Chinatown & Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
Your walk begins in Chinatown, at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, a temple and museum complex whose monks and devotees practise Chinese Buddhism. You enter through the Shanmen, the 'Mountain Gate', the traditional threshold of a Chinese monastery. The architecture looks back to the Tang dynasty, and a few rooms carry slight Japanese and Tibetan Buddhist influences.
That look was a deliberate choice. When the Singapore Tourism Board asked the abbot, Venerable Shi Fa Zhao, to redevelop the temple, it wanted a traditional design with facilities and events for locals and tourists alike. Nine proposals went through before one was accepted. The abbot rejected one as too contemporary for Chinatown, and he also turned down the Southern Chinese style of the district's older temples, even though it would have mirrored Singapore's migrant history. What stands today is Northern Chinese in character.
The temple takes its name from a tooth said to belong to the historical Buddha, reportedly found in a collapsed stupa. It measures 7.5 cm, far too long for a human tooth, so treat it as a matter of faith rather than anatomy. The relic is on public view on the fourth floor; the basement holds a theatre and a vegetarian dining hall.
Entry is free, so go inside even if you are short on time; give it half an hour or more if Buddhist art interests you. The abbot also founded the Metta Welfare Association, which cares for the intellectually disabled, the elderly and the terminally ill. From here it is 1360 m, about 19 minutes, to Clarke Quay on the Singapore River.
