Discovering mysterious caves in Quang Binh

Son Doong cave

Quang Binh (VNA) -With hundreds of large and small caves along with beautiful beaches, Quang Binh is an attractive destination for domestic and foreign tourists.

Endless mystery

"Kingdom of cave" is the name used to refer to the Phong Nha land in Quang Binh around the early 2010s. In 2014, it gradually became more and more popular when the images of Son Doong cave were covered by popular newspapers such as National Geographic, CNN, Huffington Post, Business Insider ...

Up to now, many famous newspapers and travel websites such as Channel News Asia, Culture Trip, Bright Side ... have used this analogy to call Phong Nha and Quang Binh.

In addition to the world's greatest cave Son Doong, experts have only discovered more than 400 caves in Quang Binh. Immersed in the vast forests and deep under the earth, there are still countless unknowns.

Among them, Son Doong is considered to be the largest and widest cave in the world (by volume) found in 1990. And since being found, Son Doong cave has made experts, who love the cave and passionate about discovering tourism, stunned by its splendid beauty.

Not only is it very large in size (175m wide, 200m taller, nearly 9km long, estimated capacity of 38.5 million m3), Son Doong also possesses many mysterious, unique and beautiful and incomparable features. So it is one of the 5 most desirable destinations in the world.

In addition, Quang Binh also has En cave, Pygmy cave, the third and fourth largest ones in the world. En Cave is more than 2 km long through a huge limestone block in the core area of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park; Pygmy cave has a high entrance and about 100m wide, 845m long.

Currently, Quang Binh has focused on developing cave-exploring tourism products, turning this type into a local tourism product and divided into two main segments: popular experiencing products such as discovering Phong Nha cave, Thien Duong cave, Chay-cave Dark cave, Mooc spring ... to serve tourists; product for exploring caves, such as Son Doong cave, Va- Nuoc Rut caves, Tu Lan-Hang Tien cave system, Rao Thuong -En caves, exploring Ma Da valley- Tra Ang cave ... for customers who want to travel adventure.

The biennial cave festival was kicked off in the central province of Quang Binh on July 20 under the theme “Quang Binh – Endless Mystery.”

The festival, which runs through August 20, offers a wide array of tourism events, including music show, street carnival, helicopter tour and more.

During the one-month-long event, a domestic tourism promotion campaign is scheduled, offering visitors 10-20 percent discounts of all local services and products. Tourists are being treated to a 50 percent discount or free admission to Phong Nha and Thien Duong caves on July 20.

A new sightseeing helicopter tour is also launched for visitors at the Phong Nha – Ke Bang site, while the Dong Hoi – Da Nang air route is officially available.

The festival, held every two years, aims to introduce and promote Quang Binh and its outstanding resources, with more than 300 alluring, unique and grand caves, which have unique geology and rich biodiversity, along with making Quang Binh’s tourism a spearhead industry of the locality.

Affirming Quang Binh tourism brand

Activities during the Quang Binh cave festival 2019 are not only to promote tourist growth and tourism development of the province but also to create opportunities for people, especially the young generation to continue raising awareness and actively participate in protecting, preserving and promoting the provincial tourism values, advantages and potentials through tourism activities to protect cultural values sustainably.

In the first half of 2019, Quang Binh welcomed 2.45 million tourists, up 20 percent over the same period in 2018, including 133,000 foreign arrivals, up 31 percent.

Quang Binh continues to aim to welcome 4.3 million visitors, including 250,000- 300,000 international visitors this year. The total revenue from tourists is expected to reach 4.95 trillion VND./.