We often begin trips with a whirlwind first day in which we drive ourselves to exhaustion. Mission accomplished as described in the previous post. Day two of our stopover in Singapore was decidedly more relaxed. Saturday we depart for Bangkok and the start of our guided tour, though not before we will have one full day to ourselves. Who knows how far we will roam in the Thai capital? We shall see.

Day two was largely devoted to visiting the Singapore Botanical Gardens. I know, another garden/park, but this was also recommended in most guidebooks. Local people use it to walk their dogs or just go for strolls. It’s a large park that is free except for a space devoted to orchids. We didn’t pay to see the orchids as they were prevalent at the Garden by the Bay.

The botanical garden was about a 15-20 minute walk from our hotel which happened to take us down one of the priciest streets in one of the wealthier cities in Asia. It was dotted with foreign embassies, and those are never in crummy neighborhoods. The U.S embassy was somewhere nearby but not on the street we walked. It helped that the weather was better than our first day in town. It showered at times, but otherwise was largely dry. By late afternoon the sun had come out and we were able to relax by our hotel pool.

Among the more interesting things we spotted at the gardens was some of the local wildlife, including an otter that had emerged from a pond to forage. Earlier we watched a Malaysian monitor lizard slithering about the very same pond. It was about three feet long and resembled a small alligator, except for its long tongue. A brief video of the critter in action follows.

Next we hopped on the subway to visit Little India, which as the name implies is home to many of the local Tamil-speaking population. It’s distinctly different from other parts of the city that we visited. The streets are narrower and much more crowded. I guess it might be similar to India itself, but we’ve not been. There were a lot of street stalls and vendors, making it seem more like what we saw in Egypt. We did spend some time in an Indian cultural center, which at $10 Singaporean per person was worth the visit. It’s a compact but well organized museum that was popular with school groups on field trips.

Next was a quick trip through Chinatown, but our primary objective was the nearby Maxwell Food Center, one of the many so-called “Hawker” markets in the city. As the name implies, they are places where vendors would “hawk” their wares. In the modern era, there are fixed stalls in a covered but otherwise open space where different types of prepared foods are sold. There are communal tables throughout where you sit and eat. The Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia is the most similar concept in the U.S. I can think of, but no cheesesteaks here.

Our goal was to get a chicken and rice dish at the Tian Tian stall, which was made famous by the late Anthony Bourdain in one of his travel shows. At one point Tian Tian was considered to be so good that it had earned a single Michelan star as a food stall! It’s since lost that rating but still appeared to be popular. There was a line to order when we arrived, and it didn’t appear to be just tourists like us. It’s a simple dish, but tasty, and cheap at about $8 U.S. Weirdly, Tian Tian didn’t sell drinks, so Pat picked put two craft beers from another vendor that were good, but cost twice as much.

Food is likely to be an ongoing theme of this trip as the dining habits are so different here and we like to try different things. I started the day by having a traditional Singaporean dish called laksa. It’s essentially a noodle soup. Yeah, sounds odd for breakfast to us Westerners, but not here.

You basically decide whether you want chicken broth, or a coconut and curry based soup. You take as many pre-made noodles as you want — vermicelli was recommended for my coconut-curry selection. To that you add some fresh greens to the bowl. Protein, if desired, are a selection of cooked fish. The chef then sticks that combo in a steamer to reheat. The contents are dumped back in the bowl and the broth ladled on top. Want more protein? Add a cracked fresh egg, which quickly poaches in the hot broth. It was quite delicious.

Pat already has something unique planned for Bangkok, but more on that in a future commentary.