Penang Hills and Trails - Nibbinda Circular
Tidying up the Nibbinda Experience

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.

For other visits to Nibbinda, please read Nibbinda Nirvana, Nibbinda Direct and the Balik Pulau Explorer 7.

If you missed the first tales, then the Nibbinda Forest Monastery - http://nibbinda.org  (Link broken by December 2023. RD) - is perched on a hill top high above Balik Pulau and we had readily sorted the official approach up its own concrete road on our first visit. Two days earlier we had set out for a recce above Nibbinda that turned into something far more arduous. We were both still feeling the effects and needed something 'useful' but not too demanding. So I suggested we do a third trip there to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and like the first visit, this one had no nasty surprises.

We were running just a little late and had good fortune when a 101 was slowed by turning traffic and responded to our frantic hand signals as we emerged on to the main road. Being a Sunday, our breakfast spot at Teluk Bahang was heaving with cyclists and space was at a premium. We were 'adopted' by a Malay family who were fascinated by our familiarity with eating out Malaysian style. The young lady spoke perfect English and her father's was almost as good. We spent so much time talking that there was no time for a second helping as usual. Afterwards we took the 10.30 501 bus to Balik Pulau and then repeated our previous ascent using the small road that takes off left just beyond the bus station. These are 'old' pictures should you not have read the previous tale.

It's largely shaded and very soon we had a view up towards the day's destination. That narrow valley in the middle drains from the Bukit Relau Forest Reserve and provides water for the much of the bowl in the hills east of Balik Pulau.

To get there we had simply to keep left every time we came to a junction of any significance. Along the way we had pleasant views looking back including this one of the Catholic church. Soon after we hit this monster junction but again 'keep left' is the rule.

This time we didn't follow the path as far as before and we stopped for an early lunch at the point where a small trail leads off left over a small bridge. I was prepared to ignore its possibilities but Yuehong correctly insisted on checking it out.

The path had been installed to collect durians of course and a very few of the trees were sporting large numbers of fruits.

Ahead we could see Nibbinda, but it became a bit of a scramble. Yuehong's hi-tech Chinese walking stick had done a great job for a month but it was clearly designed for pushing not pulling and when I tried to help up a steep section it came apart rather suddenly. Fortunately there was no cliff behind. We were not the only mad idiots coming this way, the FTAC had been up this hill very recently and maybe this was part of their 'run' which we had crossed in the Forest Reserve two days earlier. As we saw later, they delight in doing things the hard way. 

Very soon we passed one of the Nibbinda bungalows and came out at the most distinctive one (if you want to descend on this route you should go behind the green house, past the bungalow and look for the path below, it's a scramble and you need to be looking slightly to the right afterwards - however it's definitely better than the route we first used).

We went on up through the building site into the young rubber beyond on the ridge and immediately turned left downhill. By now it was really lunchtime and we sat down to enjoy the view, ahead basically was Bukit Elvira.

Now this is what I call a real view, the cold Tiger has just emerged from the back pack. If I had brought a second bottle then, as Yuehong complained, we could have spent most of the afternoon up here. Instead too soon we went on down the concrete trail and as usual in this area the gate was wide open.

The path curved to the left and then straight down which suggested we would soon be back on the main Nibbinda access road. Below was a swift's nest farctory, normally they are an austere white concrete but someone had kindly put a green plastic condom on this one. This is a very well managed estate and there were two tanks full of fish nearly ready for the dinner table.

Yuehong's hat had grown an appendage, the towels had frozen too well and despite it being the hottest day of the year so far, it needed some solar help. The gate in front appeared firmly shut but we had seen two motorbikes come up so we knew it would not pose any problems.

Frankly we were making too good time, we would miss the 14.30 501 but had too much time to spare before the 17.30 501. So we went back up the access road to Nibbinda to check out the possibilities for an alternative descent. There was a good contour path to the right behind the 'guard house' which went through the durians after which it continued as a water pipe trail into the old rubber. I checked this out but when I got to the view looking down to the burnt patch we had seen on our ascent on the opposite side of the valley and I'd seen enough. This turned out to be the way the FTAC had approached Nibbinda, I certainly didn't want to go up or down from here and straight ahead was presumably at best only this morning's route.

We took our time and retreated down the access road. It was a long time since we had been to Balik Pulau on a Sunday, almost everything was shut, which was quite touching, but our regular spot turned up some buns and cold drinks and we made our way home as normal.

It will be a while before we return to the Nibbinda area, but when you have done almost everything else it makes for a very pleasant day out.