PlanetOddity.com » strange places

Floating Village On Magical Tonle Sap Lake

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:00:22 +0000

In Cambodia there is three villages that are attached together and called Kampong Phluk. The interesting thing about them is that they float on the Tonle Sap lake that lies about 16 km southeast of Siem Reap. The houses in these villages are built on wood poles that vary from 6-8 meters.

The 3000 inhabitants feed themselves in the flooded mangrove forest surroundings that consist of much wildlife. When there are dry seasons the water level goes down so the houses are in a way levitating over it which can look pretty funny.

The lake Tonle Sap always reverses direction during the wet season, which makes it fill the lake, and it can thank the Mekong river for that. It is then one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia, and hundreds of waterbirds live by it. Something completely similar are these floating islands on lake Titicaca in Peru.

Tataouine – A Desert Town Where Skywalker Was Born

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:51:14 +0000

Have you ever wondered if Luke Skywalker’s home planet is real? Well, the planet is still fictional, but the desert place we see in the movie is real. In the movie it’s called Tatooine, but the real desert town is named Tataouine, so I guess we all know where they got their inspiration from.

In the Star Wars movies Tatooine is a desert planet with two suns, but in reality it’s a small city in Tunisia in North Africa. The sand houses soon reminds you of Mos Espa, also the home of Luke’s father Anakin Skywalker that becomes a cruel Jedi.

In real life the houses are actually “cave dwellings” of the native Berber population, designed for coolness and protection. Today it’s a major tourist and film makers attraction.

A dream place for every Star Wars fan to visit. If you’d like to see a fun part of Star Wars, take a look at Darth Vader on vacation in Hawaii.

The River Fleet – An Amazing River In The Underground Of London

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:13:20 +0000

It’s not enough that whole London has a complete underground system, it has a underground river too. It’s called the River Fleet and is London’s largest subterranean river. Long time ago Victorian engineers built a whole system of tunnels and chambers under London.

The river can fill up to the roof in about 30 minutes, so if you’re a traveler that wants to experience River Fleet, you should be aware of its danger, and get out as soon as the water starts rising.

When this network of tunnels were made, the river water was clean and clear, but throughout the years it has gotten rather pollute by waste and blood. So soon it became a place you could throw junk into, even dead bodies.

A lot of things were tried to be done to fix everything, but the stink was unbearable. Luckily its somewhat clean today, and you can visit the whole network, just be safe. And here are some other places in London that you can visit while you’re at it.

Via Sub-Urban @ Flickr.

Mysterious Persian Cliff With A Lot Of History

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:00:45 +0000

North of the ancient city Persepolis in Iran is a weird cliff named Naqsh-i-Rustam located. The construction of the cliff is amazing, and it’s weird that people way back then actually succeeded in shaping it that way. It has massive doors that goes right into the walls of the cliff. It’s a total of 4 entrances that are shaped as giant crosses also known as Persian Crosses.

They are perfectly carved into the walls. Inside the entrances you will find a small camber where the king would be in his sarcophagus, but now it is empty of course. The cliff is also known as the Persian Empire and its rulers were Xerxes, Darius and Cyrus.

Outside it also has sculptures carved of people and horses, and the oldest ever recorded inscription bearing the name Iran are also to be found there. Today it’s a tourist attraction and a great way to get to know the old Persian history and culture. Something that can remind of the Persian Empire is this beautiful Cave City in Georgia that actually was a monastery.

Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:27:50 +0000

You can say that lake Titicaca in Peru is a really strange lake. It the highest commercially navigable lake in the world because it sits 3,811 meters above sea level, that is about 12,500 feet. But that is not all; the weirdest thing is that it consists of 42 floating islands that actually are artificial because they are made by the Uros people that live there. The so-called floating islands are simply made of floating reeds called totora. They are created by hand, and it must be several meters thick so it can hold all the houses.

The islands are not floating free around the lake, they are tied to the ground of the lake with large logs. The hard thing about the reeds is that they rot, so they must be change four times a year at least. The Uros community are really something special, because they don’t want to have contact with the modern world, so they have their special systems and rules on the islands. Today lake Titicaca is a large tourist attraction. Now that you’ve know what the tallest lake is, then you can take a look at the 10 tallest waterfalls in the world.

Croatia’s “Great Wall of China”

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:37:06 +0000

Everybody must have heard about the great wall of China, but what about the great wall of Croatia? Not lot of people know about it, but it goes by the name Walls of Ston, and it is actually hundreds of years old. An impressive thing about it is that it is the longest complete fortress system around any town of Europe with more than five kilometers in length.

The walls are isolated on Peljesac Peninsula that is located about 60 km from Dubrovnik. The purpose of the walls was to protect the important commodity; salt, and today it serves as a center for salt mining. The walls were built by local master builders, and one Italian and a Frenchman also.

Today you can visit the walls of Ston and taste the delicious oysters they have to offer, they claim they got the best oysters in the world – visit and judge yourself. Other attractions of Croatia are these incredibly beautiful lakes, the Plitvice Lakes.

Via Kuriositas.

Abandoned Soviet Airfield

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:18:08 +0000

In previous articles you have seen abandoned, rusty and old military base in Murmansk and abandoned complex of Russian Anti-missile defense system. Now there has been found something in Ukraine that seems to be an abandoned airfield. Russos, a known photo-blogger, was one night on his way to a destination in Ukraine, or Crimea, when he decided to place a tent outside on a field near a random Ukraine forest.

The next day he got surprised when he realized where he had spent the night; on an airfield no longer in use, so he took his camera and started capturing everything he saw. The look that the airfield gives is so powerful that it almost looks like the airplanes are ready to take off and go to war. Well, we can just hope that will never happen, and that it will stay abandoned.

Beautiful Bavarian Town of Nordlingen Built in a Meteorite Crater

Mon, 24 May 2010 15:27:50 +0000

If you come by near the town of Nordlingen which is located in Bavaria, Germany, you will probably be surprised with the placement of it’s streets and buildings.

As you can see from photos, the main part of this interesting Bavarian town is ‘designed’ to look like a circle. But, that is not without the reason and the cause for that is even more exciting than the very look of of the town.

This little town which has about 20.000 residents is located in a huge meteorite crater. Scientists concluded that the crater was formed about 14,5 million years ago when pretty big meteorite collided with Earth. However, the town is not older than hundred years.

I like much the idea about building the town in meteor crater, it is definitely cool place for such thing and I believe this place could became pretty popular amongst tourists in future.

There is also one additional advantage of living in this place, I guess. The fact that meteor hit here once in past gives a pretty small chances for another one to hit exactly there but, still, you never know…

Via Flickr.

Salar de Uyuni – The World’s Largest Salt Flat

Wed, 19 May 2010 17:54:19 +0000

Salar de Uyuni is placed in southwestern Bolivia and it is the world’s largest salt flat. It covers the surface of about 10,000 square kilometers. Its white surface and bright blue sky sometimes can make incredible scenes for viewers especially during the wet season when those salt fields are covered with water, then, this place looks like a huge mirror.

According to experiences of people who have previously been there, this place can be dangerous for pedestrians who decide to challenge the desert because people can experience pretty bad visual disorientation in such white fields.

Slar de Uyuni is over 3,500 meters above the sea level, it is placed near the crest of the Andes. It is placed above the 20-meters deep lake.

Local people are telling the ancient legend about this place which says that this field was created when the Giantess Tunupa cried while breastfeeding her child after she was abandoned by her husband Kushku and this place has formed as a product of her tears mixed with her breast milk. That is why this place is also known by its other name, Salar de Tunupa.

Via Colt Rane.

Stalin’s Gulag Prison – The World’s Deadliest Prison of All Times

Tue, 18 May 2010 13:55:46 +0000

You thought that holocaust was horrible? Then, you probably should know something about the Gulag prison which was one of the worst prisons of Soviet regime. This complex of buildings can be found even today in Taga forest, in Russian Siberia.

This place is known as huge death factory which was working during the Stalin regime. The estimated number of people who were killed only in this prison is over 40 million which is almost 7 times worst than holocaust where allegedly died about 6 million people.

Most of prisoners were those who were against Stalin’s politics or those who were mistakenly considered to be the opponents of Stalin regime. The Gulag prison was closed in 1953, immediately after Stalin’s death.

Most of prisoners were convicted in poor trials where they were pronounced to be the enemies of the state and they were sent to this prison. Such ‘trials’ were also present in most of other communist countries where every man who confronted the communist regime was the enemy of the state.

Convicts were living in those poorly build wooden barracks where they waited their turn to experience the death.

Today, this almost unreachable place is cowered by vegetation which hides the horrible trails of communist regime in Soviet Russia.

More info at Wikipedia, photo credits AngelFire.