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

I visited the city of Kumamoto for the first time in August 2023 as part of a port visit by the cruise ship I was sailing on, Royal Caribbean's Spectrum of the Seas. The cruise's itinerary was to take passengers from Yokohama to Singapore, sailing in a south, south-easterly direction, whilst visiting some ports along the way. The original port visits in the southern parts of Japan were Shimizu and Osaka. But these 2 port visits were cancelled due to inclement weather because of a nearby typhoon. It was summer in Japan in August and the typhoon season was in town, literally and figuratively. The cruise company subsequently decided to add Kumamoto as a port visit to the itinerary to compensate for the lost of the the 2 cancelled port visits. Weather conditions are part of the forces of nature and I appreciated the cruise company's decision making discretion to ensure that all passengers had a safe and enjoyable trip. Thus, I was not upset at the lost of 2 port visits. Moreove

Year 2023 Personal Travel Wrap-up......  And so, 2023 is nearing its goodbyes and we are all looking forward to a brand new year in 2024. For travelers, a brand new travel year beckons. Personally, 2023 marks the first year when leisure travel truly resumes, after 2020 and 2021. Yes, I traveled a fair bit in 2022 compared to the two preceding years. But travel in 2022 was tentative, punctuated by the need to handle cumbersome vaccination certifications submissions prior to each trip, downloading official apps from individual countries and registering on these apps before embarkation, masks wearing, expensive travel insurance as well as limitations in where one can travel to. All these requirements were thankfully, slowly peeled away towards the end of 2022. Year 2023 is when we feel like normal again. Truth be told, COVID-19 is still everywhere, endemic. However, a combination of annual vaccinations and naturally acquired immunity from previous infections by previous strains of the vir

"Writing allows me to travel beyond my small world, to other worlds limited only by my imaginations ." -    Timothy Tan, tankstraveltales Islets at dusk, Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan (2023)

Month-long Pan-Asia Trip, East and South-Asia Asia This was a major trip which took me months to plan. Because there were many key details to follow such as accommodation, train travel times and inter-city transport connectivities, I had to cancel and re-book many of my hotels and train tickets bookings repeatedly. And also because I was visiting many of the places for the first time, my only source of information was from the internet. Not much of this information was accurate and some of the inaccuracies nearly resulted in me missing my inter-city connections. Lesson learnt and note to self, take information from the internet with a big pinch of salt! But this was a wonderful trip. I am unlikely to be able to go on such a long trip with so many different destinations in one single vacation again anytime soon. Work schedule always dictates that I can go away for at most two weeks at any one time. Thus, I was really glad I managed to complete this trip. While I had to lug my work lapto

Back from a month-long trip......  Home, from a fresh trip that lasted close to a month, I am currently buried up to my nose in work! Ah, the payments for my wanderlust. To be honest, even though I spent a small fortune on my month-long trip across Asia, these are funds that I had already budgeted and put away as spare money since last year. All my credit cards had been paid in full, maintaining my good credit score. That is how I can enjoy my vacations without having to worry about finances. Money matters aside now, in order not to digest from this month's edition of Travel Bits. 😆 After my long trip with many individual travel bucket list items fulfilled, I no longer have any major trips planned or booked. Apart from the yearly sojourns to nearby destinations such as Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Bali, no major trips are in the horizon on my calendars. Ok, I do have an 8-nights cruise to Bali and Lombok booked. But that trip will only happen in February 2025. Who knows what the world w

  "A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." - Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese Philosopher and Writer, 4th century BC* Views through the front window of a tour coach, Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan (2023) *Lao Tzu was a legendary ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He was also reputedly the founder of Taoism. There is no firmed confirmation of the period when Lao Tzu lived. Dates ranged between the 4th century to 6th century BC.