Burmese man lighting candles at the Planetary Post for the Sun, at the Shwedagon pagoda, Yangon, Burma. The most sacred pagoda in the country, it is plated with 8,688 slabs of solid gold, and the tip of its spire, set with 5,448 diamonds and 2,317 precious stones — rubies, sapphire and topaz — is set with a huge emerald to catch the first and last rays of the sun.