“My dream is to see Lenggong become a model of community-based tourism. I’ve seen many examples of how tourism done right can bring prosperity to a community, and my hometown has so much to offer the world!

Because of my extensive exposure to hospitality with fine hotel brands for almost two decades and my own travels, I learned that culture is something that people cannot copy. I believe that promoting a cross-cultural experience is an important pillar of tourism. 

As a Pattani descendant, I try to inject cultural elements into the whole Rumah Tiang 16 experience. For the past few years, I’ve brought in locals to share their skills and knowledge in heritage crafts. 

Out of the nearly 300 guests of 25 nationalities I’ve hosted, 90 per cent are from other ethnicities. They are always curious about life in a traditional Malay kampung. I’ve seen the delight in their eyes when they try their hand at weaving, making bedak sejuk — a traditional Malay skin powder — when they’ve experienced a true forest-to-fork lunch, or the simple act of sarong donning! Many guests become self-appointed ambassadors, promoting Lenggong after the Rumah Tiang experience. This is my ‘booster jab.’ 

By showing locals that their traditions and heritage is invaluable, and considered a treasure by outsiders, I hope to encourage the younger generation to learn and inherit this precious heritage, turn it into a sustainable living, and carry it into the future. 

I am very lucky to come across a few families who are willing to share a piece of their lifestyle with visitors. Without them, I would not be able to come up with the quintessential Rumah Tiang 16 homestay experience that showcases the “stars” of Lenggong in archaeology, anthropology and ecology. 

Kampung folks are usually very shy. They don't have much, but they have enough. With rice and salt at hand, people in the rural area can survive. For their protein, they can just catch some fish or do some trapping for bush meat. The locals feel very happy that people from the world over come to experience the little things that they have. 

I truly believe the very essence of a nation lies in the pockets of the pockets of the rural population, in the interior, not in a big metropolis.

“The first time I met Nash was in 2019. He came over to my neighbour Mak Lang’s house because he wanted to see how she made atap rumbia (thatched roof). It is a craft that requires skill. After that, he brought two guests who wanted to learn from Mak Lang. That was how I knew that Nash was the son of a Lenggong teacher, and after being overseas many years, he wanted to create tourism awareness amongst locals.  

After that first visit, he continued to bring more people. Somebody in the kampung would provide lunch while Mak Lang would serve the guests a sweet at the end of the meal, cendol sagu rumbia. I provided the sago using our harvest from sago palm trees in our garden. 

Then during one of the visits, Nash’s lunch caterer couldn’t make it. He asked me if I could do the cooking that day so that he could bring them over to my house instead of taking the guests to another place. 

Honestly, I panicked a little at the beginning. I had nothing fancy to serve the guests, no meat or chicken. But Nash told me, ‘No need. The guests are interested in eating something traditional, kampung cooking.’ He told me to just cook what my family eats, using whatever I have. So that’s how we began. We initially started at an old dangau (shelter) in my orchard that seats only a few people. Later we expanded it to cater for groups of 20 to 25 people. 

I really enjoy having guests come to my home. It gives me so much pleasure to see people from all over the world enjoying dishes that are unique to our kampung such as ikan pekasam, gulai rambutan, sambal nyior, masak lemak and many more. I learnt these dishes from my mother and grandmother before I got married.

I have not worked outside, as my responsibilities as a mother and homemaker take up all my time. In addition to taking care of my five children, I also look after our orchard, where we plant fruit trees, herbs and vegetables for our own consumption. One of my daughters helps me with the cooking for Rumah Tiang 16, so I get to pass on my skills and knowledge to her.

Before Nash came into the picture, we didn’t have many visitors to Lenggong even after the UNESCO award was given. Nash explained that his intention was to introduce Lenggong to the outside world. He said that we have a lot of history and culture and by sharing it, we can preserve the future of Lenggong. When he started, there were naysayers. But now they can see with their own eyes, there is a regular stream of visitors from both local and overseas.

I am happy I got to play a part in this change. 

We started working with Nash in 2019, but had to stop during the pandemic for more than a year. During that difficult period, we had to survive on my husband’s pension. Now that the borders have opened again and we are back in business, the extra income enables me to treat my family, buy clothes and give pocket money to my six grandchildren when they come back to Lenggong. 

We are very thankful to Nash for helping to bring all the visitors to Lenggong. We nicknamed Nash the tourism ambassador of Lenggong. I hope we will continue to work together so that our community will benefit from tourism and our town can prosper.”

“I’ve had four years of experience in this region before we set up Habre’s Nest here in Kaiakata. Under the parent organisation Forest Dwellers, Habre’s Nest was our first project which is also rooted in sustainable tourism around rare species. While the red panda is our flagship animal, our intention is to protect the entire habitat. We undertake work where work is required but not enough is being done.

We decided to base our interventions here in Singalila because the belt extending from Nepal to the Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh onwards to Bhutan, Myanmar, and China, is the best remaining habitat for red pandas in the wild. Singalila can be considered the epicentre of red panda distribution and could play a vital role in enabling the fragments to connect.

We chose Kaiakata even though the weather can be harsh at times because the views are unobstructed and it is surrounded by greenery on the Nepal and Indian side of the border which increases the probability of sighting the red panda.

We've captured more than 4,000 photographs of wild red pandas over a period of four years through tourism and achieved 98 per cent sighting of the red panda for our guests since 2016.

Our goal is to assign this area the status of a red panda reserve, which would aid with conservation while continuing to track and document red pandas and hosting tourists who might be inspired to do something on their own. We want to continue working with government authorities towards improved regulation within and around the national park to minimise and eventually, eliminate the harm being caused by unregulated tourism.”

Read more about Habre's Nest here.  

“I am from Maneybhanjang and have been associated with Shantanu and Habre’s Nest from the beginning. I’ve been a part of this initiative from when we were building this homestay ground up in 2016. Today, as a tracker who supports conservation, I earn enough to support my family.

Before, I didn’t understand anything or know enough about the red panda, even though I, like many others, would see them. Now, I understand the need for conservation and the value it adds to the biodiversity here. I understand better some of the behaviour of the red panda from having been able to observe it in its natural habitat.

Until a few years ago, the means for livelihood within and around these villages here were threadbare so some people would set traps and poach red pandas to sell the fur on the black market or sell the animal itself as a pet.

Today things are a lot different. There are laws prohibiting and penalising poaching. But there’s awareness and a change in behaviour too. Employment opportunities exist, thanks to the booming tourism.

As trackers, we do our bit to sensitise villagers every day. After all, it’s because of the red panda and these sensitisation trainings that Kaiakata has gotten visibility on the map and sees tourists from all over the globe.

Quite naturally, it has also brought competition and envy from peers within the tourism sector here. There have been instances when rumours are spread and Habre’s Nest gets wrongly accused, including that we keep red pandas inside the property. which is obviously ridiculous. Some things will need more time to change, I guess.”

Read about Habre's Nest here. 

Photo courtesy of Shantanu Prasad

"As a homestay owner with Himalayan Ark, tourism has been my main source of income since 2010. During the pandemic, we suddenly found ourselves with no income but a lot of time on our hands. This was an opportune time to revive the craft of weaving with the forgotten backstrap loom. 

Till some 50 years ago, when trade flourished between our Johar Valley and Tibet, my Bhotiya forefathers and their families led a transhumant lifestyle — we would travel in caravans with their sheep herds, traversing a fixed migration route that stretched from the trade posts in Tibet, through Johar valley in summer and down to the plains of north India in winter. At each padav (campsite), the women set up their handy pitthi – backstrap looms – and wove with the wool gathered from their sheep. 

But in 1962, the Sino-Indian war put an abrupt end to the trade and with it, to our lifestyle. Our families settled in villages and began weaving on the more conventional looms. Over the years, the craft of the backstrap loom began to fade, living only in the memories of older women.

It was the karbachh — woolen saddlebags that were strapped onto sheep to carry trade goods like salt and dry rations — that first caught our attention. Woven on a backstrap loom, its classic design and weave ensured that it was durable and weather-proof. Could we relearn the craft, and adapt it to our settled lives?

To our dismay, we could locate only a couple of backstrap looms in the village. People had either lost them, burnt them as firewood, or used its main shaft as a bat to play cricket. It was also challenging to find someone to train us. We learnt that there were still some skilled women in Paton, a village across the valley. The young weaver who came to teach us though, had to first ask Nomi Datal, a 92-year-old weaver, for a quick tutorial, despite her poor eyesight.

We spent the quiet months of the lockdown learning to cast the warp on pegs driven into the ground, and use this mobile loom to weave with the local coarse wool that nowadays is discarded by shepherds for want of a market. 

I cherish the happy hours we spent weaving fabric for upholstering chairs, and making bags and belts – and felt a quiet sense of triumph in keeping this craft from slipping through the fingers of time. 

Although we no longer weave our own clothes, our craft lives on. Travellers who come to stay with us can buy items made from local wool, often dyed with local plants, with motifs and designs inspired by nature. 

We’ll be thrilled to share with them the craft of weaving on our traditional looms, so when they go back to their worlds, they’d have experienced a touch of the magic that comes with creating our own cloth."

Read more about Himalayan Ark here

Meet Trilok of Himalayan Ark here

“I live in Sarmoli village, located about 7,500 feet above sea level, close to the Indo-Nepal-Tibet tri-junction in Uttarakhand. 

I come from a family of farmers, but cultivation has become challenging because of predation by wildlife from the forest around our home. In the past two decades, I turned to tourism and became a bird guide with Himalayan Ark.

With the pandemic, tourism came to a grinding halt. My guiding work suddenly stopped too. At that time, a local organisation was training carpenters in likhai – the ancient art of wood carving.

Growing up, I had always wondered, who built those ornately carved door and window frames, with no electricity or power tools? How much time would it have taken them? Where were these artists now? 

By my youth, people were no longer building traditional homes with stone and slate roofs. You could only see carvings on abandoned and dilapidated homes, or in the high-altitude villages of our valleys.

With time on my hands, I joined the workshop. I learnt that with no demand for traditional houses, hardly any artisans were left in the region to even teach the craft. Carpentry was originally practised by artisans of the Ohri caste, but they no longer pursued this profession. So migrant carpenters from the state of Bihar were employed to conduct the likhai training.

Till three decades ago, wood from walnut and yew trees was used for carving door and window frames, but neither is easily available in our forests now. I chose to make a mirror frame with walnut wood during the workshop. Using hand tools that were also crafted locally, I carved a simple but attractive traditional design of leaves. It took me seven days to complete the frame!

In the six slow months of the pandemic, about 20 of us got the opportunity to try our hand at wood carving. We made traditional objects like the mor pithak (boxes used to keep vermillion, sandalwood and rice for auspicious occasions), trinket boxes, trays, lampshades and even chairs. While some used walnut wood, others used the more easily available toon wood, both of which are fine-grained and lend themselves to carving.

The doors and window frames of our village homestays now have a traditionally carved façade that brings back a touch of the old beauty to our homes. When guests come to stay with us, they can get a glimpse of our past heritage. 

Those who want to dive deeper into our culture have the unique opportunity to try their hand at carving small artefacts to take home with them.

As for me, I gifted my work of art to my new wife, and it proudly adorns my home.”

Read more about Himalayan Ark here

Meet Bina here 

“I had actually been buying up old houses for years, dismantling them piece by piece, and storing them in my backyard. But only in 2006, did the perfect storm create the right conditions to build my dream resort, when I found a piece of freehold land for sale on Penarik beach. 

My accountant was dismayed. He told me Penarik was not a tourist destination. I was better off investing my money in Langkawi, Bali, Phuket. I stayed firm. It must stay in Terengganu, or else it will disappear. 

The project ended up costing RM10 million. It was hard to get banks to approve the project. I had to sell my properties and my cars to fund it. Some of my staff resigned because they were worried for their livelihoods. People called it ‘Projek Orang Gila’ (Crazy Man’s Project). 

But the longer I worked on the project, the more I was convinced that I made the right call. From doing this, I could see the magic of the traditional houses. They are built without a single nail, using an ancient technique called pasak, so you can dismantle the structures like Lego. Imagine, this kind of innovation existed hundreds of years ago in Asia, yet we worship the West.

During construction, over 5,000 people came to see what we were building. Some, like artist Chang Fee Ming, were moved to contribute gifts: he created kisaran semangat, a unique water feature by the swimming pool that symbolises the cycles of life. Another artist created our logo, free of charge. Their encouragement motivated me to keep going.

Since opening, we’ve developed our own niche fans. This is not a place for everybody. We have more inquiries from foreigners than locals. Locals complain that it’s hot, buruk (Bahasa Melayu for “old”), dark, haunted. I joke, ‘I am a big bomoh and I will scare away all the ghosts!’ But seriously, how come you can travel to Europe and it’s okay to stay in a 600-year-old castle hotel? How do we implant into Malaysians a deeper appreciation for their identity and values? 

Since completing Terrapuri, one of our carpenters has gone on to restore a RM3 million (US$710,000) museum and other houses in Sungai Lembing. Lately, the Terengganu State Government restored Rumah Haji Su, a house at Kampung Losong. Other people started buying and restoring old houses for their own collection. But we have to be careful. The problem comes when foreigners buy them and bring them back to their countries. Even we get a lot of offers. 

During the process, I met so many carpenters, house owners and villagers who opened my eyes to the richness of our local heritage. If nobody champions all this, our history is in danger of disappearing.”

Read more about Terrapuri here.

Meet Wati of Terrapuri here

“I have been working at Terrapuri since August 2015. After my divorce, I was looking for a job and asked the cook here whether Terrapuri was hiring. I was worried because I had not worked for a while, but she told me to just come here the next day. 

For me, the work here is not difficult because it’s like our housework at home. We prepare breakfast for the guests, clean the rooms, keep the surroundings tidy. The only difference is, we have to communicate frequently with foreigners using a language that’s not our mother tongue. 

Initially, I felt rendah diri (Bahasa Melayu for ‘inferior') because I am not good at speaking English. If it’s local guests, I can handle. The other kakak (local ladies) told me they too were raw and inexperienced in hospitality when they arrived. They told me, ‘Don’t worry, you can learn on the job.’ 

I had a strong desire to try and learn. If I could excel at my job, then I can provide a good livelihood for my child. 

When I started, I made a lot of mistakes. People say ‘tea time’. I say, ‘time tea’! I could understand what they wanted when they spoke to me, but when I wanted to answer, I didn’t know how to put the words in the proper order. 

It took time, but my English has improved tremendously. Now I enjoy getting to know our guests and comparing their lives to ours. They are like our window to the outside world. 

With stable finances, I’ve been able to gradually upgrade my lifestyle. I’ve bought a new washing machine and TV for my home. I am thankful to Mr Lee for employing locals from nearby villages to improve their economy. At Terrapuri, all the staff are locals, unlike big hotels that employ foreigners. 

When I first saw Terrapuri, I was shocked. I had never seen any place like this. Here, you really get a kampung atmosphere and lifestyle. 

When people come here, we are excited to promote our traditional food. What’s the use of flying thousands of miles from the West only to eat spaghetti? They can get it in their countries. When visitors come, we must introduce them to our heritage food like ayam hikayat. 

I hope this resort will stand strong. You need a place like this to let the next generation know about the arts and crafts of Malay culture. Nowadays, children typically stay in big cities; they only know apartments and stone houses. Where else in Malaysia can you find beautiful traditional houses like these [in one location]?

”Read more about Terrapuri here.

 Meet Alex Lee of Terrapuri here. 

“Why do we call ourselves Watubo? Watu means ‘rock,’ and bo means ‘breath’ or ‘soul.’  So Watubo means ‘breathing rock’ or ‘living rock.’ It represents our belief that no matter how hard a place home is, we will certainly survive.

Watubo strengthens this community’s bonds. Before, we just sold what we had. Now we take orders and distribute jobs so that all our weavers get their fair share.

Ikat used to be taught based on intergenerational experience. But here, we enhance it with other knowledge, market demands, and customising for designers.

Our finances improved. Some weavers have supported their children through university. I had nothing before Watubo — now I’ve bought a house and a motorbike. I am reaching prosperity. I have everything I need.

The hardest thing about teaching young weavers is patience. Teens today have phones and get distracted. I let them come around on their own terms — otherwise, I’d lose them. 

But once they manage to sell their work, they start earning, they no longer need to ask for their parents’ provision, that’s when they start committing.

Likewise, our weavers are patient in teaching travellers. The goal is to have travellers understand how our ikat is made, bringing home a scarf produced with their hands-on participation, and a story to share.

I hope to retain the youth’s interest in ikat, so that the next generation would sustain Watubo. I hope young ones abroad will come home and look after our village. Even if they aren’t weavers, I hope they will develop our ikat using the knowledge and relations they gained out there.

As weavers, we don’t want our traditions pirated through printed fabrics or the mass production happening in Central Java. Our ikat bears the values of our ancestors, and our motifs tell stories of our people’s unity. 

Industries wanting to produce something creative should capitalise their own ideas. Because pirating our ancestors’ heritage is the same as indirectly killing our people’s identity and livelihoods.”

Read more about Watubo here.

Support Watubo by shopping items made from fabrics created by their weavers via Noesa. 

“It started when I’d informally organised a trek for a few Belgian friends and learnt about the loss of local livelihoods from the prohibition of access to forest produce within the Great Himalayan National Park. 

As many of the locals would also double up as guides and porters during the trekking season in Tirthan Valley, ecotourism emerged as a viable option for an alternate source of income. But I was opposed to the model of ecotourism where locals are mere daily wage labourers while the business was owned by somebody else.

I wanted to earn, but I also wanted the people to grow with me. So, after consulting with locals who showed interest and willingness to come together, the GHNP Community-Based Ecotourism Cooperative was registered in July 2014.

As a company, we have faced a lot of resistance from non-members. It became my responsibility to ensure that the cooperative made business and the members received an income. But there were rumours that I took all the money! Our financial records are transparent, templatised and easy to understand. A significant portion of what is charged to our guests goes towards the guide team while another portion is split between equipment maintenance and overhead costs. The profit is equally shared between the cooperative and my firm, which manages the marketing needs.

In recent times, the rising popularity of Tirthan Valley has not only seen an overcrowding of tourists but also rampant mushrooming of guesthouses and homestays. Not all the properties belong to locals. However, not all properties belonging to locals are constructed in the traditional, earth-friendly manner either. There are locals who are eager to give up their land on lease and earn a passive income that meets their everyday needs. 

[In the COVID-19 pandemic], we [have] had to find alternate sources of income for our cooperative members. 

On the one hand, we will remain a local organisation organising treks and other activities in the national park, and on the other hand, we will be a regional organisation (Himalayas) who will be able to implement bigger projects for conservation.

The takeaway from the experience of the past eight months has been that it wouldn’t be wise to continue having all our eggs in the same basket. Tourism-based livelihoods are, and will remain one of many avenues to support the local community, but we will continue to build on diversifying our approaches and efforts.”

Meet Sanju of the GHNP Community-Based Ecotourism Cooperative

Read more about Himalayan Ecotourism