Little India

Little India is the part of Singapore that feels least like the polished city of the postcards, and many visitors end up liking it best. The neighbourhood grew up along Serangoon Road in the nineteenth century around cattle trading and the Tamil workers who settled here, and today it is the centre of Indian Singaporean life, busy every day and packed on Sunday evenings. Walk Serangoon Road and the side lanes for the sensory overload: jasmine and marigold garlands strung by hand at flower stalls, spice shops, gold jewellers, sari and textile stores, and the colourful House of Tan Teng Niah, a restored Chinese villa painted in every colour of the rainbow. The Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, dedicated to the goddess Kali, is the spiritual heart, its tower crowded with sculpted deities; visitors are welcome outside prayer times if dressed modestly and barefoot. Tekka Centre, at the top of Serangoon Road, combines a wet market with one of the city's best hawker centres for South Indian and North Indian food, from biryani and roti prata to thosai and teh tarik, the pulled milk tea. Race Course Road nearby is known for fish-head curry. The Indian Heritage Centre tells the story of the community in a modern building with a striking facade. And the Mustafa Centre, a sprawling department store open around the clock, sells everything from electronics to spices.

Little India is at its most spectacular during Deepavali, the festival of lights. In 2026 the festival falls on Sunday 8 November, and the Serangoon Road street light-up, switched on in early October, glows every evening from 7pm to midnight across more than two kilometers of road. A festival village on Campbell Lane sells sweets, decorations and clothes in the weeks before the festival. Expect huge crowds on the weekends just before Deepavali; weekday evenings are easier, and the lights stay up for a short while after the day itself.

How to explore: take the MRT to Little India station, which exits next to Tekka Centre. Have breakfast or lunch at Tekka's hawker centre, then walk south down Serangoon Road, detouring through Campbell Lane, Dunlop Street and Kerbau Road. Visit the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple (cover shoulders and knees, remove shoes) and the Indian Heritage Centre, then continue to Race Course Road for a banana-leaf curry lunch or dinner. If you want shopping, Mustafa is at the north end near Farrer Park station and stays open all night.

Little India is a working neighbourhood, and its character comes from that: on Sunday evenings the streets fill with migrant workers on their day off, which is lively and good-natured but very crowded. Dress modestly, carry some cash, and be ready to eat with your hands at a banana-leaf restaurant if you want the full experience (a spoon is always available). Kampong Gelam is a fifteen-minute walk southeast, which makes a natural half-day pairing: Indian breakfast in Little India, then Malay and Arab-quarter lunch and shopping in Kampong Gelam. If you have more time, the Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya temple and the Leong San See temple on Race Course Road show how many faiths share this small district, and the backstreets around Rowell Road and Desker Road keep some of the most unpolished shophouse architecture in the city. Photographers should come in the early morning, when the flower stalls are being stocked and the light is soft on the painted facades.