World's Riskiest School Commute Takes Two Days, Involves Rock-Climbing
If your parents like to pull the annoying ol' "when I was a kid, we trudged five miles in the snow to get to school because we were tough (unlike you kids nowadays)" act, this video of Chinese schoolkids braving icy rivers and risking fatal falls just to make it to class will put them in their place.
Four times a year, the children of Pili village trek 120 miles to school—and almost half the route requires riding a camel or walking. Part of the trip involves climbing a cliff face 1,000 feet high, which the kids do without the help of safety harnesses. "Further along, there are four freezing rivers to wade across, a 600ft-long zip-line to slide down, and bridges that are just a single plank wide," the Telegraph UK reports. "Teachers often carry the younger children on their backs, but some have fallen in the rivers in the past, without serious injury." The kids love the trip, say the adults.
The Chinese government is building a road between Pili and the school so that future generations of schoolkids won't have to cheat death just to make it to Social Media Marketing class, or whatever Chinese schools teach.
