This cable ropeway suspended between cliffs is the only access to Yushan village in Hubei Province, Chin, which has a population of just over 200 people. The ropeway was built in 1997; before that villagers faced a walk of several days to get to the next nearest village. The ropeway, which is powered by a diesel engine, is 1,000 metres long and 400 metres above the valley floor.

Plants grow on houses in the abandoned fishing village of Houtouwan on the island of Shengshan July 26, 2015. Just a handful of people still live in a village on Shengshan Island east of Shanghai that was once home to more than 2,000 fishermen. Every day hundreds of tourists visit Houtouwan, making their way on narrow footpaths past tumbledown houses overtaken by vegetation. The remote village, on one of more than 400 islands in the Shengsi archipelago, was abandoned in the early 1990s as first wealthy residents then others moved away, aiming to leave problems with education and food delivery behind them. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

An ethnic Kayaw couple Mu Htoo and her husband Htaw Eili rest at their home at Htaykho village in the Kayah state, Myanmar September 12, 2015. With about 30,000 members, the Kayaw are one of the smallest ethnic minorities among Myanmar's 135 groups. Their village has for decades been off-limits, as armed rebels fought the military before a recent ceasefire stopped the bloody conflict here. The rebels in the area have put down their guns and taken to the hills to grow rice and corn, but slash-and-burn cultivation methods mean they struggle to find new places to farm. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Boys ride a motorbike on their way back home after taking a bath in a canal at Chachura village, in Uttar Pradesh April 4, 2012. (Photo by Parivartan Sharma/Reuters)

Women dressed in traditional folk costumes participate at the Epiphany day celebration in Bitushe, Macedonia January 19, 2017. (Photo by Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)

This picture taken on May 31, 2018 shows a villager walking between abandoned houses covered with overgrown vegetation in Houtouwan on Shengshan island, China' s eastern Zhejiang province. Houtouwan was a thriving fishing community of sturdy brick homes that climb up the steeply hilled island of Shenghshan, but is now abandoned, with entire houses completely overgrown as if vacuum- sealed in a lush layer of green. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP Photo)

A woman works at a factory producing clay pots at Phu Lang pottery village in Bac Ninh province, Vietnam, May 14, 2015. The village is part of an old pottery triangle in northern Vietnam which includes Bat Trang and Tho Ha, and has been producing pottery since the 13th century, according to local media. (Photo by Reuters/Kham)