Full Episode
Hello, TED Talks Daily listeners. I'm Elise Hu. For today's Sunday Pick, we're bringing you an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective, handpicked by us for you. There is a place where a network of thousands of bridges connects pretty much everything. I know the image of thousands of bridges sounds fantastical, but this isn't fiction. This place really exists.
And we're taking you there with the help of the podcast, Far Flung. Host Salim Reshamwala takes us to Nepal, home of the tallest mountains in the world and the land of many bridges, and digs into how these structures shape the way the Nepalese perceive connection, community, and what's important to hold on to in life.
To hear more unique ideas and stories from around the globe, check out Far Flung, available wherever you get your podcasts. Now on to the episode right after a quick break.
You're hearing the sound of wind on the longest spanned pedestrian bridge in the world, the Baglang Parbat footbridge in Nepal. It stretches over 500 meters, about 1600 feet between the mid hills of Nepal. Now, hills in Nepal are very, very different from what the rest of the world might call hills.
On this bridge between two hills, there's a river below you, absurdly small looking, because it's 122 meters. That's 400 feet down. You're 400 feet up in the air. 400 feet. Just for comparison, if you took the Statue of Liberty and stacked another Statue of Liberty on top of it, you'd still have 98 feet to go until you reach this very thin wire suspension bridge.
I'm not scared at all. In this recently built long bridge, my husband was scared at first, but I crossed it effortlessly without feeling scared. It's a very happy experience.
It's such a pleasant thing being on a bridge. It takes you from one place to another so easily without any risk. I really enjoy being on it. Now people even go to the bridge to just see it. People consider crossing the long bridge to be a spectacle now.
Many people say they feel scared on a bridge because it is shaky or something like that. But I feel so safe that I feel like I'm in my own house. In their own house.
On a thin strip of metal in the sky. I'm Salim Rashamwala, and from TED, this is Far Flung. In every episode, we visit a different location to understand ideas that flow from that place. And today we're heading to one of the most mountainous places on earth to see how building bridges creates connections and not just between two points.
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