A Trip to see the Baduy

Previously, I mentioned meeting Andy a local guide at the Jakarta National Monument who was wearing a WWF t-shirt. He had told me about a place called Cibole and the nearby preservation area housing the Baduy people. On Saturday afternoon I decided to take him up on his offer to guide me to this area.

The Baduy people make up an indegenious community that live in a 5,000 hectare reserve among the hills of West Java. They largely still hold onto their traditional beliefs, and are thought to consist of over 7,000 people, but census takers are not allowed inside so it isn’t known for sure. As the story goes, the Baduy fled into the hills around the 1400s when Muslims came trying to convert inhabitants to Islam. The tribes have kept their local dialect and are still considered practicing animists. Their remote location has served to isolate them and prevent development, and myth tells how “magic powers” kept the Portuguese and Dutch from ever discovering their existence. The Baduy people consist of two different clans, the first being the Inner Baduy, who dress all in white and are very strict to their spiritual beliefs, thus not allowing any tourism. The second clan, about 10km away, is the Outer Baduy who dress in Black and Dark Blue and allow tour group visits of up to 2 nights. I was particularly interested in this place since it was only 5 years ago that tourism was first introduced, and I was curious to see the effects.

(Outer Baduy skirt)

Getting to Cibole is not an easy task, though it is just 168km from Jakarta. It requires 3 different busses and taking a motorcycle taxi, called an Ojek, between the bus station of one town and the neighboring town. The area is not listed in most guide books, and the poor conditions of the road make many tour companies leery of organizing trips to this area. However, the journey to get there is quite scenic, if bumpy, as towns give way to rice fields and concrete houses turn to those made of thatch. We didn’t leave until midday, so it’s well past 9p by the time we arrive at the border town next to the reserve.

We walk through the modest town to the house of a guide Andy knows. Inside the guide and his wife are watching TV as their two kids are sprawled asleep on mats directly next to the television. The house is solidly constructed of bricks and painted thatch, and in front of the house sits equipment from his second job, that of a mechanic. Both he and his wife are dressed in traditional long skirts wrapped around the waste. They speak with a regional dialect that mixes Bahasa Indonesian with the local language, but he is also knowledgeable in the language of the Baduy people, which is also distinctly different. On our arrival his sweet wife hustles the kids off to bed and makes some fried Casava root that she serves with hot thick cups of coffee. It is arranged that we will stay there for the evening and leave early in the morning to enter the Baduy protected area.

It was a high official in the region’s biggest town, Rangkas, that five years ago suggested the development of tourism in the area. A large meeting took place between government officials, elders of the various Baduy villages, and officials of Cibole town. Since the Baduy people traditionally haven’t used money, plus lived in a society where everything is equally distributed, it was decided that citizens of Cibole town would manage the selling of souvenirs and other tourism concerns. Ten men from Cibole were then picked by the Baduy to act as guides. These ten have organized to provide a flat fee of $15 for Indonesians and $20 for International visitors, per group. Part of this money has been used on Cibole community projects, such as building a primary school and library. The Baduy are of course not as organized, and demand very little from their visitors, besides a $1 entrance fee and a donation from those who wish to stay the night. While no restaurants or guest houses operate in Cibole, stalls have opened in the main part of town selling souvenirs, as well as fish and fresh fruit from the protected area. Every few weeks the money is then collected by members of the different villages and taken back to the village elders. It is the elder of each village who then makes purchases for the community. The Inner Baduy have no part in this, but occasionally the children of Inner Baduy can be seen venturing from their home to watch what is happening in Outer Baduy. No one is allowed into Inner Baduy, not even those from Outer Baduy, so it is impossible to see if there have been any changes since the introduction of tourism.

In the morning we start off early after a quick breakfast of fried rice. First, I’m shown around the town of Cibole, which ironically has 3 mosques for such a small town. Then, we go to the entrance of the protected area to register. I skim through the 2008 book, and notice there have been just 7 international visitors to date, 2 Russians, 1 Ukrainian, 1 Slovenian, 1 Canadian, and 2 French persons. The number of Indonesians visiting were much larger, at least 6 pages, and about 25 groups for each page. I was particularly startled to see the number of people in each group ranging up to 30, 50, and even 80 visitors at a time.

The first Baduy village is directly next to the town of Cibole. The houses are uniquely shaped, a bit like a Chinese takeout box with a roof, and made entirely of thatch and dried grass. A few people were around, a woman who was weaving and others pounding rice. Making clothes is an extremely lengthy process, around a month to make a skirt, so many of the villagers and children now wear purchased clothes and plastic thong sandals. As we walk to other villagers it is easy to see the adjustments people have made, such as plastic dishes and glasses, purchased undergarments, and all the women were wearing golden earrings. That being said, they still live very traditionally and without electricity or formal schooling. It was particularly interesting to see the pictures that children had drawn into the mud, a white and red telephone tower that can be seen from one of the hills and an image of a car. The children from Outer Baduy are the ones that typically bring souvenirs and produce to the town, so they likely have more exposure to the modernization taken place in Cibole. We pass many boys carrying large bundles of durian on a pole toward the market. The path was narrow, so I can only imagine the problems produced by large groups of visitors trying to share this footpath.

For a visitor the trip offers a pleasant time, hiking through jungle and seeing the culture of the distinct Baduy, so I can see the appeal. Difficulty in transportation is for the moment keeping tourism on a small scale, but it seems like some serious problems might arise if tourism continues with minimal regulations, especially concerning the large amount of visitors arriving at one time. Also, as in many places in SEA, proper waste disposal does not seem to be of central concern and the footpaths are becoming strewn with garbage. Most worrisome may be the direct contact villagers have with unscrupulous visitors. In one village some shady Jakarta business man two years ago convinced the villagers to start a rather blatant illegal logging operation. While illegal logging does go on all over Indonesia, it just seems particularly unscrupulous for these actions to be taking place in a protected area and with the support of the indigenous inhabitants. I’ll actually be contacting one of my professors who used to live in Indonesia to get her input if there is anything that can be done.