Mahāgandhāyon Monastery, Mandalay, Myanmar - Hundreds of young monks line up in for lunch at the Mahāgandhāyon Monastery, one the largest Buddhist universities in Myanmar. Every morning the students line up in procession before preparing and eating their meals in silence. It takes seven to ten years for monks to complete their education at the monastery.

Mandalay, Myanmar – Every day at 4:00am there is a ceremonial washing of the Buddha’s golden face at the Mahamuni Buddha Temple. I arranged to pay the front desk attendant where I was staying to take me across the city on the back of his motorbike so I could see the sacred ceremony. So at 3:30 in the morning, sans-helmet, we sped through dark streets and alleys of the city to get to the temple. He waited for me outside while I took photos. Inside, I was the only white person there, and there was a gate where monks and certain people (men only) could get closer to the Buddha and pray, but there was also a security guard. An elderly monk dressed in white motioned to me to come with him, as the security guard wasn’t about to let me past, but the monk said something to him in a Burmese dialect and he let us through, where the monk led me right to the front and centre of the Buddha to take photos.