Thursday, July 29, 2010

World Strange Places (Part 4) - Rare Photos and Information...

White Terraces



Natural Wonders from New Zealand that just memories because destroyed by the Tarawera volcanic eruption in 1886. The natural phenomenon of warm water that formed by geysers that blast down the hillside across the thickness of ice left, the largest pool of warm water was recorded around 3 acres. Before the destruction of this phenomenon, It belongs to ” The Eighth Wonder of the World “.











Bathing at the White Terrace



Before the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886, the Pink and White Terraces at Rotomahana were a spectacular tourist attraction. The terraces had natural silica basins where you could bathe. When English novelist Anthony Trollope sampled one of the pools in the early 1870s he wrote, ‘The baths are … like vast open shells, the walls of which are concave, and the lips ornamented in a thousand forms … I have never heard of other bathing like this in the world.’ Here, three men (one Pākehā and two Māori) share a bath at the White Terrace, about 1880. Racially mixed bathing became less usual in the later 19th century.





Rice Terraces



In Luzon Province of the Northern Philippines, through mountains and rice terraces, the road ends at a church, in a small town called Banaue. 4,000 feet above sea level in Banaue sits a small market village in Ifugao province. Located north of Manila in the Philippines, Ifugao province is famous for the handiwork of its people, who increased cultivable lands by carving gigantic rice terraces from the sides of mountains. For over 2,000 years, the people of Batad have built these terraces, one stone at a time.





This growing, living stairway stretches far beyond what the eye can see. Taking an estimated 2,000 years to build, the still-productive rice terraces rise from the valley floor to heights of up to 3,000 feet, a feat of engineering so substantial that some call them the eighth wonder of the world. The only man made wonder which was literally sculpted from the earth. A scarcity of water has led to some rice patties drying up.The mountainous rice terraces of Banaue and vicinity in the Philippines are mankind’s grandest scaled engineering feat. The vertical distance between bottom and top rows exceeds the height of the world’s tallest building. If the terraces were laid end to end, they would stretch half way around the world.







Banaue is known for its rice terraces built along the mountains sides like stairways reaching the sky. 2000 years ago Ifugao's constructed it by using their bare hands and & wood as tools. The terraces are located in Banaue, Hungduan, Kiangan & Mayoyao. Banaue rice terraces are dubbed as the 8th Wonder of the World . Batad is a popular for its amphitheater-shaped terraces & the cascading Tappiyah Waterfall.















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