Shwedgaon Paya, Myanmar, 2003

Worshippers' candles illuminate the Shwedagon Paya, a gilded Buddhist pagoda that rises almost 330 feet (100 meters) in central Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma).

The temple, with its glittering spires and stupas, was immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his Letters from the East.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Blood, Sweat, and Toil Along the Burma Road, " November 2003, National Geographic magazine)