Cambodia reconstructs its longest bamboo bridge each year

Mom Nature is a superb architect, offering unbelievable spectacles to witness, from the pure mangrove bridge to the rocky bridge. With improvement, man has additionally developed a few of the architectural wonders through the years, that are connecting cities over the ocean, ocean, and big rivers. However this unbelievable 3,000-foot bamboo bridge in Cambodia, the world’s longest, is taken down and rebuilt yearly.

The crossing has 50,000 sticks of bamboo and is constructed through the dry season to hyperlink Cambodia’s sixth-largest city Kampong Cham, with 1,000 households on Koh Paen island throughout the Mekong River. The bridge is constructed within the dry or summer time season because the waters of the Mekong River recede and develop into too shallow for the ferry to maneuver.

When the wet season is meant to start, earlier than the waters of the Mekong River begin to widen, the bridge is dismantled by hand, and the bamboo is saved away or reused for different constructions. That is carried out as a result of, through the monsoon season, the river currents are too robust for the bridge to outlive. At the moment, folks within the cities travelled by boat or ferry.

In line with Amusing Planet, through the summer time season when the water is dried up within the river, the development of the brand new bridge begins. First, tall bamboo poles are rammed into the riverbed and a layer of break up bamboo matting is laid on high to make the floor. Extra poles are added in several angle braces to the muse. The bridge is constructed robust and large sufficient to carry the load of sunshine autos. However from afar, it could appear to be a development carried out by match sticks.

Although it may maintain the load of a automotive and two-wheeler, additionally it is a bouncy trip for the traveler. It’s because the bamboos bend as a substitute of breaking when beneath strain. This makes the expertise a wavy trip accompanied by the sound of rattling of the deck beneath the tires.

1000’s of vacationers come to Kampong Cham yearly to expertise the bridge. Locals are charged 100 riels (Rs 2.02), however for overseas vacationers, the associated fee is forty instances extra. The tolls convey 1 to 2 million riels per day (Rs 20,167.27 to Rs 40,334), most of which is from the vacationer’s cost.

The bridge is 2 kilometres south of one other new concrete bridge. The 800-meter-long bridge can carry autos of as much as 30 tons as a substitute of solely 4 tons of the bamboo bridge and has an anticipated lifespan of not less than 50 years.