Imagine stepping out your front door onto a wooden walkway, with the river flowing beneath your feet. Your neighbors' homes stand on stilts all around you, and to get across town, you hail a little boat taxi. For thousands of people in Southeast Asia, that's simply home.
Here's the short answer: one of the best-known towns on stilts is Kampong Ayer, in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. Its neighborhoods of traditional houses, schools, and mosques all stand on stilts above the Brunei River. About 10,250 people lived there in 2016, and the settlement is believed to have been inhabited for several centuries. It's long been nicknamed the Venice of the East.
A Town Built on Water
Kampong Ayer covers about 3.9 square miles near the capital's city center. Its houses are traditionally made of wood in the style of traditional Malay homes, and some rise two stories high. Many were built privately, so they have their own individual looks, while some newer public housing has a more uniform style. Life here moves with the river, and boats are as ordinary as cars are on land.
A network of stilted walkways and footbridges, made of wood, concrete, or metal, connects homes to one another. Where wide waterways separate neighborhoods, people travel by motorboat. The wooden water taxis are known locally as perahu tambang.
Schools, Mosques, and Fire Stations
This is a full community, not just a cluster of houses. There's at least one primary school in each district, along with religious schools. Awang Semaun Secondary School is the only secondary school of its kind with buildings built on the water.
The town also has mosques, police stations, and fire departments. Fire is a real danger here, since so many buildings are made of wood, and faulty wiring is a commonly reported cause.
Centuries of History
Kampong Ayer may date back as far as the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shah, between 1363 and 1402, when it served as the heart of the Bruneian Empire and an important trading port. Foreign visitors wrote about it. The most famous account came from Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian explorer who visited in 1521 as part of Magellan's expedition.
A Dutch visitor around 1600 described noble houses built on such light posts that, in a storm, they could be moved from one side of the river to the other. Historians think the settlement may even have shifted location over time.
Why Build on Stilts?
Stilt houses are found around the world, especially along coasts and rivers in Southeast Asia, Oceania, Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of West Africa. They're built mainly to protect against flooding and to keep pests and vermin out. When the ground underneath isn't flooded, the shaded space below a stilt house is often used for work, storage, or parking.
In West Africa, the lake village of Ganvie in Benin is home to around 20,000 people and is often called the Venice of Africa. Its residents get around only by wooden boat. America has its own example, too: Stiltsville, a group of wooden stilt houses standing about ten feet above the shallow water of Biscayne Bay near Miami, dating back to at least the early 1930s.
So while most of us worry about the lawn or the driveway, the people of Kampong Ayer think about tides and boat taxis. It's a reminder that home can be wherever people find a way to build it, even right on top of the water.
