The Muslim Quarter

My stop later today was in Singapore’s Muslim Quarter, which isn’t actually a full quarter of the city, but its size notwithstanding, it sure was a photographer’s dream.   The area is anchored by the Masjid Sultan mosque, which is an elegant house of worship.   Take a look…

I enjoyed photographing the Masjid Sultan mosque, and I enjoyed walking around the neighborhood.  I was surprised to see a handful of very large ADV bikes, including a GS1200 BMW and a Honda Africa Twin.   I thought the motorcycle parking situation was interesting, too.   Check this out…it’s 65 Singaporean cents per day to park your motorcycle!  That’s got to be chump change to a guy on a GS1200!

There was a Honda Africa Twin parked across the street from the restaurant where I had lunch.  It got my attention because it was the first Africa Twin I’ve ever seen, other than on the Internet or in magazines.   I think the license plate on the Africa Twin was Singaporean, but I’m not sure.  The bike looks like it has an aftermarket skid plate and crash bars.

I wanted to talk to the Africa Twin’s owner to see how he liked it (I’m assuming the owner was a guy), but I didn’t get a chance to do so.   I was enjoying my lunch too much, I guess.  I looked up and the bike was gone.  It must be very quiet.  I thought I would hear it start, but I never did.   I’m not interested in buying one; I just wanted to hear what the owner had to say about it.   When I saw the Africa Twin and the BMW, I had the same reaction I always do when seeing these large roadburners.  Who would actually want to ride something that monstrous off road?

There was another aspect of the Muslim Quarter I enjoyed seeing:  The Turkish carpet stores.   I love these things and our home is fully stocked with Turkish carpets.  I bought all of them 25 years ago on a gig in Turkey (my first visit there was to a Turkish carpet manufacturing facility), and I’ve had an interest in these carpets ever since.   The guys who sell them in these little stores are amazing; they could teach Donald Trump how to negotiate (people from the Middle East, and in particular carpet salesmen, are the best negotiators I’ve ever met).   I wasn’t interested in buying a carpet (we don’t have any more floor space in my home), but I always enjoy looking at them.   Some of the carpets have amazing designs.

You might wonder how you get things like a Turkish carpet home when you buy them overseas.  I did it by rolling up the four carpets I bought in Turkey and checking them as baggage.   One of the carpets I bought was 5 meters long (that’s more than 15 feet!) and you can imagine what it was like lugging it into the airport and checking it as baggage.  On that flight, we flew from Istanbul to Tel Aviv (I had a few days business in Israel), and going through the drill of checking and then reclaiming the carpets at Ben Gurion Airport was something else.   In Israel, getting back on the flight was a serious challenge.  The Israeli security people made me unroll all four of the carpets I was taking home to Los Angeles.  Then when I arrived in Los Angeles, the US Customs dude gave me a hard time because he thought the carpets were textiles.  He wanted to hit me up with a huge import tariff.  I was the first guy off that 747 to get to the Customs point, and I was still arguing with the Customs guy after all of the other passengers had passed through.  I finally told the Customs guy that I basically thought he was stupid and he was abusing his power (I used pretty much those exact words), and I asked him to call for a supervisor.   I could tell that infuriated him, but he did what I asked.   The supervisor listened to the story for all of 60 seconds and allowed me through.   That Customs guy is probably still mad at me (or not; hell, it was 25 years ago and he’s probably retired by now).

So, back to Singapore’s Muslim district and my adventure today.  I picked a Turkish restaurant for lunch and I had a chicken doner plate.   I’m not sure what “doner” means in Turkish, but whenever I’ve had a dish with that word in its name it’s always been great, and today was no exception.

After lunch, I experienced a special treat when I left the restaurant.   I spotted a very clean mid-1960’s Honda CB160 parked in among all of the other bikes at the curb.  It wasn’t there when I went into the restaurant, so it must have snuck in while I was eating.

The CB160 holds a special place in my heart.  It’s the first motorcycle my Dad ever owned.   In those days, Honda referred to the CB160 as a baby Super Hawk.  The Super Hawk was a 305cc motorcycle that was ahead of its time; the CB160 was basically a scaled-down version of the larger Super Hawk.  Like the full-sized Super Hawk, it had twin carbs, electric starting, and a host of other features.  Dad’s bike was black, just like the one you see here.   Seeing it today really brought back a lot of memories.  I hung around for a little bit hoping the owner would show up, but he (or she) didn’t.   That’s too bad; I would have really enjoyed a conversation about the bike.

And folks, that’s it for now.   The jet lag is catching up with me.  I’m going to read a bit and then call it a night.