The secret of Gua Maha

By Razan Rose

While we were finishing our delicious meal at the Wonderland Langkawi, our friend John Teoh, the manager of Langkawi Wildlife Park said, “Hey, there’s this new place, Gua Maha, where you can try the bird’s nest drink. I’ll take you to the place tomorrow.” The first thing that crossed our mind was an adventurous tour to an unknown cave. Well, since ‘gua’ literally means cave in Malay, little did we expect a gigantic building in the shape of a snail waiting for us…

Director of Gua Maha, Lim Min Boon (third from right) and Khor Swee Hock (third from left) showing the original bird’s nests.

When we arrived, we were greeted by one of the directors of Gua Maha, Lim Min Boon. He showed us around and before we even realised it, we were already in the cave-like place inside the ‘snail’. According to Lim, the ambience is to let the visitors experience the natural environment where swallows live.

Gua Maha is an all-in-one outlet, from breeding to the final product which is the bird’s nest drink. While we were touring the place, the other director, Khor Swee Hock, joined us.

Khor passionately explained their vision of promoting Gua Maha as one of edu-tourism destinations in Langkawi.

Workers removing feathers from nests

“We want to educate people on the whole process of preparing the bird’s nest. Here, you can see for yourself the delicate process of removing the bird’s feathers from the nest, up to the last stage of preparing the drink.

“Double-boil” kettle for preparing bird’s nest soup

Apart from Indonesia and Thailand, Malaysia is recognised as one of the largest bird’s nest producers in the world. This type of swallow is only found in Southeast Asia and there is a huge demand for bird’s nest especially from China,” said Khor.

When asked about the meaning behind Gua Maha, Lim and Khor simply said that the word ‘Maha’ or almighty symbolises swallows as a gift from god. Plus, the word itself is easy to pronounce by locals and foreign tourists.

“Back then, we started with only six birds. Now we have more than 20,000 birds in the building,” said Lim.

Gua Maha also produce products like bird’s nests drinks in sachets and facial cream made from bird’s nest extract.