These bridges aren't built … they're grown !

I've been doing a lot of researching lately. It's a great way to fill in the hours while isolating due to the Pandemic and here's an example of the sort of amazing things that I've learned.

Look at these two bridges. They are in the Northeastern depths of India and were GROWN, not built. It's in an area called Jaintia hills, a humid and warm area where a species of Indian rubber tree thrives. The Ficus elastica produces powerful roots and, although it takes many years, the inhabitants have grown many of these bridges.

Sometimes, the roots of the trees are simply pulled, tied, twisted, and encouraged by hand to merge with each other, until, over time, they form the desired architectural structure. Other root bridges have also been made by creating scaffolds and training the young roots out across these temporary structures.

As I said… it can take many many years to grow a bridge but that doesn't seem to bother this pipe smoker … he has all the time in the world !