Sight By Walk: Natural

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Unique Banyan Tree of Akhaura

Unique Banyan Tree

Debagram: Akhaura: Bangladesh

Last year on the victory day(16-12-2012), I had gone to Akhaura to see the border side villages. I walking though an unknown street inside Akhaura Municipality to reach the main road. I rarely know this place thus I ended up at an entrance of a Shiva Temple, and there was the tree waiting for me to view with charms.

Usually Banyan Tree (Ficus benghalensis) a native tree of Bangladesh have unique fruit structure and are dependent on fig wasps for reproduction. The seeds of Banyans are dispersed by fruit eating birds. The seeds germinate and send down roots towards ground, which may envelop part of host tree and building structure. This nature of banyan tree often creates very impressive, eye catching and unique outlook with very mystical value.

Sight by walk take me to an unique Banyan tree in the premises of the temple. There is the surprise for me. The Banyan tree covers the entire Shiva Temple by it's roots and branches in a natural geometry.There are four passage to go inside this single chambered 15 feet tall temple, without those entrance almost Tree jacketed every bricks and plasters, it is awesome.

I was so interesting to know more about this master tree. It is the time of sunset, there were two children playing at the premised, they could not provide me the exact date of building this typical but very interesting Shiva Temple. I assumed that the temple is some 150 years old, and the Banyan tree is more than 80 years old. There is a electric lamp hanging and fixed into the trees branch without any base for night lighting, interesting.

My following amateur YOUTUBE video might give the redears better idea about how interesting an unique the Banyan tree is, enjoy:

Here is the location of This Latest Sight by Walk Finding: Google Map

Magic Mountain Lodge : Waterfall Hotel

Magic Mountain Hotel : Montana Magica Lodge : Waterfall Hotel

Huilo Huilo : Panguipulli : Valdivia : Los Rios Region : Chile

Magic Mountain hotel is situated in a privately owned reserve forest in Huilo Huilo biological reserve, just 2.6 kilometers on national highway 203 from Puerto Fuy village of Southern Chile. Main attraction of this hotel is the waterfall[~~don't guess it's natural too~~] cascading from the top and water fall down by a side. The water in these places is of great purity, and from the idea of showing the energy and life of this element, the project is a mountain, from which comes this life and contains the magic of the forest trees inside, finding in each of its details, the beings and elements that are unique and irreplaceable native forests.

The most impressive character of this volcano shaped architect is the nature around its area, combined with forest setting. To me this lodge is a classic example of eco-friendly or naturally sustainable tourism. Half of the exterior of this surprise architect is covered with exotic herbs of South America, which makes this hotel camouflaged in forest. Like magical exterior, interior of this lodge is also superbly decorated with many modern comforts. Interior of hotel is decorated,designed and structured according to the traditional Chilean house by the local woods and stones. Windows,door and stairs, even walls are created using the local woods found around Puerto Fuy village by local craftsman.

There are nine rooms in this noble architecture, which are named after the local birds. It is a four star hotel, including sauna, restaurant, playing space for children, minigolf, reading rooms and special bathrooms in ancient logs heated with natural waters. It is really a great place to stay in jungle.
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Photos collected from the official web this hotel, for more photos click here.
Geotag : Google Map | Useful link : atlasobscura

Living Bridge of Roots : Mawlynnong

Living Bridge of Roots

Mawlynnong : East Khashi Hills : Meghalaya : India

Introduction
Mawlynnong is a village in East Khasi Hills district of the Indian State of Meghalaya, a hilly village of Jainta Hill series, so close to the Northern boundary of Bangladesh; is the cleanest village of Asia[Wiki]. It is a naturally gifted place with so many scenic views. This is village is also famous for the living bridge of roots, exclusively found only in Mawlynnong, pure natural wonder. Not just one, there are several root bridges in the surrounding of that village.

Photo : Kaikobad from Panoramio

Famous Double Decker : Cherrapunjee.com

How the Bridges Made
These are mainly rubber trees(Fiscus elastice). This tree can comfortably perch itself on huge boulders along side the riverbanks or in the middle of rivers and send its roots down to the riverbed. Thus, they have adapted themselves very well to high soil erosion caused by these fast flowing rivers and streams that come down about 3000 feet along precipitous slopes. These trees shoot out many secondary roots from their trunks.

Cherrapunjee.com

The early war-Khasis, had noticed these qualities of this tree and had adapted it to serve their need for bridges to cross rivers and streams. In order to direct the roots in the desired direction, betel nut tree trunks, sliced half in the middle for their entire length, are hollowed out and are positioned according to the requirement of the bridge. The thin and long tender roots are then passed through these hollowed out betel nut tree trunks. The roots start growing towards the directed end. When they reach the other end of the stream or river, they are allowed to take root in the soil, given enough time to get stength and strudy , living bridges are produced. Some of them take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional.

Here is a youtube presentation of ginesete:

Capacity and Length

These root bridges are so strong that some of them can carry 50 or more people at a time. We have some of them are 53 feet, 56 feet, 70 feet and even over 100 feet long. Villagers use some of these bridges for daily work for more than 500 years.