long trip

Mandalay is the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located 445 miles (716 km) north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of one million, and is the capital of Mandalay Region. Mandalay is the economic hub of Upper Burma and considered the center of Burmese culture. Mandalay is also known for its monks. Half of the country’s monks reside in Mandalay and surrounding areas. After our flight from Yangoon, we went directly to “Marble Street”. It’s a street where most marble buddha statues are made. They are made by men with drills and angle grinders and then polished by hand by the women. The entire street is filled with marble dust, it’s everywhere. We stayed for about 1 hour...

Depending of whom you ask, dust at Burning Man is a curse or a blessing. It’s a curse because when the wind is picking up, a dust storm can be really strong and makes your life miserable. You will get playa dust everywhere: in your eyes (invest in goggles), on your hair/body/clothes, inside your RV (or tent), inside your cooler, inside your engine (what! oh yes), inside your camera gear. For others (myself included), I love dust and dust storms. I cannot wait for the first strong dust storm, I literally run in the dust storm with my camera. For me, the dust storm brings the real burning man. Experienced (or well-equipped) burners don’t mind the dust and suddenly everything is covered in this fine sand. Suddenly burners sport great goggles, masks,...

It’s this time of year! By the time you will read this post, I will be driving to the Black Rock City to Burning Man. If you want to see what the drive is, here a time lapse video I made last year while we drove. [vimeo vimeo.com/73748066 w=880] Burning Man is a massive self-reliance art festival in the Nevada high desert. This year event is completely sold out with 68000 people expected. The idea of Burning Man is to be able to dedicate yourself to the spirit of community, art, and self-expression. If you have not seen my pictures about last year burning man, they are here.

Monks are very present in Myanmar, there are between 400,000 and 500,000 professional monks in a country of about 50 million people. Our photo leader (Tuan) had arranged that we could photograph some young monks (called novices) during an entire afternoon.  Monks rise very early for the alms offering and then have their lunch quite early (around 11am). Since we went and photograph the sunrise that morning, we went to visit a monastery right before their lunch. Monks raised at the monastery were, I guessed, between the age of 5 to 12.  Novices were generally pretty happy to have their photo taken. Their lunch is mainly composed of rice and vegetables. When the gong rings, they form a line from the youngest to the oldest. Each brings his bowl in which he gets a...

After landing in Bagan early in the morning, we went directly to the Shwesandaw pagoda, which offers an impressive view of Bagan and makes you understand why it is so popular. From the upper terrace, you can see hundreds of Buddhist temples and monuments. Bagan was once the capital city of the first Kingdom of Pagan. During the kingdom’s height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas still survived to the present day. To give you an idea, it’s like starting a new temple or monument EVERY week (on average) for 200 years. While in Bagan, we went to the Shwesandaw three times (mid-morning, sunset and...

The three pagodas are not as visited by tourists as the Shwedagon or the Sule pagodas but are absolutely worth a visit. First the Kyaukhtatgyi is home of a 229-foot long reclining Buddha statue. Almost across the street from the Kyaukhtatgyi Pagoda, is the Nga that gyi Pagoda which contains the 5-story high sitting Buddha. The Botataung is near the Yangon river and is 2500 years old. The fist image is the interior of the Botataung pagoda. It’s a maze of walls made of gold plates where people come and pray. It is believed that  the pagoda was erected some 2500 years ago by the Mon tribe. However the pagoda was completely destroyed by a RAF raid in 1943. The pagoda rebuilding process started on the same day that the country gained independence from the...