Penang Hills and Trails - Flirting with Laksamana
Penang Hill to Balik Pulau

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a long, hard Grade 3 walk. There is a sketch map at the bottom showing the heart of the route followed.

Please visit my Penang buses page for information on accessing the starting point.

Following my climb of Bukit Laksamana, I wanted to check out the short cut from Rain Gauge 11 below the summit to the Tiger Hill Valley which came highly recommended on the web and from Peter van der Lans. So it was that we joined a small group of hikers for an early start which gave us a ride to the Penang Hill Railway where we paid three times more than the locals to catch the 08.00 train. I was horrified to discover  that ugly Fat Cat tourists can pay a special 'Fast Lane' price so they can jump the queue. No one else seems to find this objectionable, so probably,  as a matter of principle, this will have been the last time I ever ride it.  As it was early morning, the sun was in completely the wrong position for photographing the view, so here's one I took in 2012 on an afternoon when it was just about to rain very hard; no such bad luck today. The  area near the train station is now very tacky and tasteless and electric buggies race lazy tourists along to Southview Bungalow and back without regard for other road users.

Now the group tends to walk a lot faster than we do, so it was just as well that one of them missed the train and so we could have a 15 minute head start. That allowed us to soak up the atmosphere and we all arrived at the start of the Laksamana Trail at the same time, ready to leave the nonsense that is Penang Hill today behind. Along the way we had passed three of the luggage trucks from the old hill railway, no longer wanted now there is the dreadful Jeep Road, and enjoyed some super early morning ambience. That's Rain Gauge 6 (RG 6) behind.

Ready, Steady, Gone and they vanished down the trail. We adopted our tail end Charlie role and relaxed, this was to give Yuehong a taster of the real thing, the main Bukit Laksamana trail. The initial verdict was that it was not as bad as she expected...

 Going up for us is always easier than going down and by the time I had reattached my camera to its strap, Yuehong was at Station 2, all smiles and ready to continue.

The next bit is downhill, mostly gentle and the rope is hardly necessary. It's great hiking and we took our time to soak up the atmosphere as Station 3 came and went.

We steamed past Station 4 and caught up with the group at Rain Gauge 11. "Where's this path of yours, Rob?" one of them asked me. I tried to explain they had just walked past it, but it was difficult to get the message across.

This is what they had missed, I'll leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether it was difficult to spot. God knows where they would have ended up if we hadn't been there, probably at the top of Laksamana which was ahead and beyond the rain gauge. Anyway, the path was excellent and very pleasantly level except where a tree had come down.

One large tree had much of its root system exposed as it had rather foolishly started life on top of a large boulder. There is just one junction on the path, we emerged from the right where Yuehong is standing, beyond her are some steps, there's a water pipe here and and they just lead to a small pond.

One more log to skip over and we were out at the back of the last hut going down the valley.

This is a glorious short cut, especially given that we were to continue down the Tiger Hill Valley trail towards Balik Pulau. The group ran off up the valley for their late breakfast at Penang Hill and we quietly plodded off in the opposite direction. 

These are basically old water conservancy paths and the square blocks are found all along them. Initially we followed the stream that would go on down to Titi Kerawang.

Soon we started to climb, although it was gentle it took quite a while as we had to reach the ridge. Once there and looking back, we could see the ridge trail that would lead back to the Tiger Hill area, that's one we really ought to have a crack at before we return to the UK.

I could almost hear Yuehong purring 'more like this please', it was absolutely her favourite kind of walking. Sadly all good things come to an end and about an hour after we left the group we were at the famous 5 way junction.

The road left leads down to Air Itam Dam and to the right the Da Ba Gong Temple (and Titi Kerawang). The other two exits lead towards Balik Pulau, the path to the left goes to the 'usual route' from Air Itam Dam, but we took the road that climbs away slightly to the right round the back of Bukit Elvira. I've always felt that this path left might head towards the summit but we never seem to have the time when we get to this remote place. Eventually, the road starts to drop and the shrine is an indication that we will enter a cultivated area.

We first came here three years before on the 'Road to Nowhere' when the kindly owner showed us the way out. Then we did the descent twice as we blundered around, but today even once was more than enough, we had been walking for 5 hours and the slope was not doing our old knees any favours.

The steps down were clear, the spot is the only nearly flat section in the whole area. At the bottom, the house hasn't seen a visitor in a long, long time.

However, if going on you need to turn right immediately at the bottom of the steps, follow the 'path' along the level for no more than 50 metres until you can see a fruit tree on the left. Go down to it, passing under it to the right and climb a couple of levels till you find the water pipe.

After which you should keep as close to the water pipes as practical although some discretion is needed.

Eventually they start to drop and if you maintain your height you will come out into some old rubber. Fortunately, this part had recently been cleared so we were spared more bashing. We were tired so it had taken the best part of 20 minutes, fresh it would have been half as long. We now had a proper path and dropped down to the house.

Game over, except that it was 13.20 now and the next 501 bus was scheduled to leave in just 70 minutes. We were still a long way from Balik Pulau and while we took it gently down to the substation and on through the final killer set of zig-zags, that meant we had to rush the last flat section. 

I pressed on ahead to do the shopping and Yuehong found enough energy to follow me to the bus stop shortly after. Of course the bus was 15 minutes late as usual, but it would have been foolish to build that into the plans, it might not have been Razali driving. Refreshments on the bus and at Teluk Bahang followed and we were home by 16.30. We slept well, but I think we'll avoid those 07.00 starts in future.

If Yuehong decides she can face the full Bukit Laksamana experience then I am sure we will exit this way but finish at Titi Kerawang not Balik Pulau!