Seafarers' Singapore (Part 3)

Roadside food stalls along Hokien Street, Singapore

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It is well after midnight and a long time now since dinner.  We are in Hokien Street with hardly a hawker's stall not patronised.  We find a table and perch ourselves on little stools near a drain until our bowls of mee are served steaming hot.  This is a soupy mixture of noodles and bean sprouts with distinctive flavour, embellished with prawns and flavoured with ground chilis.  It is very tasty and costs about 25 cents a bowl.

A wizened, kindly old Chinese fortune-teller serenades us with his one-string fiddle, which provides a tune for this "night-to-remember".

The backdrop is equally interesting - cats and odd dog rummaging around dustbins, little eyes peering from the upper stories of the shophouses.  All quite normal and natural as you begin to learn the meaning of Chin Chi Chin Chi, live and let live.
 

Sometimes we chose Chin Chew Street for a feed, or the nearby People's Market which was fascinating.

Junction of Upper Cross St and Chin Chew St

People's Market in Chinatown

A cacophony of Oriental and Western jazz blares out together midst shouted conversation, but food was good and cheap under neon lights and the night sky.

 

Albert Street is quite popular.

Albert St Fatty's Restaurant owner employed "graduate dish-washers" in 1960

Bugis Street is a honeypot in these early hours of the morning and its fame for both food and entertainment of an unusual kind is apparently destined to live on for years to come.

To be continued ...