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

Singapore, Mount Faber Despite being born and raised as well as living and working in Singapore for almost the entirety of my existence, I had never taken the cable car in Singapore before. This is despite that cables cars are not a rarity here and have been around for as long as one can remember. Eventually, I did get to try out a cable car ride in Singapore. And not just a ride. I had booked an in-car dining experience to celebrate New Year's Eve of 2020 and welcome the arrival of New Year's Day on 2021. What an experience! This article, posted in this blog in July 2021, is all about a personal bucket list item fulfilled. For me, a bucket list item don't have to mean traveling to the ends of the world, diving into the deepest oceans or climbing that highest peak. It can be anything that one has always want to try or do but has never get around to actually doing it. Its not about bragging rights or awesome materials to post on social media. ...

Revisiting places.......  I have a habit of re-visiting the same countries, same cities and same towns when I travelled on vacations. My creature-of-habit style even extends to the accommodations that I stay at, the places I dine in and even the stores that I shop with during trips. I always believe that on any first visits, we only have sufficient time to mentally decide whether we like a place, whether this place somehow struck a chord with us deep within and so on. On a second visit, we start to get to know the place as it grows on us. And from the third and subsequent visits onwards, we start to appreciate the place at a deeper level as we discover more and more about it, especially those proverbial off-the-beaten-track aspects of it. I start to make friends with the locals, true friendships that continue even after I returned home. We kept touch through social media, phone messages, phone calls and of course, in-person when I return for another visit. And these are the reasons...

    Alight from the train am I, Into a land of bygones past, Walk the streets alone am I, Into eras of glories past. Marvels fill my brain, Flights of fantasies within, Thoughts flow like trains, Imaginations like fountains spring.  This, my journey begins, Air of excitement reigns, That, my adventure ends, A road well worth the time. - Journeys , an original poem by Timothy Tan, tankstraveltales On my second trip to Angkor Wat, Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia (2022)

With the blink of an eye, the year 2022 is history, 2023 is the present and 2024 is the immediate beyond.  2022 will be remembered as the year when international travel was allowed to resume, the year when supply chains were the main talking points of economists, logisticians and politicians alike, and also the year when the world suddenly becomes a lot more unfriendly. On a more personal note, I started leisure travel again in  May 2022 and completed a total of six trips for the year. Not revenge travel to compensate for my hermit lifestyle in 2020 and 2021 but merely seizing the chance to explore the world again and reconnect with relatives and friends living in other parts of the world. The last two months of the year had been tough for me. In the middle of October, I had stupidly took on a full-time appointment. Saddled with sisyphean tasks that even the legendary Hercules himself will be hard pressed to fulfil, I decide to throw in the towel, raise the white flag and retu...

After more than 5 years, I visited Phuket again in October 2022. While this trip was a short few hours because I was visiting this beautiful island as part of my cruise ship's sailing itinerary, it was nonetheless nice to be back in Phuket. More than 2 years of border restrictions due to the COVID pandemic, things seem to be returning pretty much to normal in Phuket. Eateries are open for business again, although many do remain shut, tourists numbers are rising again and the locals seem a lot happier to be able to again welcome visitors to lovely Phuket. In my few short hours on shore, we kept to the Patong beach area to dine on our favourite Thai food including Mango Sticky Rice, chill at a beachfront cafe, went for a nice foot reflexology session and just walked along the beach to enjoy the view, the sun and the Phuket vibes. I promised myself I will be back to Phuket soon, for a vacation. See you again Phuket! 😀 A tourist doing the touristy adventures, Phuket, Thailand (2022) A...

Japan, Tokyo, Nakano The original article was first published in this blog in July 2021.  I have always been happy to visit small towns when travelling. Unguided with maps or GPS , I enjoy simply walking around with no fixed plans, exploring and taking in the experiences and chance encounters that come my way.  While in Tokyo in 2017, I decided to take a side trip to Nakano, a ward of Tokyo which is just a 10-minute train ride from crowded and busy Shinjuku. I discovered a gem of a town, one filled with cherry blossoms trees in full bloom (my trip was in early-April), tranquility and most of all, the charms that come with travelling without any pre-planned itinerary. Instead of a lengthy article struggling for words to fully describe my side trip to Nakano, I decided that a short video is a more appropriate medium to share my experience of the magic of Nakano. ****************** I visited Nakano as a side trip while in Tokyo in the sprin...

  " Travel is a state of mind , I travel far and wide, both in person and in mind. " - Timothy Tan, tankstraveltales An anime-rendition from an actual photo of myself taken at a small cafe called Island Cafe Myu (アイランドカフェ ミュウ), Kamitsushimamachi Hitakatsu, Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan (2019)