This photo journal, part 1 of a 2 part series on the traditional kampungs (villages) on the west side of the island north & south of Balik Pulau, features the villages & traditional Malay houses & other structures Jon & I saw on the first part of that junket. There were several villages along the way & to be honest, I'm not sure which was which. We used highway P16 & P237 (Jalan Bahru), with a detour on P232.

The 8 villages we encountered or at least passed were Kampung (Kg) Sungai Pinang, Kg Sungai Rusa, Kg Pokok Manggis, Kg Bagan Air Hitam, Kuala J Baharu (P232), Kg Jln Baharu, Kg S Burung, & Kg Perlis. Pulau Betong will be featured in the next journal.

If anyone seeing this journal can identify the villages or the buildings, please let me know via a comment or email & I will update the captions.

The Traditional Malay house: Traditionally, the Malay house was designed & financed by the user, & built by the user & the village carpenters. It was a communal effort. Since the main occupation in the rural kampungs (villages) is fishing & padi-growing, most of the housebuilding occurred during their off-seasons.

The design-with-nature approach in the traditional Malay house, which has evolved over generations, is mainly its adaptations for the hot humid year-round climate. But the design also considers the multi-functional & flexible use of the space & possible future expansion.

The traditional Malay house is a timber house raised on stilts, basically a post-&-lintel structure with wooden or bamboo walls & a thatched roof. Windows are plentiful & provide good ventilation as well as views. The interior, which traditionally had only 2 rooms, the ‘core’ living space & the kitchen, is open with minimal partitions which also allows for good air circulation.

Sadly, the traditional Malay house & also the kampung, are becoming extinct, mainly because the urban building bylaws were extended to include the rural areas in 1978. These bylaws require formal building plans that must be approved by the local authorities before any house can be built or expanded. These plans must be drawn up by registered architects, most of whom have very little knowledge of traditional Malay houses. Few villagers can afford the service of an architect, & even if they could, few could read or interpret the plans once completed, so contractors must be hired to build the house, which is expensive & contrary to the original principles. Other factors in the demise of traditional Malay houses is the shortage of free or inexpensive traditional materials, especially wood, most of which is now headed to export markets. The traditional trade skills required to build the houses are dying out as well.

This is a very interesting paper about traditional Malay houses: All about Malay kampung houses: http://tcdc.undp.org/sie/experiences/vol4/Malay%20house.pdf