Ever since my first barbershop haircut at Jack’s in
Vernon, Texas, when I was just a wee Midwestern tyke, I have
had allergic reactions to the kinds of places I have to go
to get a decent haircut in Bali. In fact, I haven’t
yet had a decent haircut in Bali. I’ll accept that maybe
I go to the wrong places, but it just galls me to pay 50,000
rupiah or more for a bad haircut when the standard potong
rambut hole-in-the-wall charges 10,000 rupiah, and even that’s
a bule’s price.
So, I have been holding out since my last shearing –
at the Aldridge Hotel Barber Shop in Shawnee, Oklahoma, a
manly kind of place, with talk of rebuilding Chevys and lesser
cars in the background – until I can get to Singapore
and an Indian barber.
Nothing beats the Indian barber in Singapore, unless there
is still one of the old street barbers in operation somewhere
in an unreconstructed corner of Chinatown (not the faux old
time street shop at Singapore’s Clarke Quay parody of
itself). Now I don’t know why Indians have monopolized
the barber shop trade (as opposed to the salon and stylist
trade) in Singapore, but it is a fact that if you want an
old-fashioned barbershop experience – no appointments,
first-come-first-served, and proper barber chairs, just like
God intended – it is to the Indian barbers you go.
I got off the train at the Lavender MRT Station, near the
intersection of Victoria and Lavender Streets, and started
working my way north and west toward Serangoon Road and a
barbershop I know. I remember this shop mainly because after
one brutal buzz cut, as light chuckles began in the waiting
line behind, the barber leaned over and said, “They
say you look like Gandhi.”
And so I did, if you can judge by colleagues who called me
Mahatma until my hair grew to less razored proportions. This
time, I knew I had returned to the right place when I told
the man I wanted it cut short, and he waggled his head and
said, “You mean like the army?”
The shop – no discernible name and to my chagrin mislabeled
a ‘hairstylist salon’ – charges S$10. My
suggestion to any similarly inclined barbershop men is not
to go below this price. I went once to a more robust Little
India shop – no air-conditioning, one rusting, shaky
barber chair, and a hand-painted scrawl on the door ‘haircut
$5, shave $4’ – and got a decent enough haircut.
At the end, though, my face was also swabbed down with the
same damp, foul-smelling towel that had been swabbing faces
all day. Spend the few extra dollars for the clean towel.
Drop at either the Lavender MRT or Farrer Park MRT Stations
(Farrer Park is closer) and walk to Mustafa’s expanding
retail empire along Serangoon Road. Walk back toward town
on the left-hand side of the road and look for the traditional
barbershop pole. Once done, try lunch at Khansama Tandoori
Restaurant, on the same side of the road just a bit closer
to town, or at the relocated Komala Vilas Restaurant (vegetarian
Indian fare) on Buffalo Road on the other side. Get back on
the MRT system at the Little India Station at the end of Race
Course Road.
Hotel update: The New Seventh Storey Hotel (www.nsshotel.com,
Border Run, Jan. 17) indeed lives up to its billing as a decent,
reasonably priced traveler’s hotel near shopping malls,
MRT stations, and many little eateries. If you take a dormitory
room or a standard room, the common baths on the hall are
kept clean and are generally available. Try, though, to avoid
Room 209, which is right next to the common baths, and is
more spartanly appointed than the other standard rooms. Ask
at the desk to be directed to the Internet café along
North Bridge Road. Book at least two weeks in advance over
the Internet.
