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

I am currently in Luang Prabang on vacation. Being a first time visitor to the country of Laos, I was naturally excited by everything I saw and experienced. Here are a couple of photographs taken from my window seat onboard Silkair Flight MI788 as it flew from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. Views of the countryside surrounding Vientiane as Silkair Flight MI788 took off from the Wattay International Airport (IATA: VTE, ICAO:VLVT) after a brief transit stopover, Vientiane, Laos (2017) Silkair Flight MI788 en-route from Vientiane to Luang Prabang on 31 August 2017, Laos (2017) A long winding river is clearly visible from this photograph taken while Silkair Flight MI788 was en-route from Vientiane to Luang Prabang on 31 Aug 2017, Laos (2017) Rolling hills were a sight to behold from the air as Silkair Flight MI788 flew from Vientiane to Luang Prabang on 31 Aug 2017, Laos (2017)

Inflight Magazines....... Whichever airline I flew with, I usually look forward with eager anticipation to reading their inflight magazines. Reading these magazines help me spend my time during the flights. This is especially true during long haul intercontinental flights lasting 10 hours or more. Of course, we can also watch the many movies available as part of the inflight entertainment system. But there is definitely a limit to the number of inflight movies I can watch whilst seated in an economy class seat on a long haul flight.  Reading inflight magazines allow me to enjoy a comfortable way to spend those long flight durations in economy class. It also serves to broaden my mind, help me learn more about places which I have not visited and provide me with inspirations on new travel destinations. And these magazines have the added advantage of helping me to cut down on the need to bring along more personal reading materials thus resulting in less weight and space needed ...

While in the air during flights, I always enjoyed taking photos from the window of my seat. These photos provide a sense of the vastness of the sky and are unlike any other pictures we could have taken from the ground. Pictures of the blue sky with the wing tip or engine of the plane in parts of the photograph typify a form of freedom that is difficult to describe by mere words. Another type of photographs from the air will be the bird's eye views of the city as the plane approaches to land or the views of the airport's tarmac as the plane's landing gear engaged in preparation for a touch down. On a recent trip returning from Thailand's resort island of Phuket to Singapore, I had the chance to capture the view of the tarmac of Singapore's Changi International Airport as the Silkair Boeing 737-800 that I was flying on came in for a touch down. Three Singapore Airlines' planes parked in front of a hangar can be clearly seen in this photograph. They are a ...

This was a hurried booking for an unplanned trip from Singapore to the city of Thiruvananthapuram in the state of Kerala, India in the month of April 2016. The trip resulted from an 11th hour decision to attend the wedding of a friend. The booking was done just a few days before the trip and I was lucky to still be able to get a seat for the flight. The only direct flight available from Singapore to Thiruvananthapuram was offered by SilkAir, the regional arm of Singapore Airlines. I have flew on SilkAir many times before on my trips around the South-East Asian region but this was by far my longest flight onboard a SilkAir flight.  Total flight time from Singapore's Changi International Airport (IATA: SIN, ICAO: WSSS) to Thiruvananthapuram's Trivandrum International Airport (IATA: TRV, ICAO: VOTV) is slightly over 4 hours. The route is usually serviced by either an Airbus A320-200 or A319-100 aircraft. As is common on all SilkAir flights, inflight service onboard Fl...

In-between my planned trips to the Maldives in August 2014 and Japan in October 2014, I decided to take a short trip to some place nearby; preferably within a 3-hour flight time radius from my native Singapore. As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, Silkair was offering 50% discounts on award redemption tickets to some selected regional destinations and I jumped on the opportunity to redeem my return air tickets to Lombok using my Krisflyer Miles (Silkair is wholly owned by Singapore Airlines and thus I could use my Krisflyer Miles to redeem award tickets on Silkair flights). Each return ticket only required 7,500 Krisflyer Miles to redeem after the 50% discount. Of course, I still had to pay the usual taxes and surcharges in cash. :-) My flight onboard Silkair MI128 from Singapore's Changi International Airport (IATA: SIN, ICAO: WSSS) to the new airport near the city of Praya; the Bandar Udara Internasional Lombok (IATA: LOP, ICAO: WADL) took about 2 hour 35 minute...