Penang Hills and Trails
A Malihom Loop

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.

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

We'd had a less demanding than expected trip to Pulau Jerejak and in theory I should have been full of energy. My body told me otherwise, perhaps it was all that Tiger or maybe it was just time I slowed down a bit. So it was that I elected to start today's hike well up along the Pondok Upeh Cycleway at pole JTS 133 41. This handy parking spot can be reached by turning off Jalan Tun Sadon itself or by coming up from Jalan Pondok Upeh (this is quite steep in places). Just along is a major junction, we planned to return from the left and right now would walk along straight ahead. 

It was still early enough in the day for much of the road to be shaded by the trees. My records show that we have used this road only once before a year ago which is a shame as it's easy going to get started. The sign is for the durian orchard which roughly translates as 'Comfort Heart'. Round the corner, the proud owner had laid out this open area which would have been large enough to dry the entire Penang nutmeg crop.

We hurried across it and started to climb. The house at the end of the road on the right we rate as unfriendly. They have a locked gate and its estate has a fence all the way round it, even on the steep hillside. There are two paths off on the right going up with chains across them, not what we wanted.

If I had done my homework before setting out, I would have known to turn right at the next junction (left picture below) but instead continued up to where someone had kindly set up a seat for us to have a water stop. We now took the path past the house in the background.

There would be no prizes for guessing who lives here. Round the corner, Yuehong was strangely attracted to this tree, I was ordered to kick it  I didn't try very hard as durian trees are pretty tough.

The gods clearly got the message because this was waiting very soon after, perfectly ripe and absolutely delicious. Yuehong reckoned that we had got through about MYR 200's worth of durians so far this trip and it's barely two weeks gone. Advertised prices for 'specials' are absurd, we have seen a sign for the 'Musang King' kind at MYR 70 a kilo. With a heavy tummy we carried on into the rubber.

By now I had worked out that we should have been on the next path down, maybe it would have had more durians on it, but we were satisfied. The price to pay was a short scramble down to the concrete path which we should have come up.

The plastic raincoats are kept in the car but it had been such a nice sunny day when we started that we had left them behind. That wasn't looking such a good decision now.

As we went up, we passed the mini-digger which we had seen here two years earlier almost to the day. Not much progress was apparent and the rains were inexorably cutting into the path.

Of course this meant that the path would soon get overgrown, not that it mattered because we could see the Malihom security fence and knew all we had to do was follow it around.

Yes, that's the path, but it does pay to maintain concentration as we had noted the day before on Pulau Jerejak.

This was as far as we had intended to go, it was good to see the hillside opposite with proper groundcover, it had been brown and black after burning last time. However, looking back we could see heavy rain heading our way. We scuttled round to the col below Malihom where we put up some corrugated iron sheeting as shelter. As it happened, we only felt a few spots and the rain retreated like the tide. 

Back we went to the ridge and followed the trail along it.

Clearances are necessary from time to time, but this would better have been done in stages. However, at least on the hill where we were standing, there was good ground cover present and trees had been planted. It represents bad news for the Malihom residents because they now have less protection from winds.

The road down was as underused as ever, I've always rated these houses as being among the best positioned in Penang. Half hidden in the estate, at about 200 metres high, they will be cool to live in but the road makes them readily accessible. 

When one's wife suggests it's time to chill out with the next Tiger, it would be churlish to object, we were not far far from today's base. The pictures speak for themselves, this is one of Penang's finest. We had completed the circuit in just under three hours. I'm sure it could have been done in two hours, but why rush?

On our way back through Balik Pulau, when we stopped for rambutans Yuehong found a group of mainland Chinese tourists feasting on durians, maybe good news temporarily for the local economy but not in the long term. We had an early dinner, I visited the Magic Tiger Tree and we were back home in time for Yuehong to enjoy a swim. Now for a day off at last, we have an anniversary to celebrate.