POSTCARDS
The area surrounding Taung Kwe Pagoda is considered holy ground, and all travellers are required to walk around barefoot
This shot of Buddhist monks
draped in red robes standing
atop Taung Kwe Pagoda did not
come easy – it took travelling to
an off-beaten track to hike 20 to
30 minutes barefoot for a
vantage point on top of a hill. I
went in February, which is the
perfect time to capture these
clouds of mist that give the area
its paradisiacal feel.LOIKAW, MYANMAR
On holy
ground
The red-billed leiothrix is native to the Himalayas and parts of central China, and prefers forested hill regionsManish Mandhyan is a marketing
consultant from Kolkata, IndiaI took this image on one
of my annual trips to the
mountains of Uttarakhand. The
red-billed leiothrix is one of the
resident birds here. I had failed to
get a good image on my previous
trips, but on this one I could see
them in large flocks. Since they
are very restless birds, they
hardly stay in the same spot for
more than a second. I had to wait
with my camera focused on this
branch for a long time before
these two came and sat on it. I just
had a split second to take this
shot, and I was glad I did!UTTARAKHAND, INDIA
Double bill
Handi Laksono is a photography enthusiast
based in Surabaya, Indonesia