be up to exploring the entire thing. The MRT would drop us off very close to one of the large out door markets and we thought it would be fun to explore. It turned out to be a good plan...

Here's a picture of inside the Nicolls Highway MRT:

Once we got to Little India, we went into the Tekka Centre. It's a very noisy and crowded market with all kinds of food. There are a lot of smells, some good, some not so good! It was noisy and smelly and hot and crowded. But, very interesting to walk though.

This is just a picture form the street. There are markets like this all over the place.

The market on the left sells fresh fruit.

Here, Madeline is getting Henna on her hand/arm!

Now it's Lily's turn!

They had to leave the Henna to dry for about 15 minutes and then it was okay to touch it. After 2 hours, we could wash it off. When we were done with the Henna tattoos, we went to lunch. We found a vegetarian Indian restaurant and had the best Indian food I've ever had! I don't even know what all we ordered, but it was all delicious.

After lunch, the kids were a little hot and tired, so we decided to head back. We needed to pick up some more groceries. You might think I grocery shop a lot... I can't really buy too much at a time because I have to carry anything that I buy. Also, it's helpful to go when Scott can go with me, because he can help carry the groceries home too.

I remembered to snap a shot from inside the store... Today we went to a different grocery store than we have been to. We were at a different train station. This store is called Carrefour. It's a French store, a lot like a super Walmart or Target. It was 2 stories, on the first floor it was housewares and clothes and the second floor was groceries.

My kids are getting good at escalators!

On our walk back to our hotel, we met a Monk from Tibet! He was very friendly. We said hello and the children really liked his clothes. He told us that he just arrived in Singapore today. We welcomed him and said that we only just arrived this week. He thought Lily, Madeline and Wyatt were very sweet.

All over the city today, we saw little offerings like this. There was a lot of incense burning and food set out. Usually fruit, but sometimes food like what is pictured here. Usually some kinds of baked bread too. In Little India, there was also candles burning. The smell of incense filled the city air. I need to read up on this and understand what it is for.