Babyurt – Of (D915) – The World’s Most Dangerous Road

Stretching for 65 miles (105 km) between the towns of Of and Bayburt in Eastern Turkey, the D915 is an extreme road regarded by many motorists as the most diffcult in the world.

For many years, Bolivia’s Yungas Road, aka the “Death Road”, held the unofficial title of world’s most dangerous road. Photos and videos of motorists navigating the gravel track winding its way through the Cordillera Oriental mountain range to an altitude of 4650 meters have made Yungas one of Bolivia’s most popular tourist attractions, drawing around 25,000 people every year. However, according to some adventurers, there is one less popular road that surpasses the Death Road in terms of difficulty. Linking Turkey’s Northeast Anatolia Province to the Black Sea, the D915 mountain road features a myriad turns and dangerous drop-offs that make it extremely perilous to traverse even for the most skilled drivers.

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This Italian Church Has a 500-Year-Old Crocodile Hanging from the Ceiling

The Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie, in Italy’s Lombardia region, is an old church famous for having a real taxidermied crocodile hanging from the ceiling.

What’s the last thing you expect to see when you look up in a church? Granted, there are plenty of interesting answers one can think of, but ‘a crocodile’ definitely ranks up there with the quirkiest of them. But if you travel to the small municipality of Curtatone, in Lombardia, Italy, you’ll find a church with a five-century-old crocodile hanging from the ceiling. It’s a peculiar sight, to say the least, but one that has been around for as long as anyone can remember. How the croc wound up at the Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie is, and will probably remain a mystery, but its purpose had been linked to religious symbolism.

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Pakistan’s Famous Chained Tree Has Been Under Arrest for Over a Century

The Chained Tree of Peshawar, in Pakistan, has been under arrest since 1899, when a British officer decided to teach it a lesson for moving away from him. It has remained chained ever since.

125 years ago, a drunk British officer by the name of James Squid performed one of the most bizarre arrests in history in Landi Kotal, a town near the Torkhan border. Convinced that the tree was trying to get away from him as he struggled to approach it, Squid ordered it chained to the ground and placed under arrest. The chains have remained in place ever since, and a plaque tells the story of the arrest for curious tourists.

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Tokyo Cafe Caters Exclusively to Negative People

Mori Ouchi, a cozy cafe in Tokyo’s laidback Shimokitazawa district, is famous for only catering to pessimists and people with a generally negative mindset.

Negative people tend to get a bad rep and are constantly told to be more positive, but, if you think about it, is there really anything wrong with being negative? The founder of Mori Ouchi, a small cafe in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, certainly doesn’t think so. A self-described gloomy person, he got the idea for like-minded people over a decade ago but only decided to open it three years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The man had always felt like negative people were more sensitive and more easily hurt than others, so he created a space dedicated exclusively to them.

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The World’s Largest Gashapon Store Is Home to More Than 3,000 Coin-Operated Machines

Tokyo’s Ikebukuro shopping district is home to the world’s largest gashapon capsule toy store – a 1,250m² area decked with over 3,000 gashapon machines filled with various figurines.

Gashapon machines have been a big part of Japan’s recreational culture for over half a decade, but while these toy capsule-filled machines are ubiquitous in the Asian country, the Mecca of gashapon machines is the Gashapon Official Store in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. It features over 3,000 coin-operated machines and probably millions of collectible toys and figurines. Using most of these machines requires a few hundred yen – from ¥200(~$1.33) to ¥500 (~$3.32) – but if you’re feeling generous, you can spin the wheel at the much more expensive ‘premium’ machines, which can cost up to ¥2,000 (~$13.27) on average for one random toy.

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Poll na bPéist – Ireland’s Naturally Rectangular Rock Pool

Inishmore, the largest of Ireland’s Aran Islands, is home to a remarkable natural wonder, a rectangular pool cut so straight into limestone that it looks man-made.

Also known as “The Wormhole” or “The Serpent’s Lair”, Poll na bPéist is a natural water basin with an edge length of approx. 10 by 25 meters within a stone formation. It can only be accessed by walking along the cliffs south of the ancient site Dún Aonghasa, but in recent years it has become famous for hosting the renowned Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. The most fascinating thing about Poll na bPéist is its remarkable rectangular shape, which has led many to question its natural origins and sparked several theories, including that it is the work of an ancient civilization.

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South Korea’s Majestic 860-year-Old Ginkgo Tree

Every year, in late autumn, thousands of people flock to Bangyeri, a village in Gyeongsang, South Korea, to witness the beauty of a majestic 860-year-old ginkgo biloba tree.

The secular Wonju Bangye-ri Ginkgo Tree is a national monument of South Korea famous for its impressive crown which currently covers a perimeter of around 17 meters. At around 32 meters tall (104ft), it is not even the Asian country’s tallest ginkgo tree, but the way its branches are spread out makes it one of the most visually impressive trees on Earth. In South Korea, the Bangye-ri Ginkgo Tree is often called the world’s most beautiful tree.

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China Installs Giant Escalators as Alternative to Mountain Hiking

Lazy tourists visiting scenic mountain spots in China’s Zhejiang Province can now skip mountain hiking altogether and ride giant escalators hundreds of meters long to reach the best view spots.

Tour operators in China’s Zhejiang Province have installed massive escalators on mountains to help tourists gain access to the best views with virtually no effort. Scenic scots that were once only accessible by hiking on precarious trails are now available to anyone willing to ride one of these escalators for a few seconds, minutes at most. For example, Tanyu Mountain, in Zhejiang’s Chun’an county, has an altitude of only 350 meters, but due to the precarious relief, tourists have to walk three mountains around the mountain in order to reach the summit, making it inaccessible to the elderly and young children. But thanks, to the new escalator, anyone can now reach the top of Tanyu Mountain with virtually no effort.

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Scientists Discover the World’s Darkest River

Ruki, a tributary of the Congo River, has recently been dubbed the darkest river in the world, with water so dark that you can’t even see your face in front of you.

In what is considered the first-ever scientific study of the African river, scientists concluded that the dark-colored water is caused by the high levels of dissolved organic matter from the surrounding rainforest. Scientists found that the color is caused by carbon-rich compounds leached out of rotting plant matter and washed into the Ruki River by rainwater and floods. Dr Travis Drake, lead author of the recently published study, said that the Ruki is “essentially jungle tea” in which carbon-rich plant matter is brewed. The resulting coloration of the water makes the Ruki darker than the Rio Negro.

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Fish Scale Tide – A Natural Phenomenon Unique to Qiantang River

China’s Qiantag River is famous for a unique natural phenomenon, a wavy pattern tide that was only observed for the first time in 2021 and has come to be known as fish scale tide.

The Qiantang River’s estuary in Zhejiang Province has long been famous for having the strongest tidal bores in the world. At times, they can get as tall as nine meters, which means the area regularly sees trains of large waves moving upstream against the normal current. However, in 2021, during a scientific expedition, researchers discovered another intriguing natural phenomenon unique to this estuary. When certain conditions are met, the tide comes in spiraling waves that look like fish scales on the water’s surface. The phenomenon hs become known as ‘fish scale tide’.

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Impressive Road to Bali Beach Divides Internet

A road leading to Bali’s Pandawa Beach that seems to split an entire plateau in half has sparked a heated online debate about the practicality of the project and its effect on local wildlife.

Featuring fine white sand and crystal-clear water, the picture-perfect beach of Pandawa was already one of Bali’s most beautiful seaside destinations, but the road dug into the limestone cliffs separating the beach from the rest of the island really catapulted it into the top tourist destinations on the island. Until only a decade ago, Pandawa Beach was only popular among locals, as the limestone cliffs secluded from foreigners’ eyes were notoriously hard to traverse. However, everything changed in 2012 when a road leading down to the beach was created by cutting through the cliffs. Today, that road has itself become somewhat of a tourist attraction in its own right, but also the topic of a heated debate.

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The Giant Floating Island of Lake Chippewa Has to Be Pushed by Boats Almost Every Year

Wisconsin’s Lake Chippewa is home to a giant floating island that sometimes moves around blocking a critically important bridge and needs to be moved by local boat owners working in unison.

Lake Chippewa, aka the Chippewa Flowage, was created in 1923, by flooding a large swamp. Soon after that, many of the peat bogs started rising to the surface and became perfect growing spots for plant seeds carried by wind and wild birds. As the years passed, plants from grasses to trees began to grow and their roots actually caused these floating bogs to grow. Today, they vary from the size of a parking space to several acres, with the largest of them, the so-called “Forty Acre Bog” on the west side of the lake featuring mature trees. Almost every year, dozens of local boat owners team up to push it away from a bridge connecting the East and West sides of the lake.

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Would You Pay $450 for a Unique Picnic Dangling 295 Feet Over a Thundering Waterfall?

A Brazilian adventure firm is offering thrillseekers the unique opportunity to enjoy a picnic at a wooden table suspended above the thundering Cascata da Sepultura, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The breathtaking experience recently went viral thanks to a short clip posted by an American couple who found it while looking for special things to try in Brazil. In the video, Christianna Hurt and her rapper boyfriend ‘OnPointLikeOp’ can be seen casually enjoying some snacks and a glass of red wine at a picnic table suspended on a bunch of metal wires high above Cascata da Sepultura. The whole experience apparently lasts only 15 minutes and costs $450, but it’s definitely something you’ll never forget.

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Coppelia Park – The World’s Largest Ice Cream Parlor

Located in Havana, Cuba, Coppelia Park is the world’s largest ice cream parlor. Also known as the ‘Ice Cream Cathedral, it serves around 30,000 customers per day and up to 600 at a time.

Built in 1966, Cuba’s ‘Parque Coppelia consists of a two-storey domed pavilion inspired by Oscar Niemeyer’s iconic Cathedral of Brasilia outside which people queue for ice cream every single day, and a lush park complete with hundreds of tables where up to 1,000 people can enjoy the frozen treats at a time. The story goes that Fidel Castro ordered the building of Coppelia Park shortly after the success of his Communist revolution. He reportedly ordered twenty-eight containers of ice cream from American producer Howard Johnson’s, and upon tasting it decided to respond by creating something bigger and better, but cheap enough that anyone could afford. His idea was a huge hit, and to this day thousands of people continue to enjoy subsidized ice cream at Coppelia Park, the world’s largest ice cream parlor.

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Pyramid-Shaped Mountain in Antarctica Sparks Online Conspiracy Theories

A pyramid-shaped peak in Antarctica’s Ellsworth Mountain range has been fueling all sorts of conspiracy theories involving aliens and ancient civilizations for at least seven years.

Satellite images of a pyramid-shaped mountain peak in Antarctica first appeared on the internet in 2016. Measuring 2 kilometers square in each direction at its base, a design reminiscent of Egyptian pyramids, the geological structure instantly became the inspiration to all sorts of online conspiracy theories. Some claimed that it had been built by an ancient civilization 10,000 years ago when Antarctica was warm, while others said that it was the work of aliens. But while it’s true that a naturally-occurring pyramid of that size seems unlikely, geologists would tell you that this is actually just that, a mountain that happens to look like a pyramid.

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