#Grab aspires to be travelers’ ultimate companion, offers hyperlocal innovations

According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of Indonesian travelers exploring the archipelago in 2018 increased by 12.37 percent year-on-year

Aware of this rising trend in travel, ride-hailing app Grab reintroduced a campaign that shows its commitment to serving as the ultimate travel companion.

Grab Indonesia managing director Neneng Goenadi said in a press conference in late July that Grab aimed to ensure that users experienced smooth, convenient and safe travels.

“As an everyday super-app […], Grab wants to provide essential services to assist users in their daily life [by] providing easy and safe services with a relevant hyperlocal approach,” Neneng said.

She went on to say that the company supported the country’s Wonderful Indonesia tourism campaign as well by offering services that helped holidaymakers explore the archipelago more conveniently.

Available in 224 cities across Indonesia, Grab is already known for its GrabCar and GrabBike services, but with the different personalities of travelers in mind, the company has expanded its repertoire.

GrabCar Plus, for instance, offers five-star drivers whose cars are also in prime condition. There is also the GrabCar 6-Seater option for small groups of travelers that can take up to 80 kilograms of baggage, GrabCar Airport that can be easily ordered in 14 airports across Indonesia and GrabRent that allows users to book a dedicated car for two to 12 hours.

Meanwhile, GrabNow is a service that enables users to hail a vacant GrabBike and enter their destination afterward.

Neneng further explained a service called GrabGerak, which is a GrabCar dedicated to disabled passengers and offers cars that are wheelchair-friendly and drivers who have been trained to help the disabled.

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Similar hyperlocal services are available in Medan, North Sumatra, with the GrabBetor that provides access to betor (motorcycle pedicab) and GrabBentor in Gorontalo, North Sulawesi, for sidecar motorcycles.

Neneng added that there would also be GrabAndong in Yogyakarta for users to book horse carriages.

More than a platform for travelers to book land transportation, Grab also makes it possible for users to book plane tickets and hotel rooms through the app, not to mention food and movie tickets from CGV and Cinemaxx in some Indonesian cities.

Meanwhile, to ensure safety, drivers are required to post selfies, including ones in which they move their heads, every day before signing on to work.

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Source - TheJakartaPost

#Vietnam - Visit to Son Doong Cave among top adventurous experiences

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 For British travellers, an expedition to Son Doong in Vietnam, the world’s largest cave, is among the greatest adventures they would like to undertake.

British TV channel Dave, a panel of travel experts and editors of U.K. tabloid Daily Mail polled 2,000 people aged 40 or under earlier this week for a survey of ‘greatest adventures around the world and across the U.K.’

Of them, 24 percent said they want to explore Son Doong Cave in the central province of Quang Binh, dubbed Vietnam’s ‘Kingdom of Caves,’ putting it fifth in the top 20 adventure list.

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, topped the list (37 percent), followed by trekking along the Inca trail in Peru (35 percent), rafting in the Grand Canyon in the U.S. (31 percent) and descending into Thrihnukagigur volcano in the U.K. (29 percent).

The rest of the top 10 also included dog sledding to witness the aurora borealis in Norway, kayaking in Arctic fjords in Denmark, climbing to the Everest Base Camp in Nepal, cruising the Antarctic, and cage diving with sharks in South Africa.

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 Howard Limbert, a former head of the British Caving Association, and his wife Deb spent nearly 13 years surveying caves in Vietnam since the early 1990s. In 2009 they concluded their initial exploration and declared Son Doong the world's largest cave.

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Son Doong opened to tourists in 2013 and the five kilometer-long system, which is 150 meters high and 200 meters wide, contains at least 150 individual caves, a dense subterranean jungle and several underground rivers.

Due to limited space, registration for Son Doong tours must be made well in advance. According to Oxalis, now the only company licensed to take tourists to the cave, only 300 slots are available this year.

A four-day expedition costs $3,000, and there are buses running from Hanoi to Dong Hoi, the capital town of Quang Binh, and then to the park.

The Quang Binh government recently increased the number of tourists allowed to visit the cave in a year from 640 to 900.

The tour is growing in popularity, and with Son Doong getting prominent coverage from the National Geographic, CNN and Good Morning America, Phong Nha-Ke Bang has become the go-to destination in Vietnam for adventurous travelers

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Source - VN Express

#Thailand, the land of festivals

 

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 We’ll start with Songkran because that’s the start of the Thai new year. It’s held on April 13. Having already blown most of the budget on fireworks for the western new year on January 1 and the Chinese New Year festivities, this time they use water as a means of ‘purification’, saying goodbye to the country’s hot season and welcoming the monsoonal rains. It involves a lot of water. In the past it was a gentle festival held at temples washing Buddha images.

It’s meant to be like this…

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  Fireworks, colour, smoke, noise, costumes, absence of occupational health and safety. That could describe any of the many, many festivals held around Thailand each year. Different regions, different festivals. Some reflect an ancient culture and a rich history, other make absolutely no sense but we enjoy them anyway. We’ll go through some of the main ones and a few you’ll NEVER see anywhere else in the world.

But it’s actually like this!

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 Somehow it’s morphed into a huge water fight, in some places, running over many days up to week (in Chiang Mai and parts of Pattaya). Ladeling water gently onto Buddha statues has been replaced by all-out water fights, loud music, foam and a party that has no rules.

If you’re outside during Songkran, especially in the main tourist zones, you WILL get splashed, probably drenched. The more the authorities try and play down the fun in Songkran the more tourists arrive each year determined to party in an event that’s somewhere between a video-game and the last half of ‘Titanic’.

And that’s just ONE festival!

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 The Vegetarian Festival, principally held in Phuket with it’s Chinese heritage, is an assault on all your senses. Parades are held around the island by various community groups with participants wearing white and followed up by either one or many mah-song. These mah-song have been ‘possessed’ by a spirit and display tourettes-like ticks, grunts and choreography that suggests their claims may indeed be true. If it’s all an act, it’s a very convincing one because, apart from all the cavorting down the street, they also have their cheeks and other parts of their body pierced – not by an earring or something tame like that – we’re talking spears, swords, petrol pumps, guns. It’s insane! These days there’s an ambulance following behind and probably more mah-song succumb to blood loss than is ever reported.

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 Phi ta khon (or Ghost Festival) is held in the Dan Sai district of north-eastern Thailand (near the Lao border) each year and usually follows a parade of people dressed up in rags with ghost masks.

Phi Ta Khon is the name given to a group of celebrations held over three days in the province of Loei. The most striking is the first day, the Ghost Festival itself, when the town residents invite the protection of the river spirit Phra U-Pakut, and then parade wearing the ghosts masks made of husks and coconut leaves.

But they also carry with them large phallic axes which are meant to reflect… oh, Google it.

 In Esan and around the Laos border areas there are many rocket festivals each year around May to June. Probably the biggest is the Yasothon Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival. Imagine groups building their own rocket with the winner able to fire their rocket to the highest altitude. Like Songkran, the idea is to welcome in the forthcoming wet season (by piercing the sky to encourage rain).

The rockets used to be made out of bamboo but are more likely to be constructed out of PVC pipes these days and powered by ‘black powder’ which is regulated by certain rules (we doubt this claim!!). So there’s gun powder, loud music, alcohol and men in competition to fire home-made rockets high into the Esan sky – what could possible go wrong?! Some of the rockets reach heights of several kilometres and can travel a lot further down range.

Read more about the rocket festivals HERE.

 

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 Chinese New Year is big in China and it’s also huge in Thailand. Partly because there are many ethnic Thai-Chinese born in Thailand but also because there are so many Chinese visiting the Kingdom these days. The Chinese New Year festivities stretch from shopping centre sales to regional street parades to ceremonies for families and businesses.

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For a Buddhist country, Christmas is ironically enthusiastically celebrated. It involves presents, eating, celebrations, coloured lights and people spending money so it was always going to fly in Thailand. Thais remain completely bemused by Santa Claus, ‘baby Jesus’ and Christmas carols but, commercially, they’ve certainly embraced it now.

I have never seen better decorations or a celebration of Christmas than I have in Bangkok. My best Christmas moment was when I found a statue of Santa Claus nailed to a cross – a slight cultural faux pas where they’d confused Easter and Christmas and come up with a perfectly ‘Thai’ Christmas decoration.

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Source - The Thaiger

Caravan puts spotlight on new travel destinations

A caravan last week traveled from Thailand to Vietnam via Cambodia to promote the tourism potential of the southern economic corridor, which stretches from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City.

Organized by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the caravan rode on March 1-7, crossing the Thailand-Cambodia and the Cambodia-Vietnam borders, in an effort to generate awareness about up-and-coming tourism destinations in the area and sustainable tourism.

PATA chairman Thoun Sinan told Khmer Times the initiative seeks to boost awareness of new tourism destinations and promote land travel within the three neighboring nations.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, last year Vietnam and Thailand were second and fourth, respectively, for tourist arrivals to Cambodia by nationality. More than 800,000 Vietnamese and over 382,000 Thai nationals visited the Kingdom that year.

The caravan was supported by the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism and Thailand’s Trat Province Tourism Association.

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Source - Khmer Times

UN for first time places day’s focus on threats to undersea ecosystem

THE UNITED NATIONS has identified over-fishing and islands of plastic pollution as the major threats not only to ocean biodiversity but also to the livelihoods of billions of people who rely on bountiful seas.

The importance of marine biodiversity to the global economy and food security was highlighted on World Wildlife Day yesterday, which had as its theme “Life below water: For people and planet”. 

The UN expressed grave concern over the unsustainable exploitation of fish stocks and plastic pollution.

The World Wildlife Day website noted that this was the first time the theme focused on life underwater. The objective was to persuade people to recognise the significance of marine biodiversity and its crucial importance to humanity, it said.

 People were encouraged to keep the marine ecosystem healthy so that future generations can also benefit from the rich sea life.

The oceans are home to at least 200,000 identified species and scientists estimate that millions more marine species have yet to be discovered.

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 People were encouraged to keep the marine ecosystem healthy so that future generations can also benefit from the rich sea life.

  The oceans are home to at least 200,000 identified species and scientists estimate that millions more marine species have yet to be discovered.

Thanks to this abundance, United Nations Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner pointed out, humanity has been able to rely on marine and coastal resources for millennia. The rich biodiversity continues to sustain the lives of some three billion people, providing them with food and nourishment.

Steiner said the value of marine ecosystem services and resources in the global market is estimated at US$3 trillion per year – about 5 per cent of global GDP

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However, the bounty of the seas is in decline, he stressed, as human activities such as unsustainable exploitation of marine resources and pollution threaten the survival of many species.

Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist at Kasetsart University, said marine wildlife in Thai waters is suffering too due to over-fishing and plastic pollution.

Thon believes the Thai fishing fleet is too large given the limited stocks remaining. He calculated that, if every fishing net in use were tied end to end, the chain would be 10 times longer than the entire coastline. He recommended stricter fishing restrictions in ecologically vulnerable areas and scaling down the fishing fleet to prevent over-exploitation of marine resources.

Thon said discarded plastic floating in the sea was a silent killer of marine biodiversity. Last year alone, he said, at least 128 endangered marine animals died along Thai shores after ingesting plastic waste. Meanwhile scientists verified that “micro-plastics” now contaminate the entire marine food chain, ending up in our seafood dishes.

“I think Thailand is coping well,” he said. “The government recently clamped down on illegal, unreported and unregulated [IUU] fishing and the Pollution Control Department is working hard to ban single-use plastic to try and stop the flow of plastic waste into the sea.

“Nevertheless, the most important thing to effectively help us overcome these threats to the sea is raising public awareness, because we’re all part of the problem and we need to work together to solve it.”
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Source - TheNation

 

Three #Cambodian cities chosen for Asean urban planning scheme

Phnom Penh, Battambang, and Siem Reap have been included in the Asean Smart Cities Network, and will benefit from the assistance of the Japanese government in creating technologically advanced urban spaces.

The Asean Smart Cities Network (ASCN) is a collaborative platform where cities from Asean member states work towards the common goal of smart and sustainable urban development. The project is supported by the Japanese government.

The chosen Cambodian cities will benefit from Japanese investment into modern facilities to improve the lives of their citizens, according to representatives of the Japanese government who yesterday attended the first meeting of the ‘Public-Private Platform for Urban Development between Cambodia and Japan’.

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The forum – attended by 58 Japanese delegates and companies as well Cambodian officials and members of the private sector – served to introduce ASCN to local authorities and companies.

Yuki Fumihiko, Japan’s Vice Minister of Land, said that given Cambodia’s rapid development, careful urban planning must be prioritised.

He said the ‘Public-Private Platform for Urban Development between Cambodia and Japan’ will allow Cambodia and Japan to keep an open line of communication to discuss urban development.

Ozawa Kazuo, counsellor for global strategies at Japan’s Ministry of Land, said ASCN allows the region to benefit from Japan’s experience in urban planning.

“Our goal is to help Cambodia and Asean avoid the same mistakes that we made in the past in urban development.

“We want to create smart cities that use modern technologies to tackle planning, development, management and operation issues.

“The ultimate goal is to create better spaces for future generations so that they can live comfortably and sustainably in urban spaces,” he said, adding that the programme focuses on key issues like traffic, green spaces, energy efficiency, and recycling systems, among others.

“Today we seek your support and cooperation to bring what we have already achieved in other countries to Cambodia. Together we can make this project a success,” he told his audience.

Chea Sophara, the Cambodian Minister of Land Management, said, “The platform today seeks to boost investment opportunities in urban development for Japanese businesses, including residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, as well as infrastructure.

“This first platform is a very good initiative and shows the confidence Japanese investors have in Cambodia. I believe this programme will further strengthen the relationship between our nations.

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“The ministry is ready to support Japanese investors who want to participate in the programme. The government supports this initiative of the Japanese government which will benefit Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Battambang,” he added.

Mr Fumihiko invited all Cambodian officials and businesspeople at the event to participate in ASCN’s next high-level meeting, which will take place in Tokyo in October.

Source - Khmer Times

#Thailand - Park’s special status ‘at risk’ over drilling hole

Thailand’s Sri Thep Historical Park in Phetchabun may lose the chance to become a World Heritage Site if the government allows an oil company to build a drilling hole nearby, according to Wison Kosotanon, president of the Phetchabun Culture Council. 

 His warning came after a company, ECO Orient Resources (Thailand), called earlier this week for a public hearing process in order to prepare an Environment Impact Assessment report. The company plans to build the drilling hole near the 1,300 year-old Khao Kwang Nok Stupa located inside the park. 

“The new drilling hole is too close – just over 100 metres to the historical stupa – it will be harmful to our heritage and will lose us the chance to get the recognition as a World Heritage Site by Unesco,” Wison explained.

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Opinion is divided over the company’s application – at the first public hearing, many culture experts and local officials  opposed its construction and claimed they had concerns about the cultural and environmental impacts it would have, but some villagers supported it in the hope it might provide them with employment. 

Anan Choochote, director of the Culture Ministry’s Fine Arts Department, has assigned his archaeological teams to study the merits of the company’s application.

“Our officers are studying its impact. If there is harm to our heritage, we will work with other governmental agencies to stop the project,” Anan said. “We are now gathering more information and we will submit it to Unesco later this year.”

The proposal for Sri Thep to be listed as a World Heritage Site is expected to be approved by the cabinet and the National Committee on the World Heritage Commission Convention on March 8.

Anan added that Sri Thep Historical Park had been listed as a national archaeological site since 1935 and also dates back some 2,500 years like prehistoric Ban Chiang. Therefore, he said, it also warranted being listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). 

Ban Chiang, an archeological site in Nong Han District, Udon Thani Province, has been on the Unesco World Heritage list since 1992.

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Following the Phetchabun Culture Council’s controversial opposition to the drilling project, ECO Orient Resources may postpone the second round of public hearings currently due to be held in April.

“As the result of the objection raised at the public hearing, senior officials at our head office will carefully study whether the firm should hold a second round of public hearings or drop it,” said company spokesman Navin Panphan.

The film has been drilling for oil in Sri Thep for more than a decade but the latest plan to build a new hole near the stupa has raised concerns on cultural, environmental and tourism grounds.

Source - TheNation