Myanmar

According to an article in today's NY Times,"Myanmar’s per capita income is calculated at $175 a year, far below neighboring Bangladesh," setting this figure at roughly a third of the per capita incomes of either Sudan or Haiti. From the same piece:

The government’s budget for its AIDS program in 2004 was $22,000, according to a recent health survey by John Hopkins University Medical School.

The junta leader, Gen. Than Shwe, 73, whose early military training was in psychological warfare, was described by many here as a master manipulator of his minions. He insisted, apparently out of fear of a coup, that the capital be moved this year from Yangon, formerly Rangoon, to a new site in the jungle, Naypyidaw.

The move, costing millions of scarce dollars, was in step with the general’s belief that he marched in the footsteps of the old Burmese kings — the name of the new capital means “Royal City.” Then, as now, there was a fierce line between the rulers and the ruled.

For the first time, health workers said they were discovering severe malnutrition among children in urban centers, a true anomaly in a lush country that was once the world’s biggest exporter of rice.

An Intha boatman rowing with his leg, Lake Inle:

A monk at the floating Jumping Cat Monastery teaches cats to jump through a hoop, Lake Inle:

Novice monks studying at the country's third largest monastery, Bago:

The Golden Rock, a mansion-sized precariously perched gilded boulder at the very edge of a steep cliff, Kyatiyo:

Next to a gargantuan reclining buddha, Bagan:

Novice monks play soccer in an Intha village on the shore, Lake Inle:

The Mustache Brothers, Mandalay:

View of 4000 millenium-old temples, Bagan: