Crossing 1000 mountains into the future

In the Tang Dynasty, a famous Chinese poet named Libai, wrote a poem about the “Shu Road” (Shu is the old name for Sichuan, Shu Road was the name for the roads connecting Sichuan with the outside world). He described the trail as “Walking on the narrow paths of Sichuan is more difficult than climbing up to heaven”. Everyone in China knows since ancient times that China’s “Great Southwest” is blessed with the beauty of high mountains, deep ravines and winding rivers, but it is less of a blessing for those who seek to cross the land and the people who live there have a never-ending dream of just easy and convenient ways of travel.

Jianmen trail on Shu Road

Anyone who traveled southwest China 10 or 15 years ago will likely remember vividly how difficult and dangerous the roads were. Wherever you went you had to take old and shabby buses up and down the mountains, through winding mountain roads and tunnels. Suffering from carsickness and often an up-side-down stomach (or that of your neighbor), it was hard to enjoy the amazing scenery you were passing through. The other option was taking the slow train if available, that would take at least two times longer than buses, counting the hours away without mobile network, passing tunnel after tunnel in an overfull wagon on uncomfortable and much too straight hard seats.

Narrow roads along the Dulong River

So, what were the roads like in the past in the southwest? Well, you can say that Libai’s description was not exaggerated. Let’s take a look at some photos of the old roads in southwest China.

1、Ancient Tea-Horse Road：Goods were carried by men and horse on this old road

2、Yunnan-Vietnam Railway ：Countless of people died while building it.

How Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was built

3、Mountain Roads: winding and turning until your head spins and throwing up until you start to doubt the meaning of life itself.

The famous 24 Turns of Qinglong Road in Guizhou

The 68 Turns in Jin’anshao near Kunming in Yunnan

4、Cliff Road: Moving on sheer cliffs, shuddering in screaming storms.

Dulong corniche（Yunnan）

Mountain trials in the Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the highest gorges in the world（Yunnan）

Siduhe Bridge, Guizhou

However, in recent years, the government has invested a lot in the development of transportation in Yunnan and Guizhou. Travelers have more choices now, like the fast and modern high-speed train that connects many destinations in both provinces with the rest of China. Highways are built and there is less need to take the old mountain roads. And in order to cross those mountains by highway, astonishing bridges that are among the highest in the world are built everywhere in this area. The old mountain roads are slowly turning into history, while people comfortably sleep on modern busses while crossing mountains over golden bridges.

Beipanjiang Bridge Duge,Guizhou

But those beautiful bridges are not built just so tourists can nap while getting to their destination. Many construction-fans flocks to this area to lay eyes upon these spectacular, complex and record-winning bridges. To see tall bridges, there is no need to go anywhere else. Southwest China has the highest concentration of the world’s tallest bridges, especially in Guizhou and Yunnan.

Top 10 highest bridges on website highestbridges.com

As of March 2019, on the ranking of the famous website http://www.highestbridges.com, you can see that eight of the top 10 tallest super-bridges in the world are in this area, including five in Guizhou, three in Yunnan and one in Hubei. And the top 3 are all Chinese bridges.

Puli Bridge, Yunnan

But these bridges are not built to just pursue world rankings. It is merely a natural by-product of development in an area blessed with high mountains, deep ravines and winding rivers that characterizes China’s Great Southwest.