Active Travel Asia Introduces New Website Interface

ACTIVE TRAVEL ASIA (ATA) – the travel company offers real adventure travel in Asia excitedly introduces the new website interface www.activetravel.asia. So as to serve customers better, this website was redesigned. It now has an easy-to-use interface with an eye-catching appearance and a plain structure. 

Compared to the old website interface, this new one has some dominant features following:

• One-stop booking for adventures to all Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

The new website is the synthesis of all tours from four main satellite websites: Active Travel Vietnam, Active Travel Myanmar, Active Travel Laos and Active Travel Cambodia, but divided by destinations (countries) and activities.

With a new general and united website, it is expected that the view of tours will be more convenient.  As users can see the whole of tours, they will have more appropriate choices for their likes, time or budget. 

• Allow visitors easy to search for adventures by destinations, activities and duration.

A new search tool was created on this new interface for users to seek tours they need. Users can search by places of departure, types of tours (activities), duration and special keywords. With this new search tool, users can find out quickly in a simple and time-saved way. 

Beside the search tool, this new website also supplies a “sort tool”, which allows to sort by Price and by Day that help visitors easily look up to the most suitable adventure to their schedule as well as budget. 

• User-friendly and responsive interface to mobile and tablet screen.

The new interface is eye-catching though on desktop, mobile or tablet screen. Specially, it is really easy to access and use regardless of which devices users employ. It is also friendly in interaction with users via contacts, requests and feedback. 

Applying the newest technology, this new interface is fully responsive to all mobile devices. It means that the interface automatically “adjust” itself about image, text, buttons, icons and others to match to every screen resolution. That makes the online shopping of visitors can be proceed anytime, anywhere as long as their mobile devices are connected to internet. 

• Many options of booking and payment. 

Many choices of adventure tours are suggested and given which users can see as accessing a tour site of the web. Beside, customers can customize tour or create own trips then send requests to the company. 

There are many payment policies on the new website that creates favorable conditions and stimulate customers to book adventure tours like paying immediately only 25% out of total, balance later, paying later, etc. The payment system is secured with the SSL standard which encrypts the information that users provide online.

• Many deals and offers updated.

Deals and offers are updated frequently and set at easy-to-see places. Many tours have a clear table of prices for 1 pax, 2 pax, 3-4 pax, 5-6 pax and single supplement. Particularly, discount prices are counted right on price tables in time of a sales promotion program. 

• Permit users add Feedback right on website.

Users are likely to give their ideas publicly about ATA’s services. That is not helpful to other potential travelers but it shows the ATA’s open idea and confidence with its services. 

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With exceptional features in comparison with the old website interface, ATA hopes that this new one will bring simple, convenient and active experiences for users. If you realize any problem when using this new website, please send your comments to ATA. We really thank for this.

ACTIVE TRAVEL ASIA TEAM

A Funny Expedition To Hang En And The Largest Cave in the World - Son Doong

By Romping & Nguyening

Now on to what you’ve all been waiting for – THE LARGEST CAVE IN THE WORLD! I’m going to start with 2 things:

1. Hang is the Vietnamese word for cave.

2. Pictures never do justice.

INTRO

Son Doong cave was discovered by Khanh Ho in 1991, but wasn’t thoroughly searched and surveyed until 2009 by the British Cave Research Association, led by Howard and Deb Limbert who are now in Phong Nha full time to help run the Son Doong tours. Its first year of tourism began in August 2013, with the limit of ~200 tourists per year.

Our tour consists of 2 scientists (including Deb Limbert herself), 2 National Park rangers, 1 Vietnamese English-speaking guide, Khanh Ho (the discoverer of the cave), and 24 porters (like sherpas) are all there to accompany the 8 tourists on the expedition. In sum, there are 30 others needed for the 8 tourists, for a total of almost 40 people! For these days, the 24 Phong Nha Vietnamese porters carry 35-40 kg sacks on their backs (filled with food to feed everyone, tents, sleeping bags, and our belongings), traverse the uneven path, climb and crawl over and under sharp rocks and steep hills, and have the campsites ready for us upon arrival. Despite their undaunting size, their strength was remarkable.

DAY 1: HANG EN

After we bid farewell to our last breath of air-conditioned air from the van, we trekked about 10 km through jungle and river valley to our first campsite, located in Hang En, aka Swallow Cave. By Swallow, I mean the bird (they’re actually Swifts, but the name stuck), and the reason why it is called Swallow Cave is because tens or hundreds of thousands of swifts fly in and around the cave (fun fact: they use echolocation — like bats — to fly in the dark cave). In order to get to Hang Son Doong, you actually have to go through a cave (Hang En) to get there! It’s basically a cave within a cave. 

The porters begin the journey first:

There is 1 village in Phong Nha National Park. It is an extremely poor village of 28 people, half whom are children. They build their own homes, raise their own livestock, and grow their own crops. Occasionally they can hitch a ride into the nearest town of Phong Nha, which is about an hour away. 

These villagers were TINY! Look how giant I look next to this woman:

Some nice rest stops:

And finally, our destination: Hang En! It is not the largest cave in the world, but its size is still magnificent. You can easily book a trekking Swallow cave tour if you are unable to do Son Doong. Check out Hang En below. 

Chris brought a cord so he could turn it into a clothesline for our wet clothes. Yay!

DAY 2: SON DOONG

After breakfast, we trekked through and exited Hang En to make our trekking Son Doong!

Here are some photos exiting Hang En: 

A short break after hiking uphill in the tiresome heat: 

The entrance to Son Doong, the smallest cave entrance into the largest cave in the world! There was a lot of crawling, roping, and some real downward vertical caving involved. Fortunately the guides were there to help us descend into the dark cave. 

We trekked through the dark for a while, slowly climbing over large and small boulders and crossing small rivers. Finally, we arrived at our second campsite of the trip, which was located near the first roof collapse of Son Doong. This is what the campsite looked like from a distance:

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and exploring the campsite, anxiously waiting for tomorrow’s famous views and photo opportunities.

DAY 3: SON DOONG'S JUNGLE

The first and second days were “wet” days, meaning we crossed many streams and rivers so our shoes, socks, and feet were wet the whole day. The third day was a dry day – no rivers to cross! However, there were many sharp rocks and boulders we had to climb over and under, but we were rewarded with some of the most amazing landscapes imaginable.

Here we are exiting camp toward the first roof collapse. 

Look at how sharp these rocks are. We had fun going under and over them! 

Up and up we went! We were rewarded with lush greenery along beautiful “terraces” carved out by flooded rivers. During the rainy season, there are no tours in Son Doong because the flooded rivers practically fill up the cave, carving out wonderful but sharp rocks and boulders. The rivers later recede, and sunlight pours in from the collapsed ceiling to give life to the jungle within the cave.

From the top of the hill, you could look down to the side where you last stood before the climb: 

Or look up:

Walk a bit further up past the trees, and there’s more playthings: 

After hanging out on these mounds, we proceeded to finally go DOWN. Below the mounds were amazing formations carved from the flooded rivers:

After we finished climbing up and over these formations, we turned around and were treated to the climax of the whole expedition, one of the most famous views of Sơn Đoòng. Those mounds that we just hung out on? Well, those mounds are the tops of the hills in the photos below. We enjoyed our lunch here.

We spent quite some time here, admiring the scenery and taking more photos. Mist would quickly appear and dissipate, creating an eery atmosphere. We continued with the trek through the dark cave, and when we saw another sliver of light in the distance, we knew we were nearing the second roof collapse, the site of our final campsite. See the tents below?

Going down is kind of scary, more so because of my fear of heights.

Our third and final campsite! 

The tents lit up at night:

Ha Long Bay - Surprising Cave and Kayaking

By Jennie Mckie

One of the most famous areas in Vietnam is Ha Long Bay situated in the North East of Vietnam 4 hours away from Hanoi. All around Hanoi you will find loads of different Halong bay tours which will take you around the area. 

We were picked up early in the morning and driven to Ha Long Bay to board our boat and where we would be sleeping that night. Straight away you could see the famous limestone cliffs every way you turned however once we set sail the sheer size of them was incredible! Our guide explained that Ha Long actually means ‘descending dragon’ and legends told of how the dragons protected the country from invasion until they finally laid to rest in the sea and the jagged cliffs you see are actually the dragons that had fallen down!

Ha Long Bay consists of 1969 islands and the scale of it was way bigger than I first thought! The pictures do not do the place justice and it’s hard to explain just how beautiful the scenery is. We had lunch on board the boat of chicken, spring rolls and seafood all while watching the beautiful scenery pass us by!

We stopped off at Sung Sot Cave one of the ‘most beautiful’ caves in the area and also known as the “cave to heaven” or “surprising cave”, it was only discovered in 1993 by a fisherman and not opened to tourists until 1998. The caves reminded me of the Nigili Caves in Australia but with much higher ceilings!

It was lit up in all different coloured lights and the effects were staggering! We walked through as our guide pointed out all the rock formations in the shape of all different animals and people such as the dolphin, the lion, dragon, Buddha and our favourite… the giant boob! Some of these require a LOT of imagination but it makes you think about the first people down the caves who would have been down here before all the lights and must have seen all the rocks like ‘WAA there is a lion!!!’ Half way round the cave we reached the point where the fisherman first came through to find the cave and where the cave gets its nickname as high up there is an opening, and when the sun shines it sends a beam of light down into the cave as though it is coming from heaven.

My favourite area of the cave was ‘Romeo and Juliet’, again you need an imagination for this however as you look into the rock the shadow looks like a man (all be it a man with a beer gut!!) and he is looking up to another shadow that looks like a girl. It is quite sweet despite ‘Juliet’ looking in the opposite direction! The caves are ridiculously humid and everyone in our group had sweat pouring down their face by the end!

We got back onto our boat and headed off for our next area. We stopped at a tiny floating village and started our kayaking Halong trip, taking them out to explore the area around Luon Cave.

Kayaking around going under the massive cliffs it really does feel like you are in some sort of dream or movie. It is exactly like scene in Avatar where they fly through the floating cliffs except that obviously the cliffs are in the water!! We kayaked around the area for about an hour in what was literally breathtaking scenery, heading back to the boat we took our kayak around the village with tiny kids shouting hello and guard dogs barking away. The dogs are there to protect the fish farms and the whole thing seemed so weird as the closest land to village is about 2 hours away by boat!!

Setting sail again we had time to chill out on the deck of the boat, lying on sun loungers as giant cliffs sailed past us. Dinner was on the boat where we made our own fresh spring rolls and had amazing fish and honey chicken all while listening to what I think must have been a 90s power ballad CD including some Titanic classics! It was a hectic day and after dinner Andy and I decided to head to our room on the boat and get showered and changed for bed ready for day two on the majestic Ha Long Bay…