The pickled tea leaf that is called laphet, is eaten at all time of day, perhaps as the end of a meal or as a snack. According to the Myanmar’s tradition, the lapetthoke (pickled tea leaves salad) will be served when visitors arrive. On such occasions, a drink of local green tea and the laphettoke filled with laphet, crunchy dried peas and beans, peanuts, garlic, fried garlic, toasted sesame and green chilli will be served.

Nan Gyi Thoke often called the spaghetti of Myanmar is another popular breakfast food. However it is available from morning till afternoon as some people eats regardless of time. The dish is is prepared by mixing curried chicken and the rice noodle adding onion shreds, scallions and par-boiled bean sprouts as individual’s preference. It is very delicious meal.

It is fish mashed with bones and all. A moist paste product and use a little for boiling. It is very popular side dish in Myanmar, especially the Myanmar and Karen tribes. The mashed pressed fish (Ngapiyegyo) is boiled with onions, tomato, garlic, pepper and other spices. The result is a greenish-grey broth-like sauce, which makes its way to dining table. Fresh, raw or blanched vegetables and some fruits (such as cabbage, tomato, green mangos, chilli, onions and garlic) are dipped into the Ngapiyegyo and the enjoyable with rice. Sometimes, in less affluent families Ngapiyegyo forms the main dish, and also the main source of rich protein.

In Myanmar, Kaut Nyin Paung is mostly served for the breakfast or sometime at the tea time in the afternoon. It is usually steamed with special steamed cookies in Shan State, while the Myanmar people seem to cook it just like the normal rice. Steamed black and white glutinous rice has firmer texture and of course more delicious, while the cooked one is soft. It is usually prepared the black and white mixture of sticky rice with sesame powder, salt and coconut shreds.

Mote Lone Yay Paw is a traditional sweet rice balls. In Myanmar language, it means the snack that floats on water. It is usually stuffed with palm sugar. The food is often served during the celebration of Myanmar New Year Festival, which is also known as Thingyan.

Thingyan, a four day festival that ushers in the Myanmar New Year, is the biggest holiday of the year in Myanmar. It usually starts on April 13th. Most of the cities and towns makeshift pavilions with stages for singing and dancing are erected and barrels are filled with water. Young people dance and sing on the stages and throw water on anyone who passes on the road.

Pyar Thalet means the honeycomb. The snack is baked with the rice flour batter as the shaped of honeycomb. It is made in two types with or without palm sugar syrup. With palm sugar syrup is made for sweet taste. But, traditionally, the mont pyar thalets are without palm sugar syrup.

It means the couple or husband and wife snack. It is made with rice flour batter fried in the hemispherical shape dimpled pan and joins 2 pieces. Because of joining 2 pieces, this snack figure as the husband and wife.

Thingyan (The Water Festival) is the most interesting and greatest occasion for merry-making with the largest number of people taking part in it throughout the country. During the Thingyan Festival, people pour water over one another to the melodious tunes of singing and dancing at the decorated pavilions. Pouring water signifies cleansing the body and mind of evils of the past year. During these auspicious days, Myanmar people perform a lot of meritorious deeds to usher in the New Year such as keeping Sabbath, going to pagodas and monasteries, offering food and aims to monks, paying respect to parents, teachers and elders, setting free fish and cattle and so on. Thingyan is a distinctive festival which is always awaited with great joy and excitement by Myanmar people every year.

The most spectacular event of the year is the Hot Air Balloon Festival held every November in Taunggyi commonly called the Taunggyi Tazaungdaing Festival. Thousands of local pilgrims and international tourists choose to visit Taunggyi, especially to watch scores of giant paper animals being inflated and floated off into the sky. The competitions run during the day and at night when the sky is colorfully illuminated with hot air balloons. Hot air balloon in theshape of elephant , ox, horse, water buffalo, bird, pig, fish, owl, and parrot are sent up into the sky.

TAUNG PYONE means a hill which is full of smile to represent the atmosphere of the festival with smiling people with their mood of happiness in the festival, is a small village situated about 10 km north of Mandalay, on the road between Mandalay and Mogok. It normally takes 45 minutes by car or by a motorcycle from downtown Mandalay to reach the Taung Pyone festival.But except the usual festive traffic jams. Famous TAUNG PYONE or NAT FESTIVAL is always held in the month of August and in Myanmar lunar Calendar, the 10th waxing day of Wagaung and is held for 8 days. The history of the Taung Pyone Pagoda dates back to Bagan Period. During the era of King ANAWRAHTA, on one occasion the king camped around that Taung Pyone area and would like to donate a land mark pagoda there and ordered the army to contribute their personal labour individual regardless of ranks and positions in the construction of pagoda. However In the King’s Army, there were two young generals named Shwe Phyin Gyi and Shwe Phyin Lay who were adopted sons of the King and were believed to posess tremendous power in physical that is invisible were very popular among others.

As youngsters, they enjoy drinking and gambling all the time and missed to obey the King’s order to contribute their parts which became an opportunity for the jealous ministers to make a plot by not placing the two bricks that were supposed to be done by the two generals.

So the two bricks were missing after completion of the pagoda (The space for the missing bricks is still there). When the King found out space without bricks as a sign of treasonous act, he ordered to execute the two heroes and since then they became Nats (Spirits), and the King deified them as the guardian spirits of the area. They are the most popular among the 37 Nats deified by the people.

This festival in their honour is attended by tens of thousands of mediums and worshippers like traditional festival. Series of 37 Nat statues on the stands are offered food and “Zun Pann”, white beautiful flowers, but not pork products, cash and alcohol. The mediums entertain the crowds with Nat dance with the traditional Nat music and performance during night and day. The whole area is occupied with circus and cultural dances, music and magic shows, fortune tellers and tattoo shops. Thousands of people are visiting the Nats Pavilions to consult a medium for their future prospects and fortunes. Orchestras come to play for the mediums who dance to make the spirits ‘joyful’. Some pilgrims come to the festival for worship and traditional festival but others come for fun. Some wait the whole year to take part to this special event because their wishes came true and fulfilled after they worshiped the two brothers. They believe that the two brothers have power to grant wealth to their followers.

Bathing day is the most popular time of the festival, drawing large crowds. Festival-goers wash the images of the Taungbyone brothers in the nearby river before they are placed in a shrine where pilgrims can make offerings. People who visit the festival every year have their own beliefs, optimistically hoping that their business, social life, health and everything else will prosper when they touch the palanquin carrying the images.

During the festival you can find many shops selling traditional crafts – handmade necklaces, bracelets, different children’s toys, snacks and local products.

Even if you are not actually a Nat believer, you will be amazed with circus, cultural dances and magic shows as an unforgettable day.

There are two pagodas which enshrine footprints of the Buddha. The site is on the bank of Mann Creek where bamboo cabins are erected every year for local travellers to enjoy cool swims during the heat of summer.

During Tazaungdaing Festival, the Shwedagon is the scence of an event of national interest, the Mathothingan weaving contest. From evening till before midnight, girl weavers feverishly vie with each other to be the first to complete weaving a yellow robe. The robes, four in number,are offered to the four images on the Pagoda representing the Four Buddhas: Kakkasanda, Konagamana, Kassapa and Gotama.

Naga New Year Festival is one of the rarest ceremonies in Myanmar. There are more than 49 different clans with their own distinctive dresses and dialects. They usually gather annually to celebrate the New Year which falls on January 15.Package tours are available to visit the Naga New Year Festival of Myanmar.

In Pyin Oo Lwin, an expanded flower festival is annually held at the National Kandawgyi Botanical Garden from 1st December for about two weeks. Pyin Oo Lwin is a scenic hill station and it is located in Shan highland at an altitude of 1070m. More than 130,000 foreign flower species and local flower species are displayed in the festival. It is situated about 67 km from Mandalay and be accessed by car from all parts of the country.

The Kachins ; one of the major races of Myanmar, take great part in this festival and many Kachins from abroad come back to meet and dance at this special event. The Manaw dance is performed at Manaw Festival which originated as part of the Nat or spirit worship of the past.

Elephant dance competition is celebrated at the Light Festival on full moon day of Thadingyut period which falls

mostly in October. It is held in Kyaukse, situated on the Yangon – Mandalay Highway Road near Mandalay. On the first day, two men took place inside the colorfully decorated elephant figure, made of clothe and bamboo and paper decorated with tapestry and participate in dance competitions. The elephant with the best dance performance and behaviour wins the gold. Food and flowers are offered to the Shwethalyaung pagoda on the second day.