Chinatown and the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
Herbalists, hawker centres and a five-storey Buddhist temple in the middle of it.
Duration
2 hrs – 3 hrs
Best time
Late afternoon
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
Chinatown was mapped out by Raffles in 1822, when the city was divided by community. The arcaded shophouses were restored and repainted in the 1980s, which gives them the surprisingly new look they have.
The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, finished in 2007, is a five-storey Tang-style building holding a Buddhist museum and, on the fourth floor, the relic itself. Opposite, the Chinatown Complex hawker centre has over two hundred stalls, including the cheapest starred kitchen in the world.
Getting there
MRT North East or Downtown line, Chinatown station, exit A. The whole quarter is walkable.
What to bring
- Covering clothes
Rules on site
Shoulders and knees covered at the temple; wraps are lent at the door. The hawker centre is on the second floor of the building, not the ground floor, and the queue at the starred stall runs over an hour at lunchtime.
Other places in Singapore
- Gardens by the BayFifty-metre steel trees that light up after dark.
- Marina Bay promenadeThe bay, the three towers and the boat laid across them, seen from the water.
- Botanic GardensThe only tropical garden on the World Heritage list, eighty hectares in the middle of the city.
- Sultan Mosque and Kampong GlamThe golden dome of the Malay quarter, and the mural alleys of Haji Lane right behind it.