Category Archives: Photographs

Singapore – Tanjong Katong’s Sri Senpaga Vinayar Temple

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The Sri Senpaga Vinayar temple was not on my agenda. I came upon it while making my way down yet another side street in Tanjong Katong. It was charming–almost modest compared to some Hindu temples, with its ornamentation largely in shades of ochre rather than in technicolor.

I felt drawn to it, and it was more than just the sudden outpouring of monsoon rain that made me decide to go in.

 

I cannot begin to explain this imagery, but I will say that I find it graceful and attractive. And the couple of worshippers who helped me to learn where to leave my shoes were kind and welcoming.

 

Actually, I do know a bit about this last one. That’s the god Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati. He’s a popular god, since he is the remover of obstacles and lord of new beginnings.

The Sri Senpaga Vinayar Temple dates back to the 1850s, when a vinayar (elephant god) image was found under a senpaga tree by a small stream. From these humble beginnings grew a graceful and welcoming temple, home to the Ceylonese Tamil community in the area.

Inside and out, the temple was plastered with homilies and admonitions. Perhaps as much as anything, it was the kindness of these that drew me to the place.

"It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the time" "No better advice than the father's"

"A mother's love and care and gratitude in return"

I will end this last post about Singapore, and the last in the long series of posts about Southeast Asia, with this quote from the Sri Senpaga Vinayar temple:

“Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world. Hinduism is a way of life, a system of life values, and feeling of equal respect for all religions. Everyone is deemed a Hindu. There is no conversion required.”

 

Singapore – Tanjong Katong shophouses

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Why, you may ask, did I visit a Singapore neighborhood that is so far off the beaten track that it’s hardly mentioned in the the tourist guides at all? There was one bad reason and several good ones. The bad reason is that I was avoiding visiting Orchard Road, the number one attraction in many tourist guides, and I had already walked to all the other places I wanted to see that were within walking distance.

The good reason is precisely that Tanjong Katong is off the beaten track and home to an ethnic mix of people I knew almost nothing about–a chance to see real Singapore, not just the tourist stuff. Also, the neighborhood is historically interesting. And (according to my sources) it has some of the most beautiful shop houses in all of Singapore.

Joo Chiat Street is a main shopping street in the area, lined on both sides with shop houses mostly in the ornate Peranakan style, dating from the early twentieth century. The area has been named an historic district.

   

Most of the shophouses are two stories tall, but some are three stories.

The detailing is extraordinary.

By law, shophouses are required to provide a ground-level covered arcade of a uniform width (I believe it’s five or seven feet) to protect pedestrians from the sun and from the monsoon rains. This arcade provides a pleasant walkway in an otherwise dense environment, built up to the street edge.

 

Although the typical shophouse style is to have shops on the ground level and residences above, there are many cases where shops have taken over the second floor as well.

Conversely, on quieter streets the shophouses have lost the shops, becoming residential on both stories. Some of these rows of houses are quite charming.

     

 

Singapore – Lasalle College of the Arts

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Let’s start the section on Singapore with a puzzle, shall we?

Our Asian trip started in Singapore, where Dan was working and I spent two days on my own, mostly walking. I stumbled upon this striking building without the least clue what it was or who had designed it.

Click to Mix and Solve

I’m normally not a partisan of those ultra-modern buildings with the look of twisted bombing debris, but this place managed to make the style quite appealing.

The Lasalle Web site describes it this way:

Six organically shaped buildings, seven storeys high, feature inroads and alleyways running between them – much like lava flowing through a valley and canyons created by natural geological processes. This can be likened to the creative forces pouring from the students and teachers within.

I hope you enjoy the puzzle.

Cambodia – Oudong picnic spot

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This may be a case of saving the best for last. Or maybe it was simply a coincidence that Oudong was the last place we visited in Cambodia.

Either way, here at the foot of the mountain, vendors from the local villages gather to sell all sorts of picnic food to the city folk who come to the mountain on weekends to “get away from it all” and relax.

Places along the road rented comfortable (well, if you’re Cambodian, I guess) resting places with clean mats and hammocks where visitors can relax after climbing the mountain and eating their fill of the fresh food.

A very long line of vendors–two or three rows deep in places and maybe a couple of football fields long–was getting ready for the lunchtime crowd as we came through.

  

The variety of food was incredible. Just above, for example, you see a tempting plate of battered fried ants. This was a food people were reduced to during the terrible years of starvation under the Khmer Rouge, and they discovered they were quite good. Fried ants, that is, not the Khmer Rouge. And so fried ants continue to be a popular snack food today.

Other tempting dishes included skewers of grilled frogs, grilled fish, some kind of custard, fried soft-shell crabs, olives, grilled chicken and <um, something>, some kind of small bird being defeathered in advance of grilling, and to go with it all, a nice salad with basil and hot peppers.

       

The line of vendors was endless, and the variety of food mind-boggling. Here we have the eggs of some kind of small bird and a spicy bean salad, grilled <um, something>, fried ants prepared with hot peppers, snails, grilled turtles, and salad.

     

Everyone here was getting ready for the lunchtime crowd.

   

Our one regret is that we didn’t eat any of this. The Beth Israel Hospital Travel Clinic had cautioned us too severely. But if I had known I was already sick, for sure I should have done it.

Spicy fried ants with mystery-stuffed grilled banana-leaf packets, yum!

Cambodia – Oudong region

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A number of new temples and monasteries have sprung up (or been rebuilt) in the vicinity of Oudong Mountain. We visited several. Alas, I don’t know the name of this temple. I can say only that it is fairly new and beautifully decorated, inside and out. The railings of the stairways and terraces are all seven-headed nagas (serpents), and lions guard the way.

  Inside, the temple is high and spacious. A large Buddha sitting under his Bo-tree dominates the room. His electric halo and fingers touching the ground show that he has achieved enlightenment.

 

 

The walls and ceilings are covered with paintings detailing the various incarnated lives of the Buddha.

 

 

Nearby a golden statue of the meditating Buddha protected by the king of nagas dominates a serene garden.

 

Cambodia – Oudong Mountain

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Oudong Mountain is a popular weekend-morning destination for Cambodians as well as tourists. The ride from Phnom Penh takes about three quarters of an hour through the capital city’s suburbs and out into the countryside. Oudong Mountain first appears as a distant vision across the rice paddies.

Oudong was the capital of Cambodia from 1618 to 1866, when the capital was moved to Phnom Penh. There was much damage to the region in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge. Now, new structures and old intermingle peacefully. The climb to the top involves more than five hundred stairs whose railings are topped with resplendent enlightened Buddhas. A pool that graces one of the stairway landings is occupied by a troupe of monkeys.

  

 

The views from the terrace of the newest stupa are stunning, as are the terrace and the stupa itself.

 

 

The older stupas on the mountaintop blend ancient art with modern worship.

   

 

One of these older stupas had a small temple inside, where traditionally worshippers bring Buddha statues.

 

 

 

Cambodia – Wat Phnom

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Phnom Penh is the only city I know of that was founded by a woman. The way the story goes, in the mid-fourteenth century Lady Penh (Daun Penh) pulled a floating tree out of the river, and in it she found four bronze buddhas. Being a spiritual person, she knew what she had to do. On the spot where she found the tree, she built up a hill (phnom) and on it she built a temple (wat) to house the four buddhas. The place became a holy place of pilgrimage, and after Lady Penh’s death a small shrine was built to her.

And so “Phnom Penh” means Lady Penh’s Hill, and the hill itself is at the center of the city.

The main stupa on the hill contains the remains of the king Ponhea Yat who made the city his capital early in the fifteenth century, along with many buddha statues and offerings. The current building dates only from the early twentieth century.

 

On the grounds outside the stupa are many interesting artifacts. For example, here is a fine large ceremonial drum, housed in its own shelter. The painting on the drum is of a lunar eclipse–during which the demon Rahu is swallowing the moon.

 

A number of interesting spirit-houses dot the grounds.

 

There is still a small shrine to Lady Penh. Even after all these centuries, she is believed to have a special ability to grant wishes, and is especially helpful to women.

Lady Penh has two electric halos, and she is surrounded by gifts that her worshippers have given her. Notice the tray of nail polish bottles to her left, for example–a fitting gift from one woman to another. Lady Penh is extremely popular, and her shrine is always surrounded by petitioners. I can understand why. Don’t you think she looks kindly? Almost grandmotherly, with those glasses.

Er…wait. Daum Penh lived in the fourteenth century. Glasses??? Perhaps they were a gift from someone hoping they would help her to better see her admirers.