Early Morning in Singapore: Markets, Gardens, First MRT Trains and Monday Closures

Gardens, wet markets and temples are all open. Ticketed attractions mostly are not.

Singapore Botanic Gardens and the outdoor gardens at Gardens by the Bay both open at 5am, and both are free. Government market stalls are trading from before dawn, and Sri Mariamman Temple opens at 6am. Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and the Central Catchment Nature Reserve open at 7am. Universal Studios and the Singapore Flyer open at 10am and the Marina Bay Sands deck at 11am, so none of those fit into a morning plan.

It depends on the station, the line and the day. Broadly between 5.30am and 6.30am.

Changi Airport station runs its first train at 5.31am Monday to Saturday and 5.59am on Sundays and public holidays. City Hall ranges from 5.54am to 6.05am depending on which platform you take, and Orchard from 5.48am to 6.11am. On the North East Line, HarbourFront starts at 5.47am and Chinatown at 5.49am, and those times do not change by day. At an interchange, the platform you walk down to decides your first train.

Yes, 20 to 28 minutes later on most lines. The North East Line is the exception.

Changi Airport moves from 5.31am on weekdays to 5.59am on a Sunday. City Hall and Orchard shift by about 25 minutes, and the Downtown Line by 18 to 20 minutes. The North East Line publishes one time per station for every day of the week, so HarbourFront, Outram Park, Chinatown and Little India all start at the same hour whatever the day. If you are building an early Sunday plan, that line is the easier one to work with.

They trade from before dawn and wind down around midday. The exact hour varies by stall.

The National Environment Agency does not publish opening hours for its markets. Every stall has a different owner and sells different goods, so times differ inside one building. Guides variously give Tekka Centre as 5am and as 6.30am. What is consistent is that the fresh produce side opens early and closes around lunchtime. Between 7am and 9am you will see the market at its busiest.

Markets close for cleaning once a quarter, and that day is almost always a Monday.

Government markets and hawker centres shut for a spring clean once a quarter, and the agency publishes the dates in advance for each centre. Pooling every date and counting by weekday puts nine in ten on a Monday. Two day closures are the most common length, so a Monday closure usually swallows the Tuesday morning too. No centre in the list closes for cleaning on a Friday.

The gardens open at 5am and close at midnight, and entry is free.

Sections inside open at different times. The Learning Forest opens at 7am, Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden at 8am, the National Orchid Garden at 8.30am, and the three galleries and the museum at 9am. The children’s garden is closed on Mondays unless the Monday is a public holiday, and the three indoor spaces each close on the last Monday, last Tuesday and last Thursday of the month respectively. Arriving before dawn means walking the grounds first and stepping into the enclosed areas as each one unlocks.

S$15 for a non resident adult, and S$3 if you are 60 or over.

There are two price columns. Singapore residents pay S$5 for an adult and S$1 for seniors and students. Everyone else pays S$15 for an adult and S$3 for seniors and students. Children under 12 are free on both columns. The gate opens at 8.30am and the last ticket is sold at 6pm. Tickets are bought at the counter by the entrance.

Sri Mariamman Temple opens at 6am and closes at noon. It opens again at 6pm.

Because it shuts over the middle of the day, walking through Chinatown in the afternoon and hoping to step inside does not work. Evening hours run to 9pm, and to 9.15pm on Fridays. The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple on the same street opens at 7am, but the relic chamber and the museum inside it open at 10am. Arrive at seven and you will see the building and the main hall, not the relic.

The kopitiam chains open around 7.30am. The airport branch runs 24 hours.

Ya Kun Kaya Toast has 71 outlets in Singapore and most open at 7.30am, with a few such as Scotts Road at 8am. For anything earlier than that, the cooked food stalls inside the markets are the answer. Stallholders on the wet side arrive before dawn, so the noodle and porridge stalls that feed them open at the same hour. What to order is set out in the Singapore hawker centre guide.

Between 6.46am and 7.17am, all year round. That is a spread of 31 minutes.

Sitting close to the equator keeps sunrise almost fixed. The earliest sunrise falls in early November and the latest in mid February. Day length is similarly steady, running from 12 hours 3 minutes to 12 hours 12 minutes, a spread of nine minutes across the year. Whatever month you visit, it is still dark at 6.30am and light by 7.30am.

Rain in Singapore falls mainly in the afternoon. The weather service says so in its own climate notes.

The Meteorological Service describes rainfall as occurring more often during daylight hours and particularly in the afternoon, when solar heating is strongest. Putting outdoor plans in the morning therefore lowers the chance of being rained off. Mornings are, however, the most humid part of the day. The same official notes put relative humidity above 90 per cent just before sunrise, falling to around 60 per cent by the afternoon.

The day of the week, and the cleaning dates. The weekday catches people out before the clock does.

Look up the cleaning dates for the market you want, check whether your morning falls on a Monday, and check whether the first train you need is on the Sunday timetable. Those three answers cover most of it. Monday compounds: the TreeTop Walk and Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden are also shut. Friday mornings are the easiest, with no cleaning closures at all and weekday first trains.