TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

Often, when we travel, we will come across sceneries or structures where we just could not stop ourselves from taking that photograph as a memento. During a stopover while on my train journey through South-East Asia in June 2024, I came across this giant coffee cup at the Antong Coffee Mill in Taiping. Upon setting my eyes on this "giant", I told myself I simply had to have a photograph taken with the cup! And thus, many photographs of myself and the giant cup were taken. Photo opportunities not to be missed! Here are two of these photos for sharing. Giant Coffee Cup, Antong Coffee Mill, Taiping, Perak, Malaysia (2024) Giant Coffee Cup, Antong Coffee Mill, Taiping, Perak, Malaysia (2024)

Japan,  Nagaoka The Hanabi Matsuri in Nagaoka is arguably one the best in Japan, a country renowned for its many Hanabi Matsuri held annually all over the country in the summer months of July and August. I had the rare opportunity to fulfil a personal Travel Bucket List item when I attended both days of the Nagaoka  Hanabi Matsuri in August 2023. ****************** Attending the Nagaoka Hanabi Matsuri (Fireworks Festival) has always been a travel bucket list item for me. This year, I finally managed to check this item on my list. I attended the event on both days, on the 2nd and 3rd of August 2023. With an estimated 20,000 rounds of fireworks launched into the summer night sky of Nagaoka, this is arguably one of the best fireworks display not just in Japan but probably in the world. Held along the Shinano River, this is truly the mother of all Fireworks Display for me. Here, I am sharing a couple of photos and a short 12-seconds video of part of the fireworks display. I have a...

From the balcony of my hotel room at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, I saw Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas leaving port enroute to Thailand's Phuket on the night of 3 December 2024. The colourful lights of the cruise ship and its reflections in the pitch black water of the night was a delightful sight to behold. A rare photo moment that I just could not miss. 📸 Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas leaving port, Georgeotown, Penang, Malaysia (2024)

Ending my travels in 2024 with a stay at a heritage hotel.....  I did not travel much in 2024. I was simply too busy with everything else to go away on  vacations. My last trip for the year was a good one though. It was a relaxing 6-day sojourn to the Malaysian city of Penang where I was booked to spend 5 nights at a heritage hotel. The 135-year old Eastern & Oriental Hotel, also simply known as E&O. Following my stay at the 150-year old Nikko Kanaya, the E&O was the next heritage hotel on my travel bucket list and I was glad that despite a relatively barren year of travel in 2024, I did actually get to stay at both the Nikko Kanaya and E&O during the year. Heritage hotels have a rather nostalgic feel with their rich and storied histories. Staying at these hotels and walking along the same hallways that many historical figures had walked before was a surreal experience. Especially so when some of these historical figures were amongst those we read about in hist...

France,  Toulouse Way back in 2005, I travelled to the southern French city of Toulouse for the first time. I was there to attend an engineering conference and took the opportunity to squeeze a little sight seeing over a single weekend. Capital of France's Occitanie region, Toulouse is one of the largest city in France. I had always wanted to visit Toulouse since I was in school, having read about the city in a magazine when I was a school librarian. I was thus extremely happy when I was nominated by my then-boss to attend a conference that was to be held in the city! I flew from Singapore to Paris and from there, took a connecting domestic flight to Toulouse. A school-hood travel bucket list item came true! ****************** Toulouse, is located in the south-western region of France and is the capital city of Haute-Garrone. It is also known as the Pink City because of the unique architecture of some of the buildings in the city which use pink terracotta bricks. Home to European A...

In May and June of 2024, I had the joy of going on a long train journey from Bangkok to Singapore. This was not a single journey where I simply boarded a train in Bangkok and disembarked from the same train in Singapore. The whole journey was made up of multiple trains rides where I stopped at different cities in Thailand and Malaysia, even spending a night at some of these cities. And there was also an overnight train ride between the Thai cities of Prachuap Khiri Khan and Hat Yai. Throughout the journey, I rode in different cabin class from Class 1 (air-conditioned with sleeper bed in a dedicated cabin) to Class 3 (non-air conditioned with only drafts from the ceiling fans in the cabin and wind from the windows to keep cool). The journey was meant to mimic the train travels of the old days when air travel was not so common and train travel was the norm. Since I was born after those days, I could not experience such travels and could only read about it in books. This train journey, tr...