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

The to-do-list before embarking on a trip....... Fresh from a short trip in early July to nearby Phuket, I am already looking forward to my travel plans for next year. I already have one confirmed trip in the month of May next year where I will travel to Helsinki, Tallinn and London for a 10-day vacation. Only the air tickets have been booked. I will settle the rest of the bookings closer to the travel dates. But before you think that I really truly enjoy myself on my travels, think again. The hectic nature of my job meant that any vacation is never really a vacation. When on vacation, I am still expected to reply to office emails promptly which usually means within an hour or two. Replying to office emails is the easy part. The difficult part is when I have to prepare tender and contractual documents, budgetary quotations etc and the list goes on. The need to handle such tasks and to deliver the output required, usually within a single business day regardless of where I am in t...

Zurich is well-known as the Financial and Banking capital of the world. Contrary to what most people may think, Zurich is not the capital city of Switzerland. The Swiss capital city is Bern, located about 100km south-west of Zurich. Traveling time between the two cities is about an hour by train. The Zurich International Airport is situated just slightly more than 10km from the city and getting to and from the airport and the city is convenient, affordable and easy. Zurich is also connected to most major Swiss and European cities by rail. The Zurich Hauptbahnhof (a.k.a. Zurich HB) is the largest train station in Switzerland. Personally, I will always remember that it was here at Zurich HB that I had to pay  € 1.50 just to use the washroom to answer an urgent call of nature! To date, this was and still is the most expensive use of a public washroom for me in all my travels. ;-) The warmer months of the year in Zurich is between May and September. The months of July and Augu...

Scoot is a low-cost carrier which specialises in medium and long haul flights. Scoot is owned by Singapore Airlines and operates out of its home base at Singapore's Changi International Airport. While walking to one of the boarding gates at Changi Airport's Terminal 2 on 2 July 2016, I spotted this beautiful and brand new Boeing 787-8 painted in Scoot's full livery.  Boeing 787-8 from Scoot, Changi International Airport, Singapore (2016)

The city of Haifa is located in northern Israel and is one of the largest city in the country. Haifa is a major Israeli seaport as it is situated along Israel's coastline on the Mediterranean Sea. The climate of Haifa is usually hot and dry with some rains in the rainy season. The rainy season is usually between  the months of November to February. It is about 3 hours by car from Tel Aviv. The most famous tourist attraction of Haifa is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Baha'i Shrine (a.k.a. Baha'i World Center; a religious site of the Baha'i faith). The surrounding gardens of the Shrine, located in Mount Carmel, are also known as the Hanging Gardens of Haifa. The Baha'i Gardens, Haifa, Israel (2002) As this is a religious site, visitors have to observe proper attire, especially when visiting the sites near the buildings. Loud talking are also not advised. The gardens are a delight to walk in and a marvel for the eyes. Designed to be almost sy...

During my trip to Phuket in July 2016, I was staying at the JW Marriott Resort & Spa. The hotel provides free shuttle to and from the nearby Marriott's Phuket Beach Club.  While visiting the Marriott's Phuket Beach Club to dine at one of the restaurants, I chanced upon this statue in one of the gardens at the resort. Despite the hustle and bustle of the comings and goings of the many resort guests and staff, this statue seemed to be in a world of its own, standing peaceful and calm. That zen-like calmness took hold of me and I snapped this photo using my iPhone 6S Plus. Another of those unexpected photo moments....... Statue exuding Peace and Calm, Marriott's Phuket Beach Club, Phuket, Thailand (2016)

I am late again for my regular Travel Bits series. ;-) After the unexpected travels in the months of April and May, June 2016 has been a month of working and working. Yup, no time for anything else except work, even over the weekends. But as I have mentioned before in several articles in this blog, traveling do not have to mean packing one's luggage and boarding a jetliner; moving around your neighbourhood or visiting the neighbouring town can be as much of a traveling experience as visiting another country. :-) Towards the end of the month of June, I had relatives visiting from Malaysia and they were staying at  the magnificent Fullerton Hotel located in the Central Business District (CBD) of Singapore. Visiting them at their hotel, I walked to the balcony of their hotel room and was rewarded with splendid views of the Singapore River and the CBD. Using my iPhone 6S Plus (which practically doubles as my convenience camera of choice), I took the following pictures....

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...