The tip of the iceberg of "infrastructure maniac" - Xiangli Expressway

As a person who grew up in the countryside, from eating corn steamed bread and wearing patched clothes all year round to having enough food and clothing now, I have truly witnessed the gradual prosperity of the motherland in the past 30 years. Especially in recent years, I have deeply felt the growth and progress of the motherland. Not to mention the first-tier cities, Yunnan, where I am now, has brought me enough surprises. Let's take a look at how China, which is dubbed as the "infrastructure maniac", is reflected in Yunnan.

01. Yunnan-Tibet Highway

The first time I drove the Yunnan-Tibet Highway, on the way to Shangri-La, I saw a tunnel being built behind the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. This is also a scene of the infrastructure maniac that I recorded.

What is the terrain like here?

At the foot of the mountain is the surging Yangtze River (Jinsha River section), which is only a few dozen meters wide here and has turbulent waves.

The mountains here look like this

The highest altitude is 5596 meters. Basically, from here to Shangri-La, you need to take the West View Route.

The road probably looks like this

Web Map

It can really be said that the journey is dangerous. Traffic jams are a small matter. Various collapses and rubble are common. There are mountains on one side and rivers or valleys on the other.

It took about five or six hours to reach Shangri-La. This was the second most dangerous road I have ever driven, the first being on the way to Lugu Lake.

02, Xiangli Expressway

Before this year's National Day, Xiangli Expressway was officially opened to traffic. This is the first expressway in Diqing Prefecture and may also be the last expressway opened in a prefecture-level city in my country.

The entire highway is 140 kilometers long, but there are 120 bridges and 26 tunnels. You can imagine the difficulty of this construction.

The construction of Xiangli Expressway created two "firsts". The Tiger Leaping Gorge Jinsha River Bridge creatively adopts a single-tower, single-span, ground-anchored steel truss suspension bridge structure, with a main span of 766 meters and a steel consumption of more than 8,000 tons, equivalent to the steel consumption of the Eiffel Tower. It ranks first in the span of similar bridges in the world. The roller-type composite cable saddle structure used in the bridge is also the first to be used in large-span suspension bridges at home and abroad. The Tiger Leaping Gorge Underground Interchange creatively moved the bridge and tunnel from the ground to the underground to avoid the adverse geological zone, realizing the connection of "bridge, tunnel, and underground interchange". It is the first underground interchange on a highway in China.

This is the new expressway, a wide and fast road.

According to the map, it only takes 2 hours to get from Lijiang to Shangri-La. It can be said that the natural barrier has been turned into a thoroughfare. It is not only faster, but also safer.

This is also an important way for Diqing Prefecture to become rich. Diqing Prefecture, full name Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, is the only Tibetan area in Yunnan Province. Diqing Prefecture is very beautiful. The Shangri-La described in the famous novel "Lost Horizon" is located in Diqing Prefecture.

This place, known as the most beautiful place on earth, is blocked by numerous mountains.

It can be said that this place is a very poor place in Yunnan. The student I once taught who had difficulty understanding Chinese was from here. The natural barriers also make the area more closed and difficult to develop.

But once the highway is opened, the local economy will develop and the poverty of local people will be alleviated.

So many times, I really admire our title of infrastructure maniac from the bottom of my heart, because only when the infrastructure is well built can the local people develop. Of course, the Xiangli Expressway mentioned above is just the tip of the iceberg in the development of our great motherland, but it is enough to show how powerful our country is!

I hope that trains can enter in the future, which will make the local area even better.