Helio da Silva, a retired business executive from Brazil, single-handedly planted over 41,000 trees in his hometown of Sao Paolo over the last two decades.

Flying over the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paolo, it’s tough to miss the 3.2-kilometers-long and 100-meter-wide green strip of trees wedged between two of the city’s busiest roads. It is known as Tiquatira Linear Park, and it is the work of a single man who worked tirelessly for over 20 years in order to transform a previously dilapidated area into an actual jungle within the urban jungle that is Sao Paolo. Originally from the town of Promissao, about 500km from Sao Paulo, Helio da Silva was a successful business executive for many years, but after retiring, he took it upon himself to transform the degraded banks of the Tiquatira River into a green oasis for his community. He started planting trees there in 20023 and hasn’t stopped since.

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Lake Burlinskoye, a salty lake located in Russia’s Altai region close to the border with Kazakhstan, is famous both for its pink color during the summer and the freight train passing through it every day.

Seeing an old freight train seemingly floating over a pink lake in Western Siberia is quite a bizarre experience, but somehow it all makes sense. Lake Burlinskoye is the largest single salt deposit in Siberia, with a saltiness that rivals that of the Dead Sea. It is precisely this exceptionally high saltiness that attracts a species of microscopic brine shrimp called Artemia salina which, as they multiply, end up turning the lake bright pink during the summer months. Siberia’s pink lake is a strange enough sight, but what really sets Burlinskoye apart from other bodies of water is the freight train traversing it several times per day.

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Switzerland’s Glacier Express is known as the world’s slowest fast train, taking over 8 hours to travel 290 kilometers (181 miles) through the Swiss Alps.

The Glacier Express connecting the alpine resorts of Zermatt and St. Moritz isn’t anything like the high-speed express train zipping across Europe. Moving at an average speed of 36 km per hour, it lives up to its reputation as the “world’s slowest express train”, but that laughable speed is by design. You see, taking the Glacier Express isn’t about getting from point A to point B as fast as possible; it’s a scenic journey through the heart of the Swiss Alps that allows travelers to take in all the natural wonders this beautiful region has to offer. The train itself features large panoramic windows designed to provide unobstructed views of the breathtaking scenery, allowing passengers to fully immerse themselves in the beauty of the Swiss Alps.

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Every summer, Oregon’s Lost Lake disappears down a couple of volcanic tunnels only to return in the fall, as a number of streams start flowing into what looks like a peaceful meadow.

Driving past Lost Lake in the late fall or in the winter, you may not pay much attention to the seemingly plain body of water, but making the same drive in late spring or in the summer, you’ll definitely do a double take as a peaceful meadow replaces the lake. This is the magic of Lost Lake, a special attraction located in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest, just off U.S. Highway 20. Starting in late autumn, a number of streams start flowing down from the surrounding mountains filling the meadow that soon becomes the bottom of the Lost Lake, and by mid-winter, the lake is at its fullest. The disappearing act begins in spring and is completed in the summer, as the contributing streams dry out, and all the water in the lake is drained via two holes that act like the drains of a bathtub.

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The Nepalese capital city of Kathmandu is home to a peculiar shrine to goddess Vaisha Dev, the patron saint of toothache, where people suffering from dental problems nail rupee coins on an old tree trunk as offerings.

Located on a narrow street in Kathmandu, between Thamel and Kathmandu Durbar Square, the Toothache Tree is undoubtedly one of the most unusual tourist attractions in the Nepalese capital. The Vaisha Dev shrine is said to be a stump cut from the mythical tree known as Bangemudha, but it’s almost impossible to tell that it is a tree at all, as it is completely covered in Nepalese rupee coins nailed onto it. Although it is impossible to know just how old this unique shrine really is, some sources claim that it dates back to the Lichchhavi kingdom that existed in the Kathmandu Valley from approximately 400 to 750 CE. Even though modern dentistry has been practiced in Kathmandu for decades, people still come to the Toothache Tree to nail coins, hoping the goddess will release them of their dental problems.

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A small shrine along the treacherous Gata Loops in India’s mountainous Ladakh region has become famous for the large number of plastic bottles left as offerings to a spirit known as the Ghost Of The Gata Loops.

Bicycle and motorcycle racers traversing the Gata Loops as part of their Trans-Himalaya tours are often confused by a large pile of plastic bottles around what looks like a makeshift shrine. Some confuse it for simple pollution, a consequence of the increase in popularity of the region with adventure tourism enthusiasts, but the explanation for this bizarre sight in the middle of nowhere is much more intriguing. Many of those who attempt to cross the Gata Loops leave water bottles at the shrine as offerings for the Ghost Of The Gata Loops, the wandering soul of a poor man who died here decades ago due to thirst and extreme cold. Some people believe that passing by without leaving a water bottle will upset the ghost and bring them bad luck on their arduous journey.

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The Pirangi Cashew Tree in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte is considered the world’s largest cashew tree. It has a circumference of around 500 meters and covers an area of 8,400 square meters.

Legend has it that the Pirangi Cashew Tree was planted in 1888 by a local fisherman who later died at the age of 93 under the shade of the humongous tree. However, experts believe that, based on its growth characteristics, “the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old”. One thing is for sure, though, this is no ordinary cashew tree. It is the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees and actually has to be seen from a special lookout point high above to be truly appreciated. It produces over 60,000 cashew fruits per year and also attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over Brazil.

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Gaoqi Ling is a natural wonder in China’s Hunan Province, a mountain of perfectly smooth rock with an extremely narrow ridge that people love to traverse despite the apparent danger.

China’s Danxia Park is famous for its unique landforms, particularly the multicolored “Rainbow Mountain,” but it is home to other less-known but just as intriguing natural formations. Gaoqi Ling is one such natural wonder. Originally a watershed, this natural wonder had its steep ridges shaped by the water washing over them and then smoothed out by rain and wind. Today, the sharp ridges are often compared to a giant knife edge or the spine of a sleeping dragon with its ribs extending outwards.

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Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, holds the Guinness Record for the widest avenue in the world, at approximately 140 meters. It features a total of 16 lanes, so crossing from one side to the other is quite an undertaking.

The history of Avenida 9 de Julio can be traced back to the glory days of the Argentinian capital. Buenos Aires was called the ‘Paris of South America’, so local authorities decided to cement that reputation by building a monumental piece of infrastructure inspired by Paris’ Champs Elysee. Only a simple copy wasn’t enough they wanted something larger, more impressive, so they settled on an urban highway passing through the center of the city that was double the width of the famous French avenue. It was a colossal project that took almost half a century to finish, but in 1980, Avenida 9 de Julio was finally completed. It still holds the record for ‘world’s widest avenue’.

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Benten Mountain, in Tokushima Prefecture, is considered Japan’s shortest natural mountain with a height of just 6.1 meters and a diameter of under 60 meters.

Located in the middle of fertile paddy fields along Tokushima’s Prefectural Road 10, Benten Mountain is the shortest mountain in Japan and one of the shortest in the world. It takes the average person just one minute to reach the summit and yet over 10,000 people make the journey here every year for this specific purpose. For some, it’s just the novelty of scaling a 6.1-meter-tall mountain, others come to admire the wax tree, camelias, and other flowers that call the rocky mass their home, and a few make the short trek to reach the Itsukushima Shrine built in honor of Benzaiten, the goddess of wisdom.

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China’s Yuntai Waterfall is generally regarded as Asia’s most impressive waterfall and is often described as a natural wonder. However, it turns out that its spectacular water show is artificially enhanced.

Yuntai Waterfall is the most popular scenic spot in the Yuntai Mountains, drawing millions of tourists annually. The tallest waterfall in Asia (a sheer drop of 314 meters) offers stunning vistas and a breathtaking spectacle that was recently revealed to be the result of modern technology. A Chinese vlogger managed to make their way to the top of Yuntai Waterfall where they spotted large metal pipes feeding water into the waterfall for an enhanced video effect. At first, the viral video of the discovery was criticized as fake, but sources from the Yuntai Mountain Scenic Area acknowledged that the waterfall is slightly enhanced to ensure a pleasant experience for tourists, regardless of natural factors.

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The Island of Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands located between France and England, is home to the world’s smallest prison still in use today – a tiny building with only two cells.

There are no cars, no roads and no streetlights on Sark Island, but there is a small prison dating back to the year 1856. Featuring just two tiny cells – one measuring 6 feet by 6 feet and the other 6 feet by 8 feet – separated by a narrow corridor, it holds the Guinness World Record for the ‘world’s smallest prison’. It’s only fitting that an island measuring just under 5 kilometers long and 1.6 kilometers wide, with a population of under 600 people, be home to the world’s smallest prison. The two cells only have small, wood-slatted beds with thin mattresses for inmates to sleep on, and inmates can only be held here for a maximum of two days, after which they have to be transferred to the larger prison facilities on the neighboring Guernsey Island.

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China’s Guizhou Province is home to about a dozen conical hills known as the Anlong Pyramids because of their resemblance to the much more famous pyramids of Egypt.

In recent years, Anlong County has become a popular tourist destination thanks in no small part to its pyramid-like mountains which have captured the imaginations of millions of people around the world. Apart from their pyramid-like shape, these formations also feature layers of rock stacked on top of each other so neatly that you could swear they were placed like that by someone or something. Ever since photos and videos of the Anlong Pyramids started circulating online around 2018, conspiracy theories about their origin began appearing as well, and despite experts’ best efforts to convince the public that these pyramids are completely natural, some people still believe that they are the work of an ancient human civilization or of aliens.

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The Hongyancun subway station in Chongqing, China is 116 meters deep and the difference in air pressure will often leave users with clogged ears when accessed via its elevator.

When the air pressure outside of the eardrum becomes different than the pressure inside, you experience ear barotrauma. It occurs most often during steep declines and descents and is usually associated with plane takeoffs and landings, or driving up or down mountains. Most subway stations don’t usually cause ear barotrauma, because they aren’t deep or steep enough for your ears to register a significant enough difference in air pressure. But using the elevator to reach the world’s deepest subway station might actually clog up your ears. That’s because it is located 116 meters below the surface, the equivalent of about 40 floors underground.

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A 149-mile-long stretch of highway connecting two towns in Saudi Arabia holds the title of the world’s longest straight road.

Saudi Arabia’s Highway 10 stretches 916 miles (1,474 km), connecting the town of Al Darb, in the southwest, to Al Batha, in the east. It’s quite a busy road, most traversed by trucks shipping goods from one side of the country to the other, but it is most famous for a 149-mile stretch through the Rub-al-Khali desert. This particular piece of infrastructure was originally built as a private road for King Fahd (SAU), but ever since it became part of the public road system, it claimed the Guinness Record for the world’s longest straight road, also known as ‘the most boring road in the world’, due to its complete lack of bends, almost completely flat terrain, and bland, featureless surroundings as far as the eye can see.

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