I am sitting with Kyaw as he finishes his work at the scullery of the restaurant where he works. He is showing me the pictures he has saved in his mobile. It is an amazing collection. Amongst personal snapshots of himself and friends, there are pictures of naked women downloaded from the Internet, pious Buddhist images (he is Buddhist), pictures of memorabilia from Rakhine state, Myanmar, and, alas, flowers (he says these words in English, whereas the rest of our conversation is in Malay).

A few pictures intrigued me. One was of very old coins from the ancient kingdom of Arakan; one had a cow (he stated that in ancient times, the cow could not be eaten); another had ancient Arakanese script (Arakanese is a language related to Burmese, though they are mutually largely unintelligible); and a third showing the Arakanese coat-of-arms.

Inevitably, in my experience with other workers from Rakhine, there are also images of Mrauk-U, the old Arakanese royal capital whose impressive ruins still stand today. It is not very often visited by tourists, and is far less famous than its considerably better known (and more ancient) counterpart, namely, Pagan or Bagan, the old Burmese royal capital in Central Burma. Yet the ruins of Mrauk-U still look very impressive...