Time To Take A Break: Surfing Southeast Asia
No matter where your trip through Southeast Asia takes you, it is possible to be surfing somewhere within hours of arrival. Needless to say, for any serious surfer, visiting Southeast Asia is a must. Along with the world famous wave magnets of Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea are the lesser known surfing jewels […]
Ketinting and Close Encounters with Kiluan Bay’s Dolphins
Dolphins are a regular, playful presence in Lampung’s Kiluan Bay in Sumatra. The bay is a regular migration stop for spinner and bottle-nosed dolphins, both of whom regularly jump out of the water in groups (scientists suspect this helps herd fish, which in turn aids in feeding). To see these dolphins up close, you’ll need […]
Surfing in Southeast Asia: Two Surfers Spill their Local Secrets
When your travel bug demands you pick up a surfboard and head on out to Southeast Asia, we’re certain you have one island on your mind, to the exclusion of all else. Bali’s so prominent as a surfing destination in Southeast Asia, that in a newly-collated top ten list of surfing spots in the region, this […]
South East Asia’s Soft Adventure
A couple of years ago the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) revealed a series of tourism trends in Asia Pacific[1]. A few of those are relevant for South East Asia’s tourism development. To start with, a very positive trend for the region is that Asia’s tourism is growing comfortably above the world average and will […]
Adventure Tours in Southeast Asia
To extreme thrill-seekers, life without the imminent risk of death is as boring as a box of cauliflower. (How else do you explain something as blatantly mad as base-jumping?) But you don’t have to risk losing limbs to get endorphins pumping. There’s plenty of safe adrenalized action, well-organized by experts, to be had in Southeast […]
“La Procession”: the Luang Prabang Half Marathon
The Luang Prabang Half Marathon melds three things into one unlikely combination: charity work, sporting competition and sightseeing down one of Laos’ most culturally significant settlements. Nicknamed “La Procession” (after Luang Prabang’s daily morning ritual procession of monks receiving alms from devotees), the charity race accepts no more than 500 competitors, all of whom run […]
Taking The Plunge
Screams of anxiety fill the air when a small, capsule-like open cabin with four people on board is catapulted into the Singaporean sky with a speed of 120km/hour: welcome to the world of reversed bungee jumping![1] Surely, it’s not the launch of a spaceship, the cabin being tightly held by cables securely connected to two […]
Race to the Top at Kinabalu Climbathon
The sport of sky-running may be in its early days yet, but its enthusiasts look to Sabah’s Mount Kinabalu for one of the major events of the calendar: the Kinabalu Climbathon that takes expert sky-runners to the peak and back, in the space of four hours. The International Skyrunning Federation places the Kinabalu Climbathon as […]
Heaven on Two Wheels: Bicycle Tours in Southeast Asia
Bike in Sukhothai, Thailand. Image courtesy of Nancy Nguyen If seeing the best parts of Southeast Asia from behind glass is your thing, then by all means, go on that tour bus. But if you prefer coming down from the antiseptic atmosphere of the bus, instead meeting face-to-face with the region’s temples, villages and people […]
Sports Activities in the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam
PHILIPPINES: In the Philippines, the most popular sports refer to a list of sports that enjoy a significant following among majority of Filipinos either as actual participants or as avid spectators. These sports are either individual or team in nature and have become part of the Filipino way of life. These are basketball, boxing, billiards, football, chess, bowling and volleyball. Other sports […]