Strange life in the 'wettest place in the world'

With an average rainfall of 1,200cm per year, Meghalaya is known as the world's wettest area.

Wind rain is one of the reasons that make our life and work more difficult and hard. Yet on Earth, there are places where people must live under constant rain.

Amos Chapple - a New Zealand photographer recently had a set of photos at Meghalaya (India) - the land with constant torrential rains and is considered the 'most humid place on Earth'.

The entire daily life of the residents here was recorded in a truly enchanting and most honest way.

Meghalaya is a state in northeastern India, with an area of ​​22,429km ² , about 70% of the state area is forest covered. With an average rainfall of 1,200cm per year, it is known as the wettest area in the world.

Meghalaya is also home to about 3 million people, mainly Khasi ethnic people (about 1.2 million people), Garos and Jaintia people.

They have lived here since 2,300 years, according to matriarchy. Therefore, the Meghalaya people were also called 'matriarch tribes'.

The cause of the heavy rains here is due to the moist air stream from Bangladesh's floodplain moving north. As the clouds passed through Meghalaya's steep slopes, the temperature dropped causing condensation, causing rain to continue.

To cope with persistent rains, people here create a kind of 'raincoat' called Knups in the shape of a boat made of bamboo and banana leaves.

With this unique 'raincoat' , they can still stand to work normally with both hands and the shape of Knups also help them not get wet by the rain accompanied by big thunderstorms.

In the two peak months of the rainy season is June and July, the amount of water poured into this village is about 7,000mm. With rugged mountain terrain, landslides are inevitable in Meghalaya.

In order to keep the road clear during the rainy season, the government hired people with a salary of 2.5USD / day (about 50,000 VND) until the rainy season ended around October.

The bridges of Meghalaya are extremely special. Instead of being built in concrete like other places, people here use their own roots and "living" trees to cross the bridge over the stream.

Banyan roots, rubber trees . they are braided into bun. Over the centuries, these roots grow and become stronger, creating extremely solid bridges. The 'live' bridges are up to 30 meters long and can withstand the load of 50 people.

To make these bridges, people will first use bamboo as frames. Then, they plucked the rubber roots of the rubber tree, these roots will grow on their own.

Some time later, the bamboo frame was rotten but the roots of rubber trees continued to grow. According to the people here, in about 7-8 years, they will have a bridge to withstand a person's weight.

Not only the bridges, people here also use roots to make other buildings such as stairs to go up the ramp.

The life of the people here is still quite backward, the markets under the rain like this still provide the main food for the inhabitants of the village.

Although it rains, people's lives and work continue. For them, it is not good if you keep thinking about the difficulties when it rains because even if it rains, we still have to work.