In the fragile space between a dawn and a sunset, Lem leaves his family to become a novice in Luang Prabang, the holy city of Theravada Buddhism. To continue his studies and become an adult he must bear detachment, loneliness, hunger, fear and the sight of death: only through the rigours of the initiation rite does one gain a new maturity. In seven sections (Birth, The new home, The temple, A novice’s day, Water, The community, Rebirth), texts and pictures follow him through moments of serenity and of solitude. Wrapped in the orange robe, he joins a world of men only; but accompanying him, in the week before the Laotian New Year, waiting for the rain that will swell the Mekong and make the gold of the pagodas shine, is a female gaze, new and in a way forbidden: that of his mother and of the author. Together they enter the monks’ cells, sleep in the darkness of the temples and walk in silence into the forest where the masters retreat to meditate.