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

Israel, Caesarea The original article was first published in this blog in 2016.  Caesarea was an ancient port and administrative city on the Mediterranean coast of Israel.  Located between the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, this ancient city sits within the Caesarea National Park. If you like history and are visiting Israel or the surrounding regions, I highly recommend a side trip to Caesarea.  For me, my visits to Caesarea were the fulfilment of a personal bucket list item.  ****************** Caesarea is a small town in central Israel. It is located along Israel's Mediterranean coastline and is situated 45km north of Tel Aviv and a similar distance south of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa. Caesarea was built sometime between 25 to 13 BC by Herod the Great (a.k.a. Herod I). In the Bible, Herod I was described as the ruler who ordered the "Massacre of the Innocents" based on a prophecy at the time of the birth of Jesus.  Walking amongst...

Travel Plans for 2023 .......  With the completion of a cruise trip on 31 October, I wrapped up my leisure travels for 2022. Following the pandemic-induced stay-within-home-city period which for me stretched from February 2020 to April 2022, I had the luxury to go on six trips in 2022. A trip to Ipoh and Cameron Highlands in mid-May was followed quickly by an escapade to  Siem Reap in the last week of that same month. My first ever cruise experience happened in July when I sailed with Royal Caribbean onboard its Spectrum of the Seas ship from Singapore to Penang and back to Singapore on a 3-night trip. In August, I visited Kuala Lumpur, the city I visited in January 2020 just before the worldwide pandemic struck.  A repeatedly postponed trip to Bali, no thanks to the pandemic, finally happened in the first week of October. In the last week of that month, I went on my second cruise trip. Again on Spectrum of the Seas, I sailed from Singapore to Port Klang, Penang...

  " Travel whenever you can, Choose your journeys, Live your adventures, Write your story. " - Timothy Tan, tankstraveltales Port Klang, Klang, Selangor, Malaysia (2022)

Mobile phones with good quality cameras are now an essential part of everyday life, travel included. Gone are the days when one has to bring along a chunky conventional camera when travelling so as not to miss those opportunistic photo moments that one is bound to encounter. Whilst on a recent cruise trip as I was sighted-seeing from the balcony of my cabin located at the back of the ship on Deck 13, I took this photograph. As the ship pulled out of Singapore's Marina Bay Cruise Centre and travelled along the Singapore Strait heading for the Strait of Malacca, I decided that this view of commercial shipping will be a good digital memento of my trip. This photo reminded me of the busy shipping that contributes to global trade and keeps the economies of many countries humming along nicely. Commercial Shipping, Singapore Strait, Singapore (2022)

Australia, Western Australia, New Norcia The original article was first published in this blog in December 2018.  This was an unplanned side trip that ended up as a personal bucket list item for me. While visiting Western Australia, I had planned for a trip to Rottnest Island. However, inclement weather on the day of my planned visit to Rottnest Island meant that I had to cancel my travel plans leaving me with a full day of free time in my itinerary. Someone suggested I should visit New Norcia. Until then, I had never heard of this town before. And since I had a rented vehicle for the duration of my stay in Western Australia, I decided that a drive to this monastery town was a good idea. Instead, it turned out to be a great idea. Besides enjoying the relatively long two and half hour drive (one way ) from Perth to New Norcia, I got to experience an actual monastery town for the first time in my travels. This trip...

Wrapping up my personal Travel Calendar for 2022......  As I wrote this blog post, I had just returned fresh from a long-postponed trip to Bali. I had booked and paid for my accommodation back in September 2019 for the trip that was originally planned for April 2020. But for reasons that were beyond anyone's control, I had to repeatedly reschedule the trip until this month when I could finally enjoy my beach vacation at my favourite beach destination! This Bali trip marked my fifth overseas leisure trip of 2022. I have another trip coming up in the last week of October. This is a cruise from Singapore to Klang and Penang (Malaysia) and also Phuket (Thailand). I had booked the cruise back in January when prices were still low because of continuing travel restrictions. It will be my last vacation trip of the year and I am looking forward to enjoy the upcoming cruise. I am likely to be spending most of my cruise time onboard the ship, only intending to disembark at Penang. I had just ...

Most hotels and tourist accommodations typically uses small plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash. These small little plastic bottles are used once and discarded. Add the number of tourist establishments worldwide and the number of rooms each of these establishments have, the number of visitors they host every day of the year and it is a no brainer that we travellers are collectively responsible for generating a massive amount of plastic waste just by taking a shower each time! In my recent trip to Bali in October 2022 where I stayed at the Westin Nusa Dua, it was quite heartening when I found out that the hotel, instead of issuing small plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, had instead been using bottles that can be top up with these shower essentials. This demonstrates that the hotel is committed to sustainable travel. Kudos to the Westin Nusa Dua for their effort to help save our planet. 😀🌏 Re-useable bottles that can be top up with Shampoo, Condit...