Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [46]
Ironically, we have to thank the tight-assed rulers for this wonderful opportunity. Their obsession with cleanliness guarantees sanitary cooking conditions everywhere, unlike in many cities, and their subway system zips us effortlessly between different hawker areas. The government even played a role in providing us a good place to stay, the Albert Court Hotel, a block of former shop-houses renovated into a boutique business hotel under a public program. Bill picked it in part because of a bargain Internet rate on a large executive room, but mainly because of its location between major stations on two of the principal subway lines. The plan is to stay on the move most of the time, munching as we go, except, of course, on the fine subway trains.
After a late-Saturday-night arrival, we’re up and off early on Sunday morning for our first day of progressive grazing. Most of the hawker centers don’t open until later, so our first stop is one that runs around the clock, just like McDonald’s local McDelivery service (“for orders of any size,” the ubiquitous posters say). Makansutra recommends nothing at the Lau Pa Sat Festival Market, but all the standard guidebooks mention it as a nonthreatening place for visitors to check out the street-food scene. It sounds to us worth a look, at least to get a touchstone for what to avoid.
It’s easy to see why Lau Pa Sat appeals to tourists. It occupies a faux Victorian open-air pavilion full of gingerbread accents, whirling ceiling fans, and comfortable modern tables. Like spokes on a wheel, wide aisles radiate from the hub in a half dozen directions, leading to pods of attractive stalls with names such as “Fantastic Handmade Noodle,” “Smoking Duck,” and “Wonderful Vegetable Mixed Rice.” Bill says on the way out, “This would make a perfect base for McDelivery.”
Getting to-go drinks of mixed mango and kiwi juice, we wander a few blocks over to the heart of Chinatown. The walk takes us along South Bridge Road, the neighborhood’s main street and the site of the Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple. Dating back to 1827, before heavy Chinese settlement of the area, it features an arresting sculpted gopuram (tower) rising high above the entrance, flanked by statues of Shiva and Vishnu. Just days in advance of our arrival, the temple hosted an annual fire-walking ceremony, when scores of the faithful lined up on South Bridge to prove their spiritual strength by striding across a bed of hot coals. Today is also busy, leading up to tomorrow’s inauguration of the preparations for Hindu Diwali, the Festival of Lights, called Deepawali in Singapore. Staring at piles of footwear on the sidewalk by the door into the temple, Cheryl is perplexed. “There must be several hundred pair of sandals and shoes in those stacks. How would you ever find your own again?”
Side streets off of Bridge offer other diversions. Along Pagoda on the way to the Chinatown Heritage Centre, pedestrians get a good view of the temple grounds, where today prostrate men dressed in simple loincloths roll themselves around the property. Sago Street once brimmed with death houses, which provided rudimentary care for the infirm elderly who didn’t want to risk bad luck for their family by dying at home. Attached funeral parlors prepared the deceased for last rites, including the burning of paper replicas of their favorite possessions and also plenty of simulated money for them to spend in heaven or hell. Shops on Banda sell similar contemporary items for incineration, such as cardboard credit cards, passports, computers, and cell phones, each presumed to be useful in the afterlife. “So, what do you want to take with you?” Cheryl asks Bill.
“The only thing that tempts me is the dim sum, but I’d prefer to have the real deal alive rather than a facsimile in my coffin.”
On that note, we enter one of the most famous of