Taung Kalat Buddhist monastery, Myanmar

December 1969 Issue

Taung Kalat Buddhist monastery, Myanmar

A precarious pyroclastic perch? August’s photo depicts the lovely Taung Kalat Buddhist monastery, which sits atop a 2,417-foot-high, sheer-sided volcanic plug that formed way off on the southwestern slope of 4,981-foot-high Mount Popa in central Myanmar.

It’s believed that 37 nats (demigods) make Taung Kalat their home, and there are festivals every year at which devotees, bearing flowers and other offerings, climb the 777 steps to the shrine at the top. Pilgrims and visitors are cautioned to keep an eye out for the resident macaque monkeys, who like to help themselves to anything not nailed down.

Twenty-one correct answers were sent in, and DORANNE JACOBSON of Springfield, Illinois, won the drawing. We thank Joan Poultney and Lewis Whitaker of Wilton, Connecticut, for contributing the photo.

Correct answers were sent in by:

Shirley Becker, Skokie, IL; Cathy Briner, Eugene, OR; Edwin Tobias Earl, Laguna Beach, CA; Lucille Fjoslien, San Francisco, CA; Dora Gropp, Anchorage, AK; Louis Haba, Somis, CA; Signe Haugen, San Carlos, CA; Magali Hinojosa, Laredo, TX; WINNER: Doranne Jacobson, Springfield, IL; Eddie Joseph, Encino, CA; Karyn Kandell, Kyoto, Japan; Steve Lopes, Lawrence, KS; Chuck Perelman, Culver City, CA; Tad Riley, Fairfield, CA; Joy Robinson, Palo Alto, CA; Helga Smith, New York, NY; Charles Twine, Durham, NC; Karen Watkins, Schenectady, NY; Violet White, Carmel, IN; Kathy Wilhelm, Cary, NC; and Michael & Janet Wincour, Beverly, MA.