Kampung Endah – The Most Beautiful Village In Malaysia?

I had read somewhere that Kampung Endah was considered to be the cleanest and loveliest village in Malaysia. Since it is not that far from where we live, on Sunday I drove the family there to find out.

Kampung Endah (Marker A)

It is located close to the coast (Straits of Malacca) about half way between Klang and Port Dickson.

Welcome to Kampun(g) Endah

Apparently the village only dates back to the 1950’s  when three older villages were relocated to this new location. This was the time of the Malayan Emergency and the Government had a policy of resettling villages into guarded, barbed-wire ringed settlements in order to deprive the Communist terrorists of food and supplies. This policy was successful and the terrorists were eventually starved out of their jungle bases but it does mean that many villages lost their original natural settings. Kampung Endah is surrounded by parallel rows of oil palm trees, bordered with straight drainage canals and roads. Even the village itself is laid out in a grid pattern rather than the more haphazard  look of a traditional kampung.

The new settlement was originally called Kampung Pindah, meaning ‘moved’ or ‘relocated’ village but the name was later changed to Kampung Indah, meaning beautiful though the current spelling is Endah, meaning friendly. Either spelling, it seems an appropriate name. It must be a friendly place because they have a home stay programme where tourists can stay with a local family to experience traditional Malaysian kampung life.

tradional house kampung endah

Is it the most beautiful village in Malaysia? Well certainly there are a number of attractive traditional wooden homes.  And the streets are clean and tidy. It seems the village won a Most Beautiful Village award in 1994 but that was quite a long time ago. There are some fancy pavements and up-market lampposts but is that grass growing on the path? Perhaps a case of the village resting on its laurels?

 

Need a bit of weeding?

If any reader knows of a kampung which is more deserving of the title ‘Most Scenic Spot in Malaysia’ I would be delighted to hear from you.

7 thoughts on “Kampung Endah – The Most Beautiful Village In Malaysia?”

  1. Kg. Endah was voted the most beautiful kampung not once, but repeatedly. In the end, Kg. Endah was barred from participating in the competition to give other Malaysian kampungs a chance to win, which in a sense is probably the highest award of all. It’s certainly not a case of “resting on their laurels”!

    1. Thank you for that clarification. Do you know if the competition is still being held and, if so, which kampungs are winning it? It would be interesting to visit some of the other contenders.

  2. Hi Mr thrifty Traveller (or miss?). It is by pure coincidence that I stumbled upon this blog and read to the lines “most scenic spot in Malaysia” and there’s one and only one kampung that came to my mind.. It is Kampung Mangkuk, Penarik in Setiu district, Terengganu. While the name of the kampung may sound hilarious to some, you REALLY have to google the kampung (very small kampung actually) and witness the beauty of this coastal REAL kampung yourself.

    1. Hi Saiful, thanks for commenting. Yes it is Mr. Thrifty Traveller. I visited the beautiful beach at Penarik last year (see my post on Terenganu Beaches) but I might have overlooked Kampung Mangkuk which I see from the map lies on a spit of land just north of Penarik. I shall have to go back there and visit Kg. Mangkuk, especially now that the Terrapuri Heritage Village Resort has opened there.

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