Flowers in their hair: Shan boys ordained into Buddhist monkhood

The Buddhist celebration is unique to the Shan people of northeastern Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of whom have moved to Thailand during their country's decades of dictatorship and turmoil. Monks ritually shaved more than 40 boys' heads with razors, tufts of hair falling onto lotus leaves. In shimmering robes, jewellery and colourful floral headpieces, they were carried around the Ku Tao temple in Chiang Mai three times on relatives' shoulders, to the rhythmic beat of traditional gongs. "I've...