Penang Hills and Trails - Hakka Teddy Bears' Picnic
Balik Pulau to Titi Kerawang

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 owing to an excess of zeal on my part. 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.

Some days earlier we had been to the 'Temple with the View' high above Balik Pulau ('Bao Tian Gong') to enjoy their special day. The way things worked out timewise, we had to leave before the fun started. Today, we had special invitations from Hakka farmers and were looking forward to the 'Full Monty'.

We had our standard Balik Pulau start with the 501 bus from Teluk Bahang and got ourselves dropped off at Jalan Chai before the town. Our instructions had been precise - 'Be there before 15.00', we had four hours, what could possibly go wrong? I had allocated 90 minutes to get us through to the top of Air Puteh. We walked through familiar territory, Titi Heights, the oil palm, the old rubber manager's house and on to the Chinese temple which was getting a makeover ahead of it own March 10th celebration.

Up through the durians we went, being briefly halted by a dozen non-exercising motorbikers who are obviously part of Malaysia's growing obesity epidemic.

It's not a demanding route in any sense, we branched left just after the gate and soon joined the electricity poles at BI 30. As we passed the one hour point we came to our first summit.

We could coast downhill for the next few minutes. Yuehong and I will do anything to avoid visiting the Botanica development which reminds us both of mainland China in anything but a positive way, so we rejoined the more direct route to the Sungai Air Puteh upper valley at a traditional rural junction. We knew to turn left at the next junction along with the electricity poles (BI 55 4) and continue along the side of the house and up the concrete path behind. If you don't pass the balancing boulder, you're on the wrong path.

Some on line maps show this path as a road continuing up into the hills. They are mistaken, there are several concrete pillars which seem to state that intention but they are mere decoration. The last habitation is across the bridge on the left and the concrete path doesn't have far to go.

You might just get a 4 x 4 this far but not much further. The path to the right fades out into the top of the estate, ahead is where we needed to go. We arrived spot on my provisional schedule and we had another two and a half hours to get to our destination, more than enough as I read the situation.

Now to be honest, I had attended my condo's tedious but necessary AGM the day before and I had come away from it in a foul mood determined not to follow the "One Foot in the Grave" path of my quite delightful old fogy fellow owners. This shaped my unfortunate decision not to follow the standard onward route which would have led us to the wrong side of the upper valley but to go for an ascent through old rubber which I had successfully come down through a couple of years earlier. Not for the first time was I to discover that down and up in such territory are entirely different animals.

We took a breather and headed up. Someone had kindly been wielding a parang here and for 10 minutes it was steep but undemanding.

I did remember that we had to turn left when we crossed the water pipes and that the path on was a less than distinct zig-zag. Could I see it? No. Instead there was an invitingly open route upwards through the canopy.

Alpha males like yours truly never know when to admit they are on to a loser. Not long after, I decided it was easier to climb without a camera round my neck as we scrambled upwards. Parts were not too bad, others required us to divert to avoid fallen trees and others were just plain overgrown. I knew how far we needed to climb to reach the upper cultivated area and we had significantly exceeded it - my estimation was it would take 30 minutes in all and it was over an hour since we had left the lower path. Yuehong not surprisingly was looking less than enchanted and it was time for a radical rethink. I guessed we were maybe no more than 200 or so metres off where life would be easier, the issue being that it was through secondary jungle. So we plunged left and to give her credit Yuehong gamely and blindly followed, a year ago she would have thrown a gigantic wobbly. At this point, I addressed myself to the God of the Hills and he told me to be brave and check just a little further left. Fifteen seconds later, my prayer was answered and we emerged into a fruit orchard. Luck? Well we each of us would have our separate opinion. Somebody once wrote a ditty which went along the lines of "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help", never was it more true. Did I know where I was? That was easy, I did and that was a hut I recognised straight ahead.

No wonder my prayer had been answered so quickly, round the front is a shrine to 'Datuk Merah', its guardians were in attendance and watching us carefully. There was just one problem, it was now well gone 14.00 and we were still some way from our destination. I had a much needed upper body shower and avoided face contact with Yuehong as I replaced lost fluid.

I was tempted to say that the experience would have been good for her famous diet but as I value my manhood, I passed on that. When we got to the upper road, there were just 20 minutes left till the party was scheduled to start and we were the best part of double or even triple that away walking.

It was time to get out the virtual prayer mat again and ask for even stronger assistance from old man Tua Pek Kong himself. I knew from going past it on the bus that the entrance gate on the private road up from Titi Kerawang had unusually been left open for the occasion. All we needed was something a bit more substantial than the motorbikes that were coming past us. No problem lah, how about a 4 x 4 with empty goods space behind? In we jumped and we got to the temple car park at 15.00 precisely. I never doubted we would make it on time...

"You can have your lunch here" said a local as we walked in, too right we could, but in fact it wasn't quite ready yet. Laid out in front of us were no less than 70 tables, each set for 10 diners and these were insufficient for those present, some would have to wait for a second sitting and the left overs, the small altar area was an indication of what we might expect. We looked for familiar faces and dived in, Yuehong then went off to make a donation. She found a durian estate owner from Sungai Pinang who was a both a lady's man and a fluent Mandarin speaker - the latter courtesy of Sacred Heart School. For my part I had a drinking partner whom we keep bumping into all around Balik Pulau.

The chicken was having sauce applied, the table next door had exquisite duck and sausage and there were various fillers brewing up. Hidden away was the pork, which proved to be the #1 traditional Hakka dish. As hill dwellers, there was not a single seafood item on show, but I'm sure no one complained.

The food arrived and everyone dived in, that's the famous pork on the right. Officially, Yuehong was there just to record the event for her friends.

Fat chance! It was yummy wasn't it? Hide the bathroom scales for another week...

When everyone was full, the doggy bags came out, our farmer friends had no less than 6 (Yi, Ar, San... as I displayed what little Mandarin I know). Soon it was time to slip away as others were doing, we had an hour and a half to get down to the round-the-island road, not so easy when you have a bloated stomach. Along the path were some mountain bikers on motorbikes preparing for a forthcoming event and discovering what the farmers think of them as a tree had been deliberately felled across the track since we were last here a couple of weeks ago. If there's a better path in Penang, I don't know it.

Not surprisingly, I got my timings right for this section and we had a sensible 20 minute wait for the 501 bus.

If I had thought that a divorce might be pending at 14.00, that threat had now passed, Yuehong was now beaming again. I had the common sense not to point out that it was I who had spotted the notice advertising the event with only the date intelligible to me and suggested it might be worth her while to translate it for me. It was traditional Penang Chinese culture at its very best and we feel very privileged to be the guests of the organisers. We'll be back next year for more, of course, a larger donation will be in order and I'll find a different route up.