I saw a documentary on this but I would have sworn it was filmed in SE Asia but I could be wrong. There they were using a related tree also known as the Strangler Fig.
What floored me was a segment where a man was building a new bridge, and almost as a throwaway line the narrator stated that this bridge would be usable by the time his son was old enough to teach his son. That's patience.
But the alternative is dealing with serious flooding and erosion pressures, which these trees have already solved.
I’m sure the living root bridge concept doesn’t stay within political boundaries, but also yes OP could have seen the faces of the people and not realized that people that look like that live in parts of India.
What floored me was a segment where a man was building a new bridge, and almost as a throwaway line the narrator stated that this bridge would be usable by the time his son was old enough to teach his son. That's patience.
But the alternative is dealing with serious flooding and erosion pressures, which these trees have already solved.