Two Monasteries Behind the Blocks

Five minutes on foot from Bright Hill MRT, among the housing estates of Bishan, sits Singapore's largest Buddhist monastery. A short ride south, Toa Payoh keeps an older one behind its HDB blocks, the public flats most of the island calls home. Both are free, and tour coaches rarely come out this way. With one morning, we'd pick Kong Meng San for its size and save Shuang Lin for a day when you'd rather have age.

Come on a weekday morning, while the paths are quiet and the heat hasn't built. These are working monasteries, so dress as you would for any temple, with shoulders and knees covered, and wear shoes that slip off easily, because they come off at every shrine hall. Carry water. You'll be sharing the grounds with people who've come to pray, and that's a large part of the pleasure.

Kong Meng San on Bright Hill

Kong Meng San Phor Kark See at 88 Bright Hill Road is a working Mahayana campus, free to enter, with donations welcome. Bright Hill MRT, on the Thomson-East Coast Line, is about five minutes away on foot. From the North-South Line, get off at Bishan and take bus 410W or 52 to the Sin Ming Ave – Ai Tong Sch stop, then walk five minutes. Give it about 90 minutes, because the halls are spread across a big site.

The Hall of Great Compassion and the Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas are the two you'll remember. The crematorium gardens are here too, because this is also where families come to say goodbye, so keep your voice low as you pass. Save your photos for outdoors, since photography isn't allowed inside the halls. Pets and offerings brought from outside aren't allowed either.

The vegetarian dining hall in the Venerable Hong Choon Memorial Hall serves lunch for a donation, and once the food's gone, it's gone. On weekdays it's usually finished by 12.30pm; at weekends the counter lasts a little longer. Reach the gates around 9am and you'll see the halls first and still eat. Many of the people on the paths beside you were coming here long before Bright Hill had a station.

At Vesak, Ullambana and Chinese New Year the grounds fill with worshippers and the whole campus changes pace. Go then if the festival is why you came, give people extra room and leave the drone at home. For a quiet look around, any ordinary weekday morning works.

Shuang Lin in Toa Payoh

Lian Shan Shuang Lin at 184 Jalan Toa Payoh is the older of the two, founded at the turn of the twentieth century and now a National Monument. Its Mahāvira Hall, built with Fuzhou and Quanzhou carpentry, took from 1904 to 1907 to finish. Kong Meng San feels like a campus, while Shuang Lin is a monument with a whole town grown up around it.

The monastery is open daily from 8am to 5pm, and Cheng Huang Temple, on the same grounds, keeps the same hours. The monastery office runs shorter, from 9am to 5pm on weekdays and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, and it's closed on Sundays. The halls open on Sundays even when the office doesn't.

From Toa Payoh MRT, on the North-South Line, take bus 230M, 235 or 238 from the interchange for four stops and get off at Opp Blk 26. Cross the road and follow the walkway near Blk 27. On foot it's 15 to 20 minutes through the estate, and on a cooler morning we'd walk it. You walk through a town of blocks and fishball queues, then come to a roof that was here before any of them.

One morning or two

We'd give each monastery a morning of its own. To do both in a day, start at Kong Meng San around 9am, stay for the donation lunch and reach Shuang Lin in the early afternoon, well before its 5pm close. Getting between them means a bus to Bishan, a short hop down the North-South Line to Toa Payoh and the bus from the interchange, or a taxi. The cost is the midday heat, so refill your water on the way.

If a second set of halls sounds like too much, swap Shuang Lin for the river in Bishan instead. We'd head down around 5pm, once the worst of the heat has gone.

Down by the Kallang River

Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park is where we'd go to let the incense settle. The Kallang River here used to run in a concrete canal, and it's been restored into 62 hectares of park stretching more than 3km, open 24 hours. Look for herons along the banks and residents spread out on the long lawn; otters are possible, never promised. From Bright Hill MRT it's about five minutes to the Ang Mo Kio Ave 1 entrance, and Bishan MRT is the other way in, a short walk from the river.

Two bridges are closed for now: the Bishan Park Condominium bridge until 31 December and the Dragonfly Pond bridge until 4 December, so follow the signed alternatives. Line-fishing isn't allowed in the river, Dragonfly Pond or Lotus Pond, and the dog-run lights go off at 10.30pm. The river gets a story of its own in Bishan River.

Lunch in Toa Payoh

After a morning at Shuang Lin, we'd eat at Toa Payoh Lorong 8, 210 Lorong 8 Toa Payoh, the hawker centre the neighbourhood queues at. A hawker centre is an open-sided hall of small cooked-food stalls, where you order at each counter and share the tables. Braddell MRT is closer to it than Toa Payoh, which makes it an easy way back to the train.

Toa Payoh Town Park, at the junction of Lorong 2 and Lorong 6, is closed for redevelopment and expected to reopen in 2030, so head to the river in Bishan when you want grass. The dragon playground people still photograph is the HDB one on Lorong 6, and it's still standing. Toa Payoh Dragon takes you there and through the town around it.

With children along, Toa Payoh Sensory Park is a small pocket park for letting off steam. Harmony Centre at Masjid An-Nahdhah in Bishan is an interfaith gallery, the only one of its kind in the region, and a good place for the questions a morning of monasteries tends to raise. Call ahead, and dress modestly, as you did for the halls.

Another morning

The Central Sikh Temple on Towner Road, under its gold dome, deserves a morning to itself. Walking tours tend to get off at Little India and miss it. It's a Sikh gurdwara, a different faith and a different street from Sri Veeramakaliamman. Get off at Farrer Park or Boon Keng MRT instead, as both are closer than Little India. Cover your head and take off your shoes, and if you're invited to langar, the shared meal from the temple kitchen, accept. Pair it with Shuang Lin only if you have the energy and suitable clothes for both.

For more Buddhist halls, Foo Hai Ch'an is a working monastery in the east, and Wat Ananda is a Thai temple hall on the Tiong Bahru side of Outram. Each sits in its own corner of the island, so give it its own trip rather than squeezing it in after Bright Hill.

If you'd rather have trees, Thomson Nature Park keeps the ruins of a Hainanese village in shaded forest, a short walk that pairs well with Windsor Nature Park, especially on a Monday, when the TreeTop Walk at MacRitchie is closed. Pets aren't allowed in the nature parks around the reserve, and keep your food out of sight. MacRitchie itself wants boots and a 7am start at Venus Drive, and a morning of its own.

Further north, Sembawang Hot Spring is a sulphur foot bath in a 1.1-hectare park. Bring a pail, and treat the spring itself with care: the water comes out at 70°C. It's open 7am to 7pm, and the cascading pool closes for cleaning on Mondays and Thursdays from 11am to 2pm. Weekends bring a queue. From Canberra MRT it's a short bus ride, and the nearest carpark, at 114 Yishun Ring Road, is 450 metres or about eight minutes on foot. Mandai, with the Zoo, is the next ridge over and needs its own ticket and its own day.

Whichever you choose, it's the walk in that stays with you: a housing estate going about its weekday morning, then the incense and quiet inside the gates.