Sunday, November 27, 2011

Glamorous Kampong Glam


TAKING a deep breath of the cool Shangri-La Singapore air, I headed out into the Equatorial heat to explore two more of this island nation’s colourful neighbourhoods this morning.


Today I ventured into Little India and Kampong Glam, the two districts that are home to a couple more of the ethnic groups that came to Singapore during the earliest days of mass immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries.


Little India is the spiritual home of the city’s Indian community, while neighbouring Kampong Glam is known as the Muslim Quarter and the place where those who settled from Malaysia concentrate to do business, pray, shop and eat.


Arab Street is Kampong Glam’s main thoroughfare and while the original stores accommodated spice traders today it is awash with textile stores and tailor shops as well as basket seller, carpet retailers, restaurant, and emporium selling goodies from Indonesia and the Middle East.


This collection of photos was taken as I wandered along the covered footpaths of Arab Street.