FACES OF MYANMAR
FEATURE Nº8
PORTRAITS OF A COUNTRY AWAKENING TO TOURISM IN 2017
Bagan - Mandalay - Loikaw - Taungoo - Yangon
By Eszter Papp &
Fraser Morton
A little girl dressed in celebratory dress rides a buffalo with her family to the village temple. We managed to get an invite to a shinbyu ceremony, the initiation for young children entering monkhood. In Myanmar children as young as 18 months take part, and today the whole village turned out to mark the occasion, located down a dusty path in farmlands about 20 kilometres outside Bagan.
We met her at the Mandalay Jade Market. She asked us where we were from. She liked our T-shirt, we liked her smile.
He was helping his mother wrap beetle nut quids at the Mandalay Jade Market. He told us he liked this photo of himself the best.
Burmese women ride atop a truck on the outskirts of Loikaw after a hard day's work laying a new road.
We met her on Kyauk Sit Tan, Mandalay's famed stone carving district. She was collecting donations for the nunnery.
We saw children wearing these little hats in Mandalay, Yangon and Bagan.
Loikaw
Bagan
The longneck grandmothers of Loikaw.
Future of Myanmar. Dalat Ferry, Yangon.
Attitude. Dalat Ferry, Yangon.
Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar.
Shwe Hile village on the outskirts of Bagan.
Bago Snake Temple
Mandalay at dusk down by the U Bein Bridge.
She asked to take our photograph with her friends while we were taking in the view at a dam just outside Loikaw. They were dressed in traditional tribal wear from the various states of Myanmar. They were on their way to a festival of diversity, she said. He friends wanted to take our photo. Of course, we had to oblige.
A very happy sister and brother duo outside of their e-bike rental store in Bagan.
Shinbyu ceremony, Shwe Hile village.
Entering the monkhood.
On his way to have his head shaved and enter the monkhood. Shwe Hile village.
Little nuns walk around the Mandalay Jade Market asking for donations.
Sharing is caring. Lunch for the nuns at the Mandalay Jade Market.
Watching his friends ride past on buffaloes at a shinbyu ceremony in Shwe Hile village.
Women do the bulk of the manual labour in the village of Pan San, Loi Kaw, including cotton farming, which the longneck tribeswomen the village is known for use to make their handicrafts, scarves and clothes.
Child stone carver, Mandalay.
Covered in stone dust, Mandalay.
The morning balloons about to take flight over Bagan.
A Chinese buyer inspects the quality of Jade from a Burmese supplier at the Mandalay Jade Market.
At an abondoned theme park in Yangon, a man watches his friends play chinlone.
Little monks take a stroll in the park. Yangon.
A lovely lady in Bagan.
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FF