Photo: Tourists visit C3 cave, the second longest tube-shaped volcanic cave in Southeast Asia.  File Photo

DAK NONG (VNS) — The Young Generation Limited Company has launched a tour to the largest volcanic cave system in Southeast Asia, recently discovered in Krong No District in Dak Nong.

The new tour in the Central Highlands province enables visitors to discover the 594.4m-long C3 cave, which is the second longest tube-shaped volcanic cave in Southeast Asia, and C6 cave, located in the forest with several beautiful old trees. The caves have distinctive structural characteristics such as lava banks, lava flows, sinkholes and plants relics, besides hardened basalt lava from millions of years ago.

Tourists will also have a chance to enjoy gong performances by the M'Nong ethnic people and visit other local scenic areas.

"The cave system is still being examined to prepare a document that will be used for a proposal to make it a national geographical park, as well as to ask the UNESCO to recognise it as a global geographical park. The tourism potential of the cave system is still in the experimental stage," Khang Xuan Dien, head of the local cultural department, said.

The volcanic cave system in Krong No has been studied by the General Department of Geology and Minerals of Viet Nam, with the support of the UNESCO, since 2007. The 25-km long cave system has also been examined by scientists from the Japan Caving Association.

The cave system was declared to be the largest volcanic cave system in Southeast Asia by the General Department of Geology and Minerals of Viet Nam last December. — VNS