Photographer Chris Miller’s picture of Vietnam’s Son Doong Cave, which was published on the website of well-known U.S. magazine National Geographic Traveler.

The 26th annual competition comprises four categories namely travel portraits, outdoor scenes, sense of place and spontaneous moment. 

The winner will be awarded an eight-day voyage for two to experience the remarkable beauty of southeastern Alaska and U.S. 

The photographer Chris Miller says: "An Alien World: Hang Son Doong is located in central Vietnam and is the world’s largest cave. It was only explored for the first time in 2009 and is just now opening up to very limited tourism". 

"The photo shows some members of our party beginning the climb up one of the two collapsed roof sections or dolines that are prominent features in the cave. The vegetation that can be seen is entirely inside the cave, with the real jungle floor some 150m further above. Two-way radios and a laser pointer were used to get people in position and to ensure their headlamps provided just the right amount of illumination", according to the caption of Chris Miller’s photo. 

Besides Son Doong Cave, other amazing images were also pictured and introduced on the National Geographic Traveler website including Hawaii’s Big Island, Mo’orea - a high island in French Polynesia, southern Iceland, which featured an impressive Aurora Borealis scene, the giraffes at Nairobi’s Giraffe Manor, Kenya and so on. 

Son Doong Cave’s entrance was first discovered in the Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park by a local man in 1991, and was later publicized in 2009 by a group of British scientists from the British Cave Research Association. 

The scientists said that Son Doong Cave have been created two to five million years ago with river water eroding the limestone underneath the mountain. 

It has a length of at least 6.5 kilometres and is estimated to be 200 metres in width and at least 150 metres in height. The largest chamber is an incredible 250 metres in height, enough space to accommodate 40-storey skyscrapers. 

With such large dimensions, Son Doong overtakes Deer Cave in Malaysia to take the title of the world’s largest cave.

Reported by Sport & Culture Newspaper 
(www.quangbinh.gov.vn)