Penang Hills and Trails - Titi Kerawang Explorer Part 3
Hakka Makan

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a Grade 2 walk. There is a sketch map at the bottom showing the route followed, click here for Part 1 and Part 2. 

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

The 501 bus service needed to get to Titi Kerawang had been withdrawn by September 2022. This makes this hike impractical for anyone without the use of a car.

One of our ongoing projects is to sort out properly the paths around Titi Kerawang and the access to the upper falls. Quite recently, I described how taking the path on the north side of the valley afforded an excellent view but no access. Today, we wanted to have a look at the south side but at the same time we had an appointment at the Da Ba Gong temple where they were having one of their famous feasts - we had previously visited in March 2016.

We walked up from the Titi Kerawang bridge as far as the public is allowed to go. There's a standard PBA fence and warning notice.

I declined to attempt entry on this occasion as the gate was well locked but ahead I could see the pipeline which I believe runs to the upper water abstraction point and a path next to it. We went back down again past the tourists and their piles of rubbish everywhere.

Next we went up our usual path a couple of hundred metres towards Sungai Pinang and when we came to the first major junction where we normally turn right, we carried straight on. Despite the fencing etc, the gate was open as it was last time we came.

There were several cowardly dogs at the only house and we turned left at the first junction after it. Looking down we could see the continuing path which we had also seen from the path on the north side because we were now at the same height as the disused swimming pool there. In due course as we knew, this curved to the right and climbed steeply. I had hoped to find a terrace that would lead me towards the bottom of the falls and the water abstraction area but I was disappointed. We were far above this tank which I had spotted on a previous visit to the area.

I have not exhausted my stock of ideas about how to access the falls, but that will have to wait another day. Instead of going directly up and continuing to the Da Ba Gong temple for 'lunch', we looped back until we came to our normal path, turning left and continuing up the hill past the normal left turn. This was new territory for us, we had zero expectation that it would go very far having seen what was obviously jungle (or extremely old rubber) higher up when climbing up the other side.

We were too early for lunch, it was the perfect opportunity for us to burn off another pound or so, much more fun than going to the gym. The hill behind me looks to be Bukit Laksamana, which if all goes to plan we shall have scaled in the next week. 

Another reason for coming up here was to get an eagle's eye view of the ridge leading from the Tropical Fruit Farm to Bukit Laksamana and the intersecting minor ridge from the top of the estate opposite. It's not very far but Peter van der Lans says it's very overgrown and difficult. That sounds like a challenge to me, but something to be sorted separate from a Bukit Laksamana climb which is a serious, major undertaking. The Rain Forest Hash Challenge have gone up this hill on the last two occasions of the event but I believe further to the right. This was all academic to Yuehong who was just enjoying the pleasant hike.

We were now high enough to look right across to Bukit Batu Hitam which we had been up not so long back. As were climbing we had seen another path coming up through the rubber to our left and eventually they joined together.

We found that the concrete finished almost immediately, ahead was an unmaintained formerly cultivated area, that was enough exploring for us. We took a short refreshment break and went down through the rubber.

Soon we were back on the Da Ba Gong temple path by the small black gate above the upper falls. The path onwards was in much better condition than during our last visits and the next farm which was heavily overgrown a couple of years ago is now looking rather smart. The corrugated iron though has not changed nor its 'No Entry' message, backed up by some very noisy dogs.

We knew the turn out for lunch would be well below average as the Air Itam Dam was not currently accessible by road falling a landslip, so anyone wanting to come from George Town would face a long detour. It was my turn to make the donation, I thought it wise to fill in my name for them. We were told later that there were usually four such events annually, one around year end ("Thank You, Tua Pek Kong") and another not long after at the beginning of the Chinese New Year (Chinese "all we want for Christmas" stuff), the other two being connected with the deity's own anniversaries. The giant joss sticks were burning slowly.

While we waited for dinner to be served, we established that many of the guests around us were classmates from Sacred Heart School in Balik Pulau. so they spoke good English, the gentleman in the cyan shirt had gone on to Penang Free School. However most seemed delighted to have the opportunity to practise their rusty Mandarin Chinese with a native speaker. I was pleased to learn that most of them had hiked up from Sungai Pinang, obviously on the wider road, the alternative which we had used in part for our previous lunchtime visit. The first picture was taken at 15.50, the second at 16.15 by which time all the bones had been gathered into a real 'doggie bag' and our new friends had already departed. Each table had the same eight dishes: traditional Hakka pork, duck, chicken, sausage, mixed vegetables and three soup dishes, all prepared, cooked, served and cleared away by volunteers. Deo volente, we'll be back for the next one in a few weeks time.

At one point I had been concerned that we might be under time pressure, but we now had more than an hour and a half to return to Titi Kerawang by the most direct route. Parts were delightful in the late afternoon sun, others less so. Very old rubber is being felled, we believe that one of the estate owners wants to convert this lower section into a concrete road to improve access. Give it 5 years and apart from the inappropriate road, it won't look too bad but I hope they don't push it all the way through like the one which has the electronically controlled gate at the bottom to discourage unwanted 4 wheeled visitors.

As I mentioned, today's diners included many hikers. One large group came down past us, bringing up the rear was their guide who apparently knows the local paths almost as well as we do.

We had been carefully timing our descent and had just 10 minutes to wait for the 17.30 501 bus from Balik Pulau. Being 1st January, the 101 bus onward from Teluk Bahang was not surprisingly crowded and the road through Batu Ferringhi congested but it was a small price to pay for our enjoyable day out. Yuehong's combined dieting and exercise regime has seen her lose almost exactly one pound per hike completed, but today will have represented a blip in the progress.