Penang Hills and Trails
A Malihom Loop with a Difference 

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a Grade 4 walk with a very significant less straightforward section. 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.

For nearly a month we had been preoccupied with social hiking and at last we had our freedom returned. At the end of December, we had explored the lower parts of the hill south-west of Malihom searching for rubber rollers and had found a route down to the Bukit Genting Pass. Further explorations had suggested a link to the hill to the above which we had climbed on a previous visit. Today's hike was designed to put it all together and throw in a previously unchecked path shown on at least one web hiking map. Yuehong keeps a diary of our hikes, most of which go unreported these days, but this was the 75th since we arrived nearly 3 months ago and I wanted something a little out of the ordinary.

After some 3 months without any real rain, there have been afternoon and early evening showers, not enough to begin to fill the empty dams (Teluk Bahang 33% and Air Itam 50% capacity) but enough to buy time for the desperate fruit farmers and as such it was more humid than it had been. We parked up near the entrance to the Bukit Genting restaurant and headed up the track behind us.

It was an extremely gentle climb by Penang standards, the durian orchard doesn't look too bad in the pictures but in fact it is more than a little 'tired' and there are many old rubber trees trying desperately to regrow.

Inevitably in this area there are views of 'Turtle Island' aka Pulau Betong and from our previous visit we reckoned this track would be a short cut to the ridge in the background.

Wrong! Even when we went up these inviting steps, ahead was anything but clear and we were forced to drop back down to where another path was coming up.

I cursed myself for making assumptions based on an incomplete survey walk but we were soon back on track and climbing.

We passed the point where the top path comes back down and given it was a bit steeper and that calories were being burned, Yuehong looked more cheerful.

We had been to the top of this orchard but that would still have been some way short of the point on the ridge that we had accessed previously from the other side. So we cut right to the ridge at its lowest point in this area.

There was well kept rubber on this side and somewhat neglected rubber on the other side. Below was known to be the concrete path we wanted and all we had to do was to make our way down to it.

It was less than ideal and eventually I prompted Yuehong to pose the usual question. Yes, in this case, I knew exactly where we were because I could see the two rubber rollers we had tracked down a month ago. Not that it helped greatly in that vegetation and rather than go straight down we followed an old terrace and let the path climb to us slowly.

Now, all being well, I fancied doing this walk in reverse another time and this area with durians would get us at least half way to the ridge more easily than we had come down today. This must be a well favoured durian tree if the net is left in place permanently.  

We knew to ignore the path on the right and the path zig-zagged up with splendid views of the hills around - it was cloudy so I didn't photograph them.

The well maintained path finished at this rather untidy area and we continued past some new hives designed for the black stingless bees.

The original concrete path went up a reverse where it vanished into the scrub, but we knew that if we followed the contour around we should find a clear way up.

It seemed strange that this route was kept clear but at the top we found what must have been someone's favourite durian tree. Being on the ridge, it couldn't be allowed to grow to its normal height but had instead been carefully pruned 

It was time to leave the orchard and enter the forest which we believe to be a rubber plantation abandoned very many years ago. From the outside, it doesn't look promising but the ginger fringing it is perfectly normal.

Within it's rather different. Most of the traffic seems to be wild boar, but they do tend to keep much of the vegetation trimmed as they move between their favourite wallows which of course were all dry at the moment. 

It wasn't all plain sailing, but the secateurs stayed in the bags as we made our way up the gently climbing wide ridge.

One more wallow and then we were at the landmark trio of old rubber trees.

This is more or less the summit and beyond we just had to make sure we went slightly right to lose height gently. There's no real path here currently and soon we found this wild boar trap. With no bait present, it was obviously not active unlike the larger one we had found in the Bukit Relau Forest Reserve in December and got Perhiltan to remove. So I gently triggered it to close the 'gate' and followed the trail which went on from it.

Soon we could see 'daylight' and we came out at the top of what the 'on line maps' often call 'Heaven Hill', I would call it 'Half Heaven Hill' as the view as shown below is somewhat mixed.

With our fun and games lower down we were now about half way round our circuit timewise. After a water stop we headed down past durian trees which are now large enough to carry masses of flowers at this time of year.

This was the outlook. The Sungai Ara valley is in the foreground and beyond the modern crap is Pulau Jerejak where we had been a few days earlier. Further on is Bukit Mertajam which I have promised myself we shall finally get to climb before we go home.

Owing to the vagaries of the local orchard boundaries, there is no direct access to the Malihom area and there are too many holes in stream beds to contemplate bashing through the 'long grass', we had to go down to the valley with its fish ponds.

At least we could cut the last hairpin and join the path beyond. Climbing up we passed what we assume are caged 'fighting cocks'. Like lots of things in Malaysia, there is a law against such practices but enforcing it isn't a high priority.

We climbed to the col and I hoped it would be our last significant climb.

We carried on along the contour path below Malihom and took the path down on the left well before the 'corkscrew' on the access road.

It turned out to be a delight, at least initially, and the metal sign suggested it was (had been?) a recognised hiking route.

We came to a T junction, to the right looked better used but left was really what we wanted. We came to a Y-junction and left looked more used so we took it. It was really a mental coin toss call and this time we had it wrong.

We saw the lower path looking good below us and scrambled down to it. While it certainly wasn't well used, there were no more obstructions and under the leaves we could see concrete. Maybe it had fallen out of use once the access road to Malihom was built. 

Soon we could see daylight ahead and climbed over a small pile of boulders to find we were on a concrete road. It finished just above us and the next turning going down was a rapid dead end too.

However, below us was a house with the obligatory yapping dogs. I was sure we had come far enough down, so we turned left and followed the level road.

Almost immediately we came to a house we had visited during our December survey. The two rubber rollers here had been a very welcome sight then.

Yuehong had her usual animated discussion with the lady of the house. 'Wuhan' was mentioned frequently but from what little I know, the risk of transmission up here in the open air with a tropical temperature is almost non-existent. I hate cruise ships and shopping malls with almost equal intensity so the fact that they have both fallen on hard times worries me not a jot. If you choose to go for a cruise on the 'Diamond Princess', currently incarcerated in Yokohama, whose owners were fined USD 40 million for dumping 4227 gallons of oily waste in the English Channel in 2016 then you won't get much sympathy from me. They aren't alone, just look at http://cruisejunkie.com for a depressing list of offenders, many of which are of the serial kind. 

We carried on directly from the house and passed the edge of a small rubber plantation.

It dived into an overgrown area and, shortly after, we emerged with a view of Pulau Betong and Bukit Genting Pass.

Now we could easily have gone straight down but it was not much of a diversion to turn left and then descend to the path we had finally come up first thing, thereby finding where it emerged.

The first part was, of course, familiar and then we saw the first house below. The path continued down past it.

Soon we were in an avenue of durian trees and after some modern houses on the left we emerged right next to 'Mavis 2'.

The walk had taken us about 4 hours, much of it on what we call 'Gibby Paths' but with enough of a more challenging nature to work up a thirst. About 50% of it was on routes which have not been reported here before and if you are looking for something a bit different then it's a great little hike.