What to expect
Little India is the loudest, most sensory part of the city and the least sanded down. Garland makers work at the roadside, the spice shops are open to the street, and the volume on a Sunday evening is genuinely startling. It is also one of the few districts where the five-foot ways are still used as they were designed: to walk under, sheltered from sun and rain. The shophouses are painted in colours that would look absurd anywhere else.
Getting there
Little India station on the North East and Downtown lines, exit C, puts you beside the market. Farrer Park at the northern end is better if you are heading for the twenty-four-hour department store. Rochor is the quiet back entrance.
When to go
Weekday mornings are calm and pleasant, and the market is at its best before ten. Sunday evening is the opposite: the area fills with people and the atmosphere is extraordinary, but it is shoulder to shoulder. Deepavali, usually October or November, brings street lighting along the main road that is worth a detour.
What a resident would tell you
The back lanes running parallel to the main road carry most of the murals and almost none of the crowds. Turn off, walk one block in, and the district becomes a different and better place.
Worth knowing
Cover your shoulders and knees for the temples and expect to remove your shoes. Both are ordinary courtesy here rather than a special request, and nobody will make a fuss, but arriving unprepared means either a wasted trip or an awkward improvisation.
If it rains. Partly covered. Tekka Centre and Mustafa are the places to duck into.