Penang Hills and Trails - Another Bayan Lepas Lollipop
Bukit Papan

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.

This was broadly a repeat of the walk we did previously with Mike Gibby earlier in the year, but in the opposite direction with a couple of 'add ons'.

The kicking off point was beside the 30+ storey new Orchard Ville condominium in Lenguk Kelicap off Persiaran Kelicap between Sungai Ara and Bayan Lepas. Until they dig out the hillside, the residents have a great view behind of a hillside which was no doubt once a rubber estate. In front, sadly, they have a block of low cost flats whose residents delight in throwing their rubbish off their balconies... This is a part of the island that Yuehong compares unfavourably with Shenzhen, a place where I was once asked what I would do if I was forced to live in it and I replied "Jump out of the window." Despite appearances, it is definitely not 'Cleaner, Greener Penang' and the road is lined with what some might describe as 'Cottage Industries'. The land to the side was once full of durian trees, now they are dead or dying, victims of water pollution. Thank goodness, we soon left that all behind and reached the small Chinese shrine where we would cross the bridge and climb up the concrete path.

We were now climbing in a well maintained durian orchard, no complaints about this. I asked Yuehong if she recognised where we were and she confessed she did not. I didn't break it to here that we had inadvertently ended up here when I made an unfortunate decision on an earlier walk this trip. That could come later.

Beyond the abandoned house, the path climbs into an old rubber estate where two migrant workers were stuffing latex into sacks. The path right went nowhere and the path left went to their accommodation, hardly a 'des res' but as always better probably than what they came from. We left them to their labours and again continued to the next durian estate.

Having been to this junction twice recently, Yuehong finally recognised where she was, the unusual starting spot had thrown her. We continued through the rubber until we came back to the road we had used earlier and turned right.

We'd been straight up from here on one of our Sungai Ara valley based walks. Today, we wanted to look at the valley path which we had seen from above. That meant branching right and then almost immediately left. It was a good trail although its condition was less good after we passed the parked motorbike.

The path rose gently to a junction. Ahead was a little overgrown but to the right was wide and clear and we took the bait. It ran for about 400 metres and finished at a house. The gentleman in residence, a Hakka not much older than me told us in about 4 different languages that it was a waste of time to continue as the durian estate would soon finish and there were lots of snakes. He also added that he hated the migrant workers who were a bunch of robbing vagabonds.

So we tried the other path and after a slightly overgrown section we found ourselves in the next durian estate. Where there's a pump, there's a path and we wound back up to the ridge.

The sun had long since vanished and it started to rain as we got to the hut. It was a comfortable place to spend half an hour sheltering before it finished. After that we continued up the dirt road, ignorng the path off into the rubber which we had used last time we were here.

This brought us into the coconut farm with its birds nest factory which showed no sign of being operational.

Looking out towards the ridge above the 'Hidden Valley' and the main Bukit Gemuruh ridge.

We left the farm and crossed the ditch into the next durian orchard which, unusually for these parts is owned by a Malay family.

This is a moody view towards Bukit Gemuruh and Bukit Genting, it was a good day not to be there.

There had been quite a lot of clearance here in the last few months, as we left the ridge, I was reminded that there is a challenging transit to connect this point with the next currently cultivated area some 500 metres or so away. We should try that when we are feeling energetic in a few days time. Today, the path took us back down, it's easy going but the path on the right at the first junction made for a sad sight, it had looked 'doable' when we were last here eariler in the year, now it had a large blockage.

We continued down as the rain again threatened and ultimately restarted. It was the first time we had got more than a little damp all trip.

We again found some shelter and in due course made our way on to rejoin the road and so back to Mavis. We rounded off the trip with a visit to Yeuhong's favourite Yo Yo Huat in Sungai Ara and drove home.