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

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...

I had so often heard about Hua Hin but had never visited until during my Train Journey from Bangkok to Singapore when I had a one-night stopover in this town in Thailand's Prachuap Khiri Khan province. Sine this was only a stopover, I had less than 24-hours to explore Hua Hin, less after taking into acocunt my sleeping time and time spent alighting and boarding trains between destinations. It was already dusk when I arrived at Hua Hin from Bangkok on a train ride that lasted more than 3 hours. Walking towards my accommodation for the night, my route cut across the night market. The place was a bustle of activities with many stalls selling stuffs from food to art to souvenirs. There are also shops fronting the night market from all sides, including 24-hour convenience shops. After checking to my accommodation, a quick shower and a change of clothes, I was out exploring the night market. I had dinner and supper, filmed videos for my Travel YouTube Channel, browsed the many stalls se...

When I travel, I have always enjoy staying in rural areas which are off the beaten track. During my trip to the mountains of Takayama in Okuhida in the autumn of 2014, I had to travel from Tokyo all the way to my destination. The travel alone took up an entire day of my itinerary. Of course, the travelling was a sight-seeing adventure all by itself as the scenery changed from the crowded cityscape of Tokyo to the rural and mountains terrain of Hida-Takayama. Locally-grown crops, Okuhida, Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, Japan (2014) Prior to my arrival in Japan, I worked out the travel itinerary from travel guides and tried it out  for the first time when I landed in Tokyo. Not all the information that I had gathered from the guides were accurate and I had to make minor adjustments along the way with some help in direction finding from the locals. That was the fun part of the trip and I must admit that I did get lost along the way before I eventually arrived at the family-run ...