To market to market

Date: 02 Nov 2005
Time: 1204 hrs
Place: near Newton Circus

I was making my way back to Little India and didn't feel like taking the train all the way down to Dhoby Ghaut in order to change to the Northeast Line back up again, and so I decided to try taking a bus. Getting off at Newton MRT, I was jaywalking to cross the road to get to the bus stop. As I was crossing, there was an late-middle aged Sikh couple waiting to cross to, but obviously somewhat bewildered by the heavy flow of vehicles towards the circus. He was wearing a light blue turban, white shirt and singlet and brown pants, and the lady had a veil over her head, wearing a cream dress, walking quite slowly. They wanted to know if there was a market around here, which they've heard was a very large one. I couldn't think of any markets in the area so I suggested that perhaps they were looking for the Tekka market. I told them it was quite a ways and perhaps they should take a cab but they seemed to have (well, at least he seemed to have, because he was talking in his heavily accented English to me and his wife was keeping quiet) some irrational fear of dishonest taxi drivers. So he asked if they could walk and I said it was quite far away to walk and probably not a good idea given the hot weather, and they could take a bus, so they walked with me to the bus stop. When we reached there they were discussing something, probably in the Sikh language, and then abruptly decided to walk, but walking in the opposite direction. Strange.