Jalan Kayu night market - 1966 to 1969









Corporal Ty Muir of RAF Seletar 1966 - 1969 shares his memories of the famous Jalan Kayu night market. Pictures courtesy of Corporal Muir himself from his personal collection.

Sights and Sounds on a Friday night out at Jalan Kayu
Friday evenings were often spent wandering through the Jalan Kayu night market with the Florescent lit stalls attracting clouds of nocturnal insects. The Doris fish and chips stall with its high stools ( with removable tops). The adjacent Makan stalls with its roaring gas that filled the air with delicious fragrant billows of steam and the cluster of pirate cabs with their drivers eager to make a deal; the Indian shops with their exotic sari-clad ladies and the scent of incense and sandal wood.

I remember...
The tailors ships where you could get a beautiful made to measure shirt made from fine silk for a few dollars. Camphorwood chests of all shape and seize; the pungent smell of dried fish and shrimps drifting from the groceries. St Vincents de Paul church; the incredible aroma of freshly roasted and ground coffee beans ; the second hand book stalks were you could rent a handful of Westerns for a couple of bucks; desert boots to wear with your new “cool” tailor made KD; buying the mandatory Kenwood Chef food mixer to take back to the UK; blue denim shorts and shorts. Down beyond all the lights was the darkness of the rubber plantations. The evening ended with a few Tigers at the Seletar bar.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I remember Friday nights well at the Jalan Kayu night market, we were there from early 1968 - Dec 1970.

Pip Janes.