Pictures of vistas, made from high hills or tall buildings, are a staple of travel photography. They are made so often, they have become travel clichés. Most are literal descriptions, and are not able to replicate the experience of being there. I usually avoid making such pictures, and hesitated making this one – until I saw the three monks on the rooftop in the foreground. The monks add expressive meaning to the picture, because of their scale incongruity and symbolic presence. Sagaing is a center of Burmese Buddhism, the temples that fill the picture are Buddhist temples, and what better way to humanize the image and make it speak than including three Buddhist monks on the temple roof in the foreground? A few moments later, they were gone. The opportunity to turn a cliché into a fresh vision was fleeting, and I was fortunate to have been there when those monks were walking on that roof.