Environmental Graffiti

The Most Beautiful Yet Precariously Placed Monasteries on Earth

For those whom the word means something more than a catch-me-if-I-fall donation to a toll free number, faith is a dizzying business. "The rocks beneath one’s feet are ever liable to crumble into the void, but that’s the test faith demands – and we shall be protected,” the crazies who built the perilously placed monasteries featured here seem to have been saying – unless they simply dug free rock climbing, that most ancient of extreme sports.

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The Buddhist Monastery that Rises 2,500ft from a Gigantic Lava Plug

Rising majestically out of the plains of central Burma, 2,417 feet up in the air atop an ancient, sheer-sided volcanic plug, the Buddhist monastery of Popa Taungkalat surveys the surrounding scene. An amazing example of a human construction merged organically with its natural setting, Taung Kalat also draws thousands of pilgrims each year because of its great spiritual significance.

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