life in rangoon

the narrow escape of the monk

checkers

He was sitting alone at the board, singing to himself -- waiting for someone to come along and play.

bell at bohtataung

Midday in the hot season, Rangoon.

two monks, rangoon

At the entrance to monastery near Bohtataung in Yangon; two monks with their yats -- palm leaf fans that the monks all carry.

monastery stairs, mandalay

It is sacrilege to walk in monasteries, pagodas or temples in Burma with shoes on. The British colonialists made a point of doing it anyway, to assert their superiority.

blue door, mrauk u

At the museum in the ancient capital of Mrauk U, northwestern Burma.

monk with white mirror

the wife of the spirit

In Burma, spirits called nats live everywhere, and everyone knows it. To contact them, you talk to a nat kadaw -- a woman who has married a nat.

chrysalis

Every man in Burma becomes a monk at some point in his life; it is essential.

nuns at the gate, rangoon

burmese nun, kyaikhami

An old monastery built on stilts over the ocean, leading out to the Yele pagoda. Through the floorboards you could see water; the surge of the tide was always in your ears.

little brides in the convent

The two little brides were celebrities in Burma; Siamese twins who had been successfully separated some years before, and you saw them on television all the time. When a nun saw me take the picture, she smiled and said, "But we are brides of the Buddha, you see."

nuns and their teacher

nun, late afternoon

Her skin was like dried paper; she barely breathed, barely moved. Her eyes were lost in the shadows around her feet. "She is more than one hundred years old," a younger nun told me, as she took a tin cup from the older woman's hands.