With around 20 government-certified houses available for homestays, visitors can enjoy naturally ventilated rooms and authentic Malaysian food. The town boasts near-zero crime rates, and most households have no fences or security measures, making for a safe yet open visit.
Beyond the vast dragon fruit and palm tree plantations that cover most of the village, there's a hands-on experience center showcasing how Malay people used to live off the land.
At Banguris Homestay main center, visitors can try extracting their own coffee beans the traditional way. The tour guide explains that in the old days, Malay farmers used wooden presses shaped like flat, pattern-less waffle machines to pop coffee beans from the coffee cherries.
The beans are dried for a few days, then roasted to brew real coffee.
Next, the experience center offers a full demonstration on how to pluck palm fruits from palm trees. Usually harvested twice a month, the fruits come in bulks of around 50 to 70 kilograms each, with poisonous spikes protruding from the stems.
A seasoned worker hacks away excess palm leaves to reveal the fruit bulk, sawing it off in seconds. While dangerous to harvest, the fruit is one of the nation's major export items. Palm oil is extracted from the outer red flesh of the fruit, while the white seeds inside are used in many cosmetics.
Under the shade of the trees, the tour guide gestures toward the next stop: harvesting rubber from rubber trees. Visitors can try peeling the bark off trees so rubber flows out like a stream.
While only a few trees are available for simple demonstrations, actual harvesting usually begins early in the morning, as Malaysia's hot and humid air can easily spoil raw rubber. Once the liquid fills each gathering cup to the brim, it's sent to factories to harden and later processed for commercial use.
reporter
Kim Dong-young
davekim0807@ajupress.com
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