Penang Hills and Trails - Titi Kerawang Explorer Part 2
Laksamana Link

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, click here for Part 1 and Part 3. 

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

A couple of weeks earlier we had been up the north side of the Titi Kerawang valley and shown how it was quite easy to get a good view of the upper falls. Today's walk was a recce to check out the rest of the paths and in particular to get up to the ridge which would lead to the path that runs from near the Tropical Fruit Farm to Bukit Laksamana. However, it was also a thoroughly enjoyable stand alone walk, the map is probably a little confusing but in fact there aren't too many paths and it's fairly easy to find one's way around.

The kicking off point for this walk is the entrance to the Bao Sheng Durian Orchard, electricity pole JTK 9 just above the fruit stalls. The first part is a copy and paste from the first time here but it may not be obvious!

Lots of paths in Penang have unpretentious beginnings like this one, it soon shows its class as it rises slowly above the road.

There was just one  zig-zag of the day before we reached a small hut.

If, like us, you are coming up in the morning, the sun might blind you to the sign, Yuehong had talked to the owner of this lower area and he, at least, had no problem with visitors and we met him again on what seems to be a daily check.

It really was a delightful walk again and we took the left turn we had marked up before.. 

It was another classic durian estate concrete path and it was good to see it was being maintained. Eventually it cut back to the right and undulated long a contour line.

We were not surprised to see a path coming up from the right, we would continue left but first I confirmed it had come up from the top side of the disused swimming pool.

The views were again splendid, both out to sea where the egregious recent developments might never have happened and upwards towards the cleared area we had visited last time.

As expected we soon came to another junction which we fully expected to return to later. Almost immediately, I had to freeze as this green whip snake was crossing the path. We've seen them before but never had a chance to obtain a close up shot. It's mildly venomous but small and non-aggressive to humans.

By October 2022, the area ahead shown here was overgrown with the rubber unapproachable.

Continuing up we came to the young rubber which is often found at the top of durian estates. Nearby was a fruit tree which looked rather like a giant gooseberry bush, I'm not familiar with it here.

After this point the path became less and less used, eventually at the forest edge it became almost impassable.

We tried the 'jungle' which was actually a series of very old rubber terraces, after all this was only a recce and when we came to a huge wasps' nest, that was it for this time. Next time we'll be more serious but for now we went back to the overgrown path briefly, I just hope it gets cut back soon (very soon).

Going down the old rubber was always going to be even worse than the overgrown concrete path but we were soon back out and Madam was happy again.

Back down we went and soon we were at the house by the swimming pool.

That just left one path to check out. Beyond the house, last time we had gone right up through the forest on the 'path to nowhere'. This time we went left and soon we came to a minor junction - it turned out that the path we had just come down was barely 20 metres away, we could have saved some energy and also running the gauntlet of several dogs.

It was yet another extremely pleasant path which soon led to a house which was not in regular use.

Behind it to the left, the path continued but we had been warned by Peter van der Lans that we would not want to go far up here and so it proved. A while back it had apparently been a lot clearer and he had gone up it to a water tank and a Bukit Laksamana Forest Reserve sign but no further.

Back we went to the house, I rather fancied catching the 14.30 501 from Balik Pulau but Yuehong still had pounds to burn and she had spotted another path behind the house which crossed the stream. As far as I was concerned the best part was the view of the house.

Of course, in the interests of science we had to find where it finished which we soon did. Back down we went and I have to confess that there are few better places to while away the best part of an hour than this valley with the falls behind.

It was a sunny afternoon and they would rarely look as good as this.

We caught the 501 down to Balik Pulau and then back to Teluk Bahang, I had dinner and a couple of Tigers and Yuehong bought me a huge pile of delicious Chinese cakes, she doesn't want any competition for her slimming programme. I'm quite happy, it's Christmas soon and when the time comes I know how to do the business.