The International Steam Pages


Penang Hills and Trails - Pantai Acheh Descent
Penang Island's most remote village

This is part of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang. Click here for the index. This is a Grade 2 walk with a short challenging Grade 3 section. Click here for the route in reverse. 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.


The 501 bus service used to access the starting point had been withdrawn by September 2022. This makes this hike impractical for anyone without the use of a car.


We revisited in December 2016, the descent is basically as before although we found the ferns were much more of an obstruction.


I had read on the web of a cycle route from Pantai Acheh and I had met a mature European who claimed to have done the route - uphill and coming out near the Tropical Fruit Farm. We had previously tried and failed to find this in the reverse direction and ended up at Kampung Bukit Kecil near Sungai Pinang. After this, I was rather sceptical of these reports and decided we needed a revisit. As you will read, indeed we made it to Pantai Acheh, but I think I can safely say that there is no direct path which a mountain bike might be safely ridden on. Of course, if you know me to be wrong, just send an email to the address at the bottom of the page. (I was wrong, no one's perfect! The path runs well to the north over a lower col which was not visible from our summit - it's a delightful route - click here for my report.)

Full details of the first section (with pictures) are on another page. You may want to read that before continuing below although a summary follows.

We started again at the summit of the round-the-island-road between Teluk Bahang and Sungai Pinang and followed the wide track as it slowly descended to the abandoned house. We went up the concrete path behind the house to the col and dropped down the short distance to the concrete road. We climbed up this road to where a new house is being built. The first three pictures were taken on the first visit which was cloudless. The second visit was overcast turning to rain just after we finished the hike.

This is the view from the top of the house, the challenge today was to find a way down to Pantai Acheh below.

We could see that there was a fruit orchard not very far down, but there was no obvious route to get to it. There were signs of a poor forest trail up behind the water tank but this would possibly have meant a slightly longer scrub / jungle bash. Instead we followed the ridge south from the house for about 50 metres until we came to a cleared area before some young rubber. Part of this ran down and at this point there was an opening and a slightly overgrown forest trail.

Yuehong feels very uncomfortable in this environment although she tries not to show it. Very soon it was clear that we were in long neglected rubber and in these circumstances what there is of a path is next to its boundary - in this case beyond was totally fern covered.

That small tree looked just perfect to help ease her down to the next level. Well it would have been if it hadn't been rotten and snapped when she grabbed it, leaving her clutching the useless top half......

Which left me desperately needing to produce a white rabbit out of a hat once again. No sooner said than done, I re-inspected the ferns and found that we could step straight into the durian estate right by the end of a concrete path...

We could see Pantai Acheh below us and we spent the next hour walking down. That part of the journey is described in reverse on a separate page for those wanting to climb up - I have not found any reference to this path elsewhere on the web.

Pantai Acheh itself is almost a 100% Chinese village, with a temple integrated into the Chinese primary school. Opposite the nearby bus stop is a traditional coffee shop with full facilities for thirsty foreigners and mahjong for the locals. Having checked the bus timetable a couple of days earlier, I knew we had about half an hour to wait for the 404 to Balik Pulau (due about 15.45) and when it arrived there was plenty of time to drink up and cross the road while it turned around. The full timetable as of February 2013 is on the Penang bus page.

We continued on the 502 and 101, once we hit Air Itam the traffic ensured we took the best part of two hours to reach Tanjung Tokong for dinner. Our time would have been better spent waiting for the 501 in Balik Pulau and enjoying more refreshment before going back the pretty way.


Pantai Acheh Area

Key:

 ____ = Concrete Road

 ____ = Path

 ____ = Easy 'Off piste'

 ____ = Seriously 'Off piste'

(Not all paths are shown, there are many more
which are seasonal or just go to houses.)

Click here for information on the maps.


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk