Making Thingyan Special Treat for your Myanmar Luxury Tours

If you are about to go on luxury tours to Myanmar this April, you will have a chance to celebrate Burmese New Year. It will be a four-day festival which is also called Thingyan Water Festival. This is also a chance to learn how to make Mont Lone Yay Paw - a Thingyan special treat. 
You can learn from your Myanmar excursions that: The sight in which people get together into huge crowds and throw water onto each other seemingly madly with anything in their hands is the sign of Thingyan’s start. They have water fights in the in the spirit of mischievous fun and hope those bad things will be washed away and a wealthy, happy and lucy year is coming. Moreover, the sunshine yellow Padauk flowers that are blossoming, and the sweet snack known as Mont Lone Yay Paw (or mote lone yay paw) that are dished up to everyone are also the indispensable part of Thingyan Water Festival.

Mont Lone Yay Paw is a traditional Burmese dessert which is similar to Malaysia's Onde Onde, China's Tangyuan and Indonesia's Klepon. Its importance can be described as how plum pudding is essential to Christmas Day. In other words, if you're having a pud to celebrate the occasion, dreaming of nothing but Mont Lone Yay Paw to enjoy the festival is what to do in Myanmar during Thingyan.


The name of this special treat literally means "round snack on the water" in Burmese. This is because locals make it by boiling up balls of rice along on top of the bubbling water and all Myanmar cruises to any region can give you a chance to do this with the locals. Besides, the balls are stuffed with palm jaggery* which can be substituted with palm sugar. 

Jaggery: A traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar consumed in Asia, Africa and some countries in the Americas. It is a concentrated product of date, cane juice, or palm sap (see palm sugar) without separation of the molasses and crystals, and can vary from golden brown to dark brown in color.

Thingyan is considered a good time to play fun and make memories. In this way, some mischievous people might stuff the occasional ball with bird's eye chilies then offer them to friends who have no ideas what is going on (Maybe, this is one of the best things to do in Myanmar during Thingyan!). Mont Lone Yay Paw is usually served on a square of a banana leaf and occasionally scattered with grated coconut if such a luxury is available. 

Mont Lone Yay Paw is a symbol of Thingyan because making it gives friends and family members a valuable chance to get together into a big group, chatting and eating over rolling the balls and throwing hem into the water. This is really the nicest thing about the traditional food. Joining this with locals will make your Myanmar luxury tours become unforgettable. 

 

Here is some Myanmar travel guide to make around 20 - 30 balls of Mont Lone Yay Paw:

Ingredients: 400g glutinous rice flour, 100g rice flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 125ml water, drop of green food coloring (optional), 200g palm sugar which divided into 1cm balls or chunks, 4 bird's eye chilies (optional), handful of fresh grated or desiccated coconut

 
Burmese palm jaggery

Now, following this Myanmar recipe to make balls for your luxury tours: 

•  Purify the flours and salt into a large bowl and mix them completely. Pour the water and knead into the mixture until it forms a pliable dough. 
•  For half the balls to be green, divide the dough into two and add the food coloring to one-half, and knead again till the color spreads evenly.
•  Take a small piece of dough, roll it into a ball with about a 3cm diameter and then spread it over a circle. 
•  Put a chunk of palm sugar in the middle of the circle and then roll the dough back into a ball so you cover the chunk of sugar up completely.
•  Fill a stockpot or large saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Once it's ready, drop the balls in one by one. 
•  They will sink to the bottom at first, but then float to the surface of the water when they're ready. 


 


•  Remove the balls with a slotted spoon, and dish up on squares of banana leaf or saucers
•  Scatter the balls with the shredded coconut and serve whilst still warm.

Now that you have your own  Mont Lone Yay Paw, joining locals in their featured activities like this really brings to your Myanmar luxury tours more memorable things.