Cockpit Stories

I was flying in South East Asia a few years back. The company standards were good, the aircraft were newly purchased, the weather was really nice on this day. From the top of descent we could already see the area surrounding the airport, then further details as we got closer. Since the runway was more or less perpendicular to our flight path to destination, the usual procedure would be to call the tower to join a short right hand downwind leg, then base turn and final.