The Village That Grows Its Bridges

Nobody in Nongriat can tell you exactly when the double-decker bridge was started. Somewhere in the 1800s, probably — the Khasi keep history in stories, not ledgers. What they can tell you is who tends it now.

The bridge is not built; it is grown. The roots of the rubber fig are guided across the river through hollowed betel trunks, trained year by year, generation by generation, until one day the roots can carry a person, then ten, then fifty. A bridge begun by your great-grandfather is finished — though never really finished — by your grandchildren.

Standing on it at seven in the morning, mist coming off the water, the roots thick as a man's thigh underfoot, you understand you are walking on a decision someone made 150 years ago for people they would never meet. You are those people.

We talk a lot in travel about leaving no trace. The Khasi ask a better question: what will you leave that lasts?