PHOTOS: Living Tree Bridges In A Land Of Clouds

"It was a cloudy monsoon afternoon, and I had been trailing my guide Bah Drong for over an hour. Despite the slight but persistent drizzle, Bah Drong marched along unfazed, his seasoned calf muscles carrying him swiftly along the rough, mountainous trail. I had to hurry to avoid falling behind. Every now and then he turned to offer encouragement with a few words of broken English and a mouth full of betel nut seeds: "Little more!"

It would take us another full hour to find what I had come to see: A being that was both intrinsically natural and intrinsically engineered, a "JingKiengJri," or a living bridge made out of tree roots. The word comes from the local (phonetic) language called Khasi".