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

Month-long Pan-Asia Trip, East and South-Asia Asia This was a major trip which took me months to plan. Because there were many key details to follow such as accommodation, train travel times and inter-city transport connectivities, I had to cancel and re-book many of my hotels and train tickets bookings repeatedly. And also because I was visiting many of the places for the first time, my only source of information was from the internet. Not much of this information was accurate and some of the inaccuracies nearly resulted in me missing my inter-city connections. Lesson learnt and note to self, take information from the internet with a big pinch of salt! But this was a wonderful trip. I am unlikely to be able to go on such a long trip with so many different destinations in one single vacation again anytime soon. Work schedule always dictates that I can go away for at most two weeks at any one time. Thus, I was really glad I...

These days, I realised I have become more conservative in my dressings when I travel. I had always dressed conservatively back at home and at work due to the nature of my profession and the industry that I am in. That has not changed and will likely remain unchanged. But, whenever I travelled on vacation, I tended to let my hair down a fair bit when it came to choice of clothing. I had written all that in the past tense because I realised, those days of past were indeed that, the past! Not that I am consciously doing that, as in dressing more conservatively when I travel. But somehow, that change just crept in without me realising it. Until, I started to look at the photos of myself in my recent trips. Is it because of age? Or is it because I have somehow got brain-washed by the mainstream media that everything nowadays have to be politically correct, freedom of choice and thoughts be damned? Maybe yes, may not. I don't know for sure. But dressed conservatively I did. Browsing thro...

Back from a month-long trip......  Home, from a fresh trip that lasted close to a month, I am currently buried up to my nose in work! Ah, the payments for my wanderlust. To be honest, even though I spent a small fortune on my month-long trip across Asia, these are funds that I had already budgeted and put away as spare money since last year. All my credit cards had been paid in full, maintaining my good credit score. That is how I can enjoy my vacations without having to worry about finances. Money matters aside now, in order not to digest from this month's edition of Travel Bits. 😆 After my long trip with many individual travel bucket list items fulfilled, I no longer have any major trips planned or booked. Apart from the yearly sojourns to nearby destinations such as Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Bali, no major trips are in the horizon on my calendars. Ok, I do have an 8-nights cruise to Bali and Lombok booked. But that trip will only happen in February 2025. Who knows what the world w...

Unless one works in a port or have a long telephoto lens, taking closeups photographs of Quay Cranes are not always possible. Not that there are anything very interesting about the mechanics of these industrial cranes. Neither are these gigantic machines usually considered as photogenic subjects. But taken at the right angles and perspectives, they do make for interesting photographs that one do not usually encounter. Here, I tried to be artistic (yes, I tried) when I took this photograph of a couple of Quay Cranes at Phú Mỹ from the top deck of the cruise ship that I was on before we set sail from the port. The lightning from the cranes and also from the ship somehow lit up the arms of these cranes in a manner that captivated me. Using my mobile phone, I snapped this photograph. For me, this was one of those interesting photo moments in my travels.  Travel allow me to see things, including everyday objects, in a different way. This is why I love travelling. Quay Cranes,  Phú ...

  "A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." - Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese Philosopher and Writer, 4th century BC* Views through the front window of a tour coach, Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan (2023) *Lao Tzu was a legendary ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He was also reputedly the founder of Taoism. There is no firmed confirmation of the period when Lao Tzu lived. Dates ranged between the 4th century to 6th century BC.

Cambodia, Siem Reap, Solitude at Angkor Archeological Park This article was previously published in this blog in May 2022. Written as an article in my series of Post-Trip Recollections Series, this trip was for me in every way a bucket list travel item in a very unique way. Why? Because it was my first time taking an airplane in almost 3 years. Mid-2022 was the period when worldwide travel restrictions imposed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic was slowly being lifted. I also wanted to use this chance to re-visit the Angkor  Archeological  Park. Usually crowded with tourists pre-pandemic, I thought then that it was my chance to re-visit Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, without the crowds. Having more time to study the historical archeological artefacts at my own leisure would be an amazing experience.  And I was right. Compared with my previous visit to these same sites, this visit allowed me much time to slowly walked through the site...

A short stopover on my cruise in August 2023 saw me visiting Nha Trang for the first time. Because of the relatively short time we had before we need to return to the ship, I did not venture into the city itself. Viewed from offshore onboard the ship, the city seems huge with lots of sprawling skyscrapers. Unfortunately, I did not get to explore the city to experience its hustle and bustle. My brief few hours on shore was really nothing to shout about. Going ashore on tender boats, we landed in a rather obscure location with only a few local shops in the area. Getting to the city will require a taxi ride and I figured that was not going to be worth the effort and hassle because I had less than 4 hours onshore. This was partly due to my own fault because while the first tender boats started bringing passengers from ship to shore at 8.30am, I had chose to go ashore only around 11am. The last tender boat was scheduled to depart for the cruise ship at 3.15pm. Thus, my brief couple of hours...