18 Dangerous and Unusual Journeys to School Around the World

20 Of The Most Dangerous And Unusual Journeys To School In The World

Photo: Sipa Press

For most children in wealthy countries, getting to school means a car, a school bus or a short walk along a pavement. For millions of others, it can mean wading rivers, inching along cliff paths, crossing broken bridges or riding a cable high above a gorge. These are among the most dangerous and unusual school journeys ever photographed, from the mountains of China and the Indian Himalayas to the rivers of Indonesia, Colombia and the Philippines.

The photographs below circulated widely in the early 2010s, and several of them did more than shock viewers: in at least one case, Lebak in Indonesia, public attention led to a new bridge being built. They show places where roads, bridges and public transport have not kept pace with children's desire to learn, and they show remarkable determination. Some journeys take hours each way; others are short but frightening. A few are simply charming, such as school boats and buffalo rides.

We have grouped the journeys by region and added what is known about each place. Where details could not be confirmed, we say so, because many of these images were reposted for years with little context. Photographers and agencies are credited under each picture where known.

Mountain paths and cliffs in China

Zhang Jiawan village, southern China

Children in this rural community were photographed climbing steep, unsecured wooden ladders propped against rock to reach their school. Picture agencies distributed the images in 2013, but reports gave few details about the exact location, so the village name should be treated as reported rather than confirmed. Ladders like these are a reminder that in mountain regions the shortest route is often the most vertical one.

Photo: Imaginachina/Rex Features

Gula (Gulu), China

The most famous of these images show pupils walking a mountain path reportedly about a foot (30 cm) wide, cut into a cliff face, with a sheer drop on one side. The trip to their remote school was said to take around five hours. English-language reports usually spell the village Gulu and place it in Sichuan province, though accounts differ. Teachers reportedly accompanied the youngest children along the most exposed stretches.

Pili, China

This narrow crossing is only a small part of a much longer trek. The children of Pili were reported to travel around 125 miles (about 200 km) through high mountains to reach their boarding school, a journey spread over days rather than hours. Reports place the village in remote western China; the details could not be independently confirmed. Boarding schools are common in such areas because a daily commute is impossible.

Sichuan province, China

A small girl wrapped in a pink coat edges across the remains of a broken bridge in snow. Winter adds ice and cold to the risks of any improvised crossing. Sichuan's mountainous terrain and frequent earthquakes and floods have left many rural communities waiting years for proper infrastructure.

India and the Himalayas

Zanskar, Indian Himalayas

Zanskar, in Ladakh, sits at roughly 3,600 to 4,000 metres and was without any road until 1979. In winter the frozen Zanskar River, a route known as the Chadar, has traditionally been the main way in and out of the valley. British photographer Timothy Allen documented families walking children over the ice to boarding school, a multi-day trek in temperatures that can fall far below freezing. Because the school is residential, the children make the trip only at the start and end of term.

Photo: Timothy Allen

Living root bridges, Meghalaya, India

In the hills of Meghalaya, in north-east India, the Khasi and Jaintia peoples grow bridges from the aerial roots of rubber fig trees (Ficus elastica). Builders guide young roots across a stream, sometimes through hollowed areca palm trunks, and let them thicken and fuse, a process that can take up to 15 years. The finished bridges can last for centuries; a famous double-decker bridge near Nongriat is estimated to be about 200 years old. For local children, these living structures are simply the way to school.

Photo: The Atlantic

Beldanga, West Bengal, India

Here the challenge is not a cliff but a crowd. Children squeeze into and onto a small motorised rickshaw with their backpacks, a common sight on rural roads in eastern India. Overloaded vehicles are a real traffic risk, which is why several Indian states have introduced rules on how many pupils school transport may carry.

Photo: Dilwar Mandal

Delhi, India

A horse-drawn cart packed with schoolchildren makes its way through the streets of India's capital. Animal-drawn carts still share roads with cars and buses in parts of the city, and families often pay a driver to take several children at once. It is cheap and practical, if far from the safety standards of a modern school bus.

Photo: Reuters

Kerala, India

In the backwaters around Alappuzha (Alleppey), a low-lying region criss-crossed by canals, lagoons and Vembanad Lake, boats are everyday transport. School boats collect children along the waterways much as buses do elsewhere. Of all the journeys here, this is one of the gentlest.

Photo: Santosh Sugumar

Rivers and broken bridges in Indonesia

Lebak, Banten, Indonesia

Children in Lebak regency were photographed in January 2012 clinging to the twisted remains of a suspension bridge that had been damaged by floods, high above a fast-flowing river. The Reuters images spread around the world within days. Indonesia's state-owned steelmaker PT Krakatau Steel (often misspelled "Krakutau") was reported to have helped fund a replacement bridge, giving the children a far safer crossing.

Photos: Reuters

Cilangkap village, Indonesia

To cross the Ciherang River, villagers lashed bamboo rafts together into a floating walkway, and children step across in rain boots. Improvised crossings like this are common in western Java when floods wash bridges away. Quartz reported in 2013 that children elsewhere in Banten province were using bamboo rafts because a bridge destroyed by a January flood had still not been repaired some ten months later.

Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia

Photographs released by Panjalu Images in 2012 showed children near Padang crossing a river along a single wire, roughly 30 feet (9 metres) above the water, holding on to an upper rope. Some reposts joked that the children were training for the circus; in reality they were using what remained of a damaged bridge because it was the only way across. The pictures prompted calls for local authorities to build a safe crossing.

Photos: Panjalu Images

Riau, Indonesia

In Riau province on Sumatra, rivers have long served as roads, and some pupils paddle to school by canoe. It is a quieter journey than a cable or a cliff, but rivers swell quickly in the rainy season and few children wear life jackets.

Pangururan, Samosir Island, Indonesia

Pangururan is the main town on Samosir, a volcanic island in the middle of Lake Toba in North Sumatra. The lake fills the caldera of the Toba supervolcano, which erupted about 75,000 years ago. Here a wooden boat, packed to the roof with pupils, sets off across the water to school.

Photo: Muhammad Buchari

Colombia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and the Philippines

Río Negro, Colombia

Near Bogotá, families in a remote valley were photographed sliding along a steel cable reported to be about 800 metres long and as much as 400 metres above the river below, using a pulley and harness. Some young children crossed in sacks hooked to the line by older siblings. The images by German photographer Christoph Otto drew international attention to communities cut off by Colombia's steep river canyons.

Photo: Christoph Otto

Galle Fort, Sri Lanka

Schoolgirls balance across a narrow plank laid over a gap in the ramparts of Galle Fort. The fort stands on Sri Lanka's south-west coast, not in the centre of the island as is often claimed. The Portuguese built the first fortifications in the late 16th century, the Dutch rebuilt and expanded them from 1649, and the old town and walls were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.

Photo: Nico Fredia

Myanmar

Forget the school bus: this little girl rides to class on the back of a bull. In rural Myanmar, cattle and buffalo are still used for farm work and transport, and children often grow up handling them. Photographer Andrey captured a moment that is ordinary for her and enchanting for everyone else.

Photo: Andrey

Rizal province, Philippines

In October 2012, news photographers documented children in Rizal province, east of Manila, floating across a river on inflated tyre inner tubes, holding their school bags above the water. Without a bridge, the tubes were the most practical way across. The pictures were taken by Bullit Marquez for the Associated Press and by Dennis M. Sabangan for EPA.

Photo: Bullit Marquez/AP

Rizal Province, Philippines

Photo: Dennis M. Sabangan/EPA

Why these journeys still matter

Behind every one of these photographs is a simple fact: distance and danger are among the reasons children around the world miss school or drop out. UNESCO estimates that around a quarter of a billion children and young people are out of school worldwide, and poor infrastructure in rural areas is part of the picture. Girls are often affected most, because families worry about their safety on long or isolated routes.

The good news is that visibility helps. The Lebak bridge shows how quickly a crossing can be fixed once people see the problem. Boarding schools, school boats, community-built footbridges and, in Meghalaya, centuries-old living bridges all show different ways communities get children to class. The next time a school run feels like a chore, these pictures are a good reminder of how much effort some children make simply to learn.

Sources: Wikipedia: Living root bridge; Wikipedia: Galle Fort; Wikipedia: Zanskar; Wikipedia: Chadar Trek; Wikipedia: Samosir; Wikipedia: Alappuzha; Quartz: Traveling to school shouldn't be this difficult or dangerous for children (2013). Photographs by Sipa Press, Imaginachina/Rex Features, Timothy Allen, Reuters, Christoph Otto, Nico Fredia, Dilwar Mandal, Panjalu Images, Andrey, Santosh Sugumar, Muhammad Buchari, Bullit Marquez/AP and Dennis M. Sabangan/EPA; original collection compiled by Earth Porm.

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