Fancy a Puff?

I'm not talking about anything illegal here or smoking generally but the smoking of hookah pipes.  Now perhaps I am very inexperienced in life and maybe everyone else reading this will have tried this on numerous occasions (though I'm willing to bet many of my UK friends won't have) but before the weekend I never had.  However in Singapore, you are able to smoke these (despite smoking bans similar to the UK), especially in the Kampong Glam - Arab Quarter of the island.  In the Kampong Glam area all the restaurants seem to offer customers the pipes to smoke if they wish and it is a common sight to see.  I actually think it fits in perfectly well here as when you wander around this area you get a real taste of Arabian life and the smoking of these pipes, to me, is a part of that.


You can enjoy a Hookah pipe here (amongst other places).

The Hookah pipe in case you didn't know or had not worked out is used for smoking tobacco and it allows the smoke to be cooled and filtered by passing it through water.  It is believed to have first originated in the North Western provinces of India alongside the border of Pakistan.  You can have a variety of flavoured tobaccos, we tried an apple and mint one, to be honest all I could taste was the mint so it reminded me of the menthol cigarette I tried many years ago out of curiosity.  It is said that filtering the smoke through water does not make it any safer than normal smoking as you tend to be smoking over a longer period so are inhaling a great deal more tobacco ultimately.  It definitely isn't something I'll be taking up anytime soon but the few puffs I had were not too bad and at least I can say I've done it.

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