Hidden Treasures: The Bridges of Asia

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," wrote Robert Frost in his well known poem "Mending Wall." And indeed there are many walls, past and present, in places like Berlin and Bethlehem, that are difficult to love.

But this is not so with bridges.  Bridges connect instead of divide.  They invite us to venture to the other side and see what is there, and allow others to visit us where we are too.  They have style, architecturally at least, and they carry life.  And so to borrow from Frost's line of thinking: something there is that loves a bridge!

Below are fourteen bridges, all located in Asia:

Sichuan-Tibet Highway, eastern Tibet

Dawn on the Ganges in Varanasi, India

Lhasa - Kathmandu Highway, near the Tibet/Nepal border

Black Dragon Pool in Lijiang, China

Sentosa Island, Singapore

Crossing the Ganges in Rishikesh, India

Near Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan Province, China

Luang Prabang, Laos

Kathmandu, Nepal

Pedestrian Bridge in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

November day in the Georgian countryside (the former Soviet Republic Georgia, not the Peace State Georgia)

Pedestrian bridge in Bukit Tinggi, Sumatra (Indonesia)

A temporary bridge built three months after a flood in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra (Indonesia).  The man walking lost his wife and only daughter in that flood.

Two boys and a bicycle, making use of a railway bridge in Agra, India

Joel Carillet, former chief editor of Wandering Educators, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, follow his weekly photoblog, or purchase prints, visit www.joelcarillet.com.

Originally published in 2009, updated in 2017.