<p>Bored piles and wells of various types are very commonly used for river and sea bridges, since they involve very high loads and further, deep scour depths deny possibilities of shallow foundations. In this paper, authors illustrate the merits, concerns, and challenges in execution of pile and well foundations through two case studies namely, execution of very long raker piles for Volta river bridge at Ghana in West Africa; and well foundations executed for Kosi river bridge situated in the state of Bihar in Eastern India. At Volta river bridge project, apart from overcoming major design and execution issues, variability in rock levels within a pile group supporting a pier posed a major challenge. Therefore, real-time monitoring and seamless coordination assumed a vital role between the site engineers at Ghana, design engineers in India and Italy to tackle likely variations in the Rock touch levels. Carrying out spontaneous corrective design became imminent without loss of time since, in the ensuing period of coordination, pile bore was kept open. At Kosi river bridge project, due to variations in the river discharge volume and sub-surface surprises, serious problems of tilt, shifting, and overturning were encountered during sinking operations of well foundation. The corrective measures and alternative solutions for the distressed well P125 are discussed in this paper. These case histories convey that such heavy foundations involve unknown challenges and their successful and quick remediations are key to preventing financial losses and project delay.</p>