This photo shows how busy the markets were on the streets of Singapore during the 1960s. There were stalls everywhere and they would sell just about anything.
It was all fascinating to me and, being smaller, I was on the same eye level as the fruit sellers who were sat next to their produce which was sometimes spread out on wicker mats. This was the first place that I ever saw and tasted a rambutan. I'd never seen anything like them and as we walked by, stall holders would offer me them. I couldn't refuse! I got to love rambutans in the three years that we lived in Singapore and Malaya. I can still remember the taste now, though I haven't had one since we returned home in 1968. I think that they sell them in Sainsbury's in the UK so perhaps I'll buy some one day!
From the top picture, it's amazing just how busy the street markets were.
Everyone was happy to barter and the seller and the buyer always seemed happy with the final price.
I can still recall the smell of those stalls - the fruit, the smell of wicker work and just the smell of Singapore in general which I'm sure is a smell long forgotten by many Singaporeans!
In Singapore in the '70s, we had a rambutan tree in the front yard of our house near sixth avenue (was it always called sixth avenue?). We just referred to it as the "climbing tree", my brother and I were always up in it. That tree took a lot of abuse, we would frequently nail planks to it in an effort to invent comfortable places to sit amongst its sprawling branches. He and I would battle to find the reddest, sweetest fruit to snack on. What a wonderful way for kids to have afternoon snack. We also had sugar cane to munch on. Yum.
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