Penang Hills and Trails - Jalan Chai Explorer 1
Balik Pulau to Balik Pulau

This is part of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang. Click here for the index, this is a Grade 2/3 walk although it was planned to be Grade 2 and would have been if things had gone to plan. There is a sketch map at the bottom showing the route followed.

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

It's nearly the end of 2015 and we're back in Penang expecting to be based in the area for several months. Two days earlier, we had had a gentle start revisiting the 'Secret Garden' route between the Tropical Fruit Farm and Pantai Acheh. I'm pleased to sat it was still as unspoiled as before and our bodies did not complain greatly afterwards.

Earlier in the year we had done a Jalan Chai Quickie, today the plan was to do a 'not so quickie' and check out a direct route up to the road which runs across above the the valley. In theory the second path off the main trail should have done the business but as so often happens practice dictated otherwise. Anyway, we got off the 501 at the Jalan Chai junction and proceeded as before. Yuehong is in 'show off mode' and wanted a few choice pictures for her old friends. Fortunately, we were soon away from Titi Heights which impinges far too much on the adjacent Chinese settlement.

Nothing had changed, the oil palms provided the shade, the pig farm the smell. We walked past the rubber estate manager's bungalow, stopped for some snaps at the small Chinese temple and started to climb.

.This time we ignored the first turn on the right and took the similar second.

There was just one junction, the path on the right went a short distance to a hut and finished so we continued left and that also finished at another hut some way further up.

This was not what I had hoped for. Being in a fruit area outside of the 'season' meant that trails of any kind were less than distinct. However, with the benefit of experience we could easily pick our way upwards until the fruit trees finished. That same experience suggested that the old rubber terrace would be a good continuation although ideally we should have been going up and not along.

It was just as well that I was looking down as well as up because very soon we rejoined the main trail up! Fortunately, there was a third path off it almost immediately and while it was obviously not well used, it was easy to follow.

Emerging from the old rubber we came out into the durians but of course no one had been down here for several months since the season finished and in due course we had a bit of a scramble round a fallen tree.

We entered an area of young rubber which had never been tapped owing to the crash in prices but very soon the condition of the path improved.

We joined another better path coming up on the right - probably the one I would have liked which may have come off the first path off the main trail - that was one for another time, the picture is looking back, our trail to the right and the other to the left. We now had an easy climb up to some old rubber, beyond which lay a familiar junction.

For the record, the nearest electricity pole is BI 18. Unseen to the left leads back to Jalan Chai or onwards to Air Puteh. Up the hill is a dead end and to the right leads to the Bukit Elvira road. We took this and along the way passed another concrete path down, duly noted as worthy of attention on another visit. (The two paths down are described in the Jalan Chai Explorer Part 2)

It was a surprisingly clear view down, not new to us but very welcome.

By now it was well gone 13.00 and we had to make a choice to dally and spend several hours relaxing in Balik Pulau or press on immediately so we could do our relaxing at home. We chose the latter, it wasn't new at all and is shown on the map.

'Quickie' it was not owing to the overgrown sections but even so we made it for the 14.30 501 bus albeit without time to stop for refreshment save of the take-away variety. We had raised more new questions than we had answered old ones and we shall have to return at some stage, common sense dictates we shall start at the top and work down next time.