2013 year of Travels (Istanbul, Bangkok, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Phuket, Melaka, Switzerland, Bintan)

2011 saw me stamping my passport almost every month.  2012 was only 2 trips fewer.  I already had the travel bug firmly attached to my heart now.  So how did 2013 turn out?  Without giving away too much, the first trip was a business trip to Istanbul.  It was a last minute trip and I slept only 1 night, hence did not have much opportunities to explore the rich culture the city could offer.  However, I did managed to experience a Turkish bath in the own comforts of my hotel:

After the hastily planned Istanbul trip, I had a more relaxing time in Feb when I flew to Bangkok again, this time to enrol myself in one of the many cooking classes:

As I was required to clear my leave by March, I had to, well, fly somewhere right?  Hence, March saw me flying first to Taipei, and visited the hot spring village of Wulai:

I flew again the next day when I returned from Taipei to Singapore, this time to HongKong:

So there, I'd managed to clear all my outstanding leave by March.  But that did not mean I couldn't travel anymore.  I flew to Phuket over my birthday weekend and explored the wonderful and surreal island of Tachai:

After 4 consecutive months of flying to 5 different cities, I took a break from flying and drove up to Melaka in May.  Yup, I had not been to Melaka in 2012 even though it was my most visited city in 2011:

Next up, 2 months of slogging at work (and planning for my next European holiday).  August saw me flying off to Switzerland for 6 nights, exploring many mountains and experiencing the Glacier Express.  Surprisingly it was still Springtime:

2 weeks after my return from Switzerland, I took a ferry across the sea and onto the island of Bintan.  My first Bintan holiday in at least 6 years saw me checking into Bintan Agro Beach Resort with spectacular views:

As I've mentioned earlier, I did not visit Melaka in 2012.  Which was probably the reason why I went to Melaka again (together with KL) in mid Oct:

Nov saw me flying to HK again to help a friend move his stuff back to Singapore, also to visit the newly expanded Disneyland.  And of course, more HK food!!:

And so came to the end of 2013.  I flew to Bangkok to celebrate Xmas for a comfortably 5 nights, basically doing nothing much, visited a new place called Ancient City and had a wonderful seaside dinner.  Oh, the protestors did keep things more interesting this time round:

So there you go, my travel plan in 2013: a total of 11 stamps in my passport.  Apart from Switzerland, all were return visits.  Strangely though, Switzerland was my least interesting trip of the year.  Am I having traveling fatigue already?  Hmmm. That's not gonna happen anytime soon!