Geylang: The Perfectly Imperfect Singapore

The first time I visited Singapore, I came back home with the impression that Singapore really was what I thought it would be: modern and impressive, but really synthetic and sanitized. To me it seemed like Singapore, with its sleek buildings and shiny everything, sacrificed its history and culture in exchange for perfection.

And then on my second visit, a friend brought me to Geylang.



 I only had a brief glimpse of the place, but I liked what I saw enough that I decided to stay in one of the hotels there during my third visit (plus, hotels there are infinitely cheaper).

Geylang is what is considered today as Singapore's red light district. Unlike the rest of Singapore, it's not perfect. Some buildings are old, people jaywalk and you'll find litter on the street. I thought it was the most pulsating and most alive part of the country.

When you go there during the morning, you'll see wonderfully preserved colorful shophouses that date back to, I think, the 1940s. On the first floor of these shophouses you'll find either a mini-grocery, a hardware store, an electronic shop or a restaurant that sells everything from traditional Singaporean breakfasts to frog dishes. The only inkling you'll get that the area offers not-exactly-wholesome entertainment would be the occasional woman you'll see standing on a street corner.

At night, the neon signs light up and the area becomes more like a red light district, but it still looks safe enough to walk around in (with a friend, of course), even at a very late hour.

But even if it wasn't, my friends and I would still have probably gone out of our hotel at night because the food here in Geylang is just incredible. There's this restaurant called Mongkok Dim Sum that sells one of the best hakao (shrimp dimsum) and red chilli crabs I've ever tasted. You have to go there. It's the one where the customers are already spilling out into the sidewalk.

the man running the popular Mongkok Dim Sum

this dish cost us almost Php1000, but it was worth it

neon lights

I was not exaggerating when I said that the resto's customers often spill out into the sidewalks