Kampung Naga

Kampung Naga sits in a bend of the Ciwulan river below the main road between Garut and Tasikmalaya, reached by a stairway of around four hundred steps down the valley side, and it is a village of a hundred or so houses held to a fixed customary form: buildings raised on stone footings with bamboo walls, palm-fibre or thatch roofs, oriented in the same direction, all of a similar size, with no ceramic tile, no glass windows and no mains electricity, which the community has declined. The number of houses is fixed by custom, so a new household means someone leaves. The village is Muslim and Sundanese, farming the terraces around it, with a sacred forest above the settlement that outsiders may not enter and certain days on which the village is closed to visitors.

History

The name comes from the Sundanese dina gawir, "on the edge of a cliff", which the villagers shortened to nagawir and then to naga (Wikipedia, Kampung Naga).

What to look for

• A fixed customary form - bamboo, thatch and stone, all houses alike and aligned.
• No mains electricity - refused by the community, lamps used after dark.
• Four hundred steps down - the stairway from the road into the valley.
• A closed sacred forest - the grove above the village, off limits to outsiders.

When to go

May to September; the village closes to visitors on certain days. Half a day.

Good to know

It is closed on set customary days - check before travelling. The steps down and back are steep. This is a working village; ask before photographing and follow the guide's rules.

Nearby

Tasikmalaya is east; Garut and Papandayan are west.