Burma- Shwedagon Pagoda and Mandalay Hill

My first sketches of Burma. Here are two monks waiting for the rain to stop in a rare moment of quiet at the Shwedagon Pagoda. Yangon is a big, busy city and the pagoda is one of the most popular tourist stops. After I finished drawing, the monk on the right enjoyed a cheeky cigarette. Burmese monks' robes are usually red, and the deeper the colour, the more senior the monk. Adult monks are usually dark burgundy, so either these were foreign, or they'd been demoted (for illicit smoking?)

This is the view from Mandalay Hill , made famous by the Kipling poem, which hasn't aged well -and is really talking about Mawlamyine. Mandalay is an interesting, laid back city, and it's worth going to for this view alone. Don't listen to the Lonely Planet.