Billions could be saved on shipping if an easy overland route was developed from Southeast Asia to India and more Westerly nations.

FORBES: Burma's Second Chance For Trade With India

"We are confident it will prove very popular with locals and visitors alike who now have an attractive alternative to the overland route, " he said.

BBC: Summer ferry link announced for Kintyre peninsula

In AD1537 it was these stories of El Dorado that drew the Spanish conquistador Jimenez de Quesada and his army of 800 men away from their mission to find an overland route to Peru and up into the Andean homeland of the Muisca for the first time.

BBC: El Dorado: The truth behind the myth

The surprising object lesson: hard-headed Scotland, which in the 17th century attempted to build an overland trading route across the isthmus of Panama starting in an area known as Darien.

FORBES: When Scotland Lost Its Mind

Due to their size and the nearby bones, some archaeologists think the urns were prehistoric burial sites for an ancient civilisation that travelled along a forgotten overland trade route between the Mekong River and the Gulf of Tonkin.

BBC: Laos�� strange plain of jars

But the two countries' focus on trade has also allowed symbolic gestures of greater mutual trust, such as the reopening in 2006 of an overland trading route through Sikkim that had been closed since the 1962 Sino-Indian war.

ECONOMIST: As India's clout grows it will reshape the world around it

GARCIA-NAVARRO: His economic proposals, and that is the issue that most Mexicans are interested in, revolve around the campaign of public spending, a new overland shipping route that will rival the Panama Canal, high-speed railways connecting cities and the planting of a million acres of furniture-grade forest will provide the jobs.

NPR: Mexican Candidate Resists Comparisons with Chavez

It's part of the adventure: We have our rough route in mind -- overland down the Nile and on to Turkey -- but we often don't know where we'll be the next day.

WSJ: Halfway: More Anxiety��but Plenty of Joy