Burma

portrait of a Buddhist nun

Both boy and girl novitiates have their heads shaved. When they are this young, you can tell their sex by the colors of their robes. Nuns wear pink and gold and monks wear a maroon color.  Some of the children didn’t look much older than 5 or 6 years old. We kept wondering if they missed their mothers. 

Just because a person wears the robes of a monk or nun, it doesn’t mean that he will stay in the monastery for his whole life. Buddhists can stay in the monastery as long or as short a time as they want. Many stay for days or months in order to learn more about Buddhism. And they can re-enter and leave as many times as they want…quite different from Catholic religious orders. We were told that Buddhism is not a religion. It is a philosophy. Yet we saw people praying in front of a statue to Buddha, so it was a bit confusing. 

I spent 16 days in Burma or Myanmar as they call it. Myanmar is the ancient name for this country. (pronounced m’YAN ma). Burma is the name the British gave to the country since the dominant tribe is called Burman. 

Last January, I searched the internet for a photo tour to Burma but couldn’t find any for this year that weren’t full. Then I came upon Asia Photo Travel and Tours owned by Win Kyaw Zan who is a photographer himself. He has worked with top photographers such as Nevada Weir, Steve McCurry and Art Wolfe. See his website: http://asiaphototravel.com/ 

If he is good enough for those photographers, he is good enough for me. I scheduled a private tour for four after getting high compliments from some Californians who had recently toured Burma with Win. They weren’t photographers, though. But from the photos on Win’s website, I knew he would design a fabulous photo tour. And he did. 

Some mornings we rose early: for dawn photos of the hundreds or thousands of pagodas at Bagan, and to shoot the leg-rowing fishermen on Inle Lake. Win would engage monks, young and old to pose for us. We shot statues of Buddha in caves, monasteries and mountain tops. We shot villages and villagers, shot handicraft artisans, took trips in boats, and in pony carts. We went out in boats to shoot the U Bein bridge. Win hired villagers to pose for us and he choreographed some fantastic shots that I’ll be showing you. 

Win was generous with ideas and helped us in the low light conditions that were challenging for all of us. Two of our group were novice photographers, and Win made sure that they ‘got the shot’ and explained about metering and composition techniques. 

I can recommend a photo tour of Burma with Win wholeheartedly. The proof will be in the photos of Myanmar that I’ll be posting on my blog and in my portfolio page.