NOTHING EXCITES A traveller like infrastructure!
OK, maybe not, but without the ports and airports, we wouldn’t be going far, would we?
These vital links do actually feature in travel dreams: The Golden Gate Bridge. Route 66. The Trans-Siberian Railway. Mostar Bridge.
Well, while those famous ones aren’t in here, you’ll find a few to train your eyes on.
Friends stroll across the 17th century Si-o-se-pol bridge, Esfahan, Iran.
With cafes and tea houses, the bridge is also a place for friends and family to gather, as well as a dam.
A kind Tabrizi truck driver stopped to proudly show us this Ottoman Bridge, on the way to Tabriz, Iran.
From the top of the Kings Highway as it crosses Wadi Mujib, in Jordan's dry south.
An extensive train network covers all former Soviet Union countries. It took us 16 hours to get from Al Mata to here (Turkistan). The lady in our cabin had another day or so to reach her destnation.
Zambia and Zimbabwe are joined by this bridge over the Zambezi River at Victoria Falls.
Withe river at its lowest point, villagers pass over a rickety wooden bridge in Dinajpur, Bangladesh.
The Soviet Union completed the Pamir Highway across Tajikistan to Kyryzstan in the 1930s. Much of the spectacular route across the Pamir mountains travels well over 3000m above sea level, peaking at Ak Baital Pass, 4655m.
In Tajikistan, a road hugs the side of the mountain, with room for just one vehicle in most places. Below, the Pyandzh River is the Afghan border.
Somewhere south of Issy Kol, in Kyrgyzstan, a lonely back road.
Where is the rest of it? Did it wash away, or was it destroyed by American bombs? Southern Laos.
Cahill's Crossing is the only bridge joining Australia's Kakadu National Park and Arhem Land.
By Mongolian standards, this is positively autobahn. Paved roads finish at the city edges, and the ruts left by cars, trucks and buses guide drivers to the next town.
Apamea is central Syria once boasted the longest collonaded Roman road in the eastern empire. Until ISIS came along.
The spectacular Kings Highway cuts through Wadi Mujib, Jordan,
The incredible shitfight to get into to Termez railway station in Uzbekistan to buy tickets.
In Taiwan's dramtic Taroko Gorge, a striking red bridge built strong to withstand earthquakes.
A pedestrian bridge in Tianxiang in Taroko Gorge National Park, Taiwan, one of the most eye catching parts of the country.
Taiwan's Taroko Gorge is full of steep cliff and rivers cutting through valleys below. The road and tunnel network is pretty impressive, too.
In the central mountain's of Taiwan, Pinglai Liuliguang Suspension Bridge has a glass bottom, making for some cool views. The area is really nice for hiking, too.
In the foothills of Nantou county, Taiwan, the small gauge rail line which joins Jiji to other towns like Shuili and Checheng is both convenient and scenic.
Zebra crossing!! Etosha National Park, Namibia. Sorry....
A dirt-sand road winds its way through the desolate but ever changing Skeleton Coast in Namibia.
A freight train marshes through the desert sands outside Walvis Bay, Namibia, viewed from Dune 7.
Highway construction in the central Burma town of Bago in 1997. Chinese money ignored Western sanctions, and those logs are probably a reward.
Bago, Burma, in the afternoon.
A pontoon bridge spans the Giang Thanh River in Ha Tien, a Vietnamese town surrounded by rice paddies, limestone karsts, Cambodia and the Gulf of Thailand.
Vietnam's Saigon-Hanoi is pretty hectic, but this is in the quieter Delta. This is a major two-way highway, with crops drying on one side of the road, houses on the side, chickens running out.....
60 trains a day passed through this lovely outback station in Beltana, 500 km north of Adelaide. Better mines and prospects elsewhere dwindled the population, and the last train ran in the 1960s.
A fair summary of the state of Cambodian roads in the early 1990s. Lots of slipping in the wet season.
Berat, Albania.
Out the back of Gjirokastra, southern Albania, is an old Ottoman bridge in a valley. That's as close as we could be bothered going!
More Ottoman bridges can be found in next door in Kosovo.
A number of them cross the small river in the centre of Prizren.
In the hills of Montenegro, another Ottoman bridge, shadowed by the Heroes' Monument, which we nicknamed The Big Tooth.
Fancy Thai streetsign.
Outside Sangkhlaburi, approaching Burma on a typical step-thru scooter. We had to give up a few hundred metres further.
Famed for its wooden Mon bridge, Sangkhlaburi is very popular with Thai tourists, but sees few farang.
Let's keep it that way.
The bridge itself is quite a feat. There are other smaller wooden bridges in the Mon town at the far end.