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

This has been a crazy month at work for me. After my short holiday to Siem Reap last month, I have been working non-stop, seven days a week. And to cap it all up, some reshuffling of work schedules mean that I will have to correspondingly reschedule my planned trip to Hong Kong and Taipei next month! That's kind of disappointing but life always serve up its surprises; both pleasant and unpleasant and this is one of those unpleasant surprises. Taking a short break from my work (well, I still have a life outside of work!), I decided to treat myself to some nice chocolate buffet in town yesterday night which was a Saturday. I have not been out and about in town of late, especially in the nights and I was surprised by the sights and sounds. There are the usual night scenes in Singapore which never failed to amaze me even though I was born, live and work in Singapore. Not expecting the carnival-like atmosphere and the amazing sights that I was to encounter, the only cameras I h...

Hong Kong's famous Victoria Harbour is the natural harbour sandwiched between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. When not obscured by inclement weather conditions or smog from the numerous factories in the geographically nearby Pearl River Delta area of Guangdong Province in mainland China, Victoria Harbour boasts stunning views of the Hong Kong skyline. The skyline is especially vivid in the night when viewed from Kowloon towards Hong Kong Island. Whenever I am in Hong Kong and when time, schedule and weather permit, I enjoy taking long and slow strolls in the evenings along the waterfront on the side of Kowloon. During one of these strolls, I took this picture of the nigh skyline with my iPhone. For this photograph, I chose a view of the skyline that was sandwiched between the ornamental sails of a tourist boat for a more dramatic effect.  Victoria Harbour, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China (2012)

Many of my friends know that once a year, I will travel to the Indonesian resort island of Bali for a short break to re-charge after one whole year of immersing myself in the rat race in my home country.  :-) Kicking sand on the beach, Bali, Indonesia (2011) So why do I travel to Bali so often? The reasons are many. The top 10 reasons for my frequent visits to Bali are: 1. Free Air Tickets . Yes, the air tickets for me were usually "free" except for the usual airport taxes, custom fees and airline surcharges. Throughout the year, I mostly used a single credit card with an airline tie-in. This meant that all my purchases on this credit card earned rewards points which were automatically converted into frequent flyer miles with the tied-in airline. I used my cards for everything from paying for my groceries to paying my recurrent mobile phone and home utility bills. Thus, at the end of each year, I would usually be able to earn enough frequent flyer miles to rede...