Penang Hills and Trails
Sungai Ara Circular

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 although quite long. There is a sketch map at the bottom showing the route followed.

This is, in essence, the same walk as our Pondok Upeh Circular, but starting and finishing at the midpoint. There's no particular advantage in either of them, readier access to one or other of the starting points would be a consideration, in this case we needed to pay a visit to our bank in Tanjung Tokong and it made sense to keep on going rather than doubling back to Teluk Bahang.

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

We'd had two challenging walks in difficult country and now it was time to return to the safety of the concrete paths. This was a walk which we could almost have done blindfold, but even in areas like this, there are changes each year and it's fascinating to see and record them. As such it's not as profusely illustrated as other walks.

We started at the bikers' shelter on the valley road accessed from the Indian temple on Jalan Kenari  which has safe parking for Mavis. There are rock pools all the way along to this point often frequented by local children after school and at weekends and holidays.

Most junctions on this walk are readily sorted, but this first one, a small path on the right, is easily missed with the roads just above. After crossing the stream it heads upwards, it's always been attractive to us, but these days the area to the right is increasingly being cleared for replanting.

Once in the durians orchards, it starts fine, but new owners here seem to find it necessary to erect ugly fencing, it's definitely against traditional practice. The black plastic is to shade the young durian trees from the strong sun as they establish themselves. Things get rather better at the next junction where we turned left.

I suspect it's an 'old money' vs 'new money' thing, note the plantings and the almost invisible fence on the left. There's a new shrine along the way and sadly, the termite ridden old house has been swept away by the new owner in favour of a mundane collection shed. At the same time, replanting has given a great view of Sungai Ara's balancing boulder.

At the next junction we turned right past another house which is out of use. At electricity pole PPSA 76 we turned left to go up, straight ahead down would lead back to the modern hell that is the new Relau.

While much remains unchanged, up here things are changing too and rarely for the better. Last year we noted a new alignment being built, the original one is now closed off, presumably the new owner of the plot on the right demanded it. The communication mast has disappeared completely but the next plot has gained a gate and, much worse has gained vegetable patches galore which will soon extract what few nutrients are in the soil.

There are some wonderful tall durian trees up here, but they must be long past their best. Round the corner, there has been a massive clearance. We assume this is for residential purposes although many of the lopped durian trees are sprouting.

Like all the birds' nest factories, this one is hideous and these days it's a real pleasure to turn off towards the pass.

It's a different world on the other side, I doubt many of the new owners on the Relau / Sungai Ara side are Hakkas, on this side they are and they know how to do things properly.

There are no fences here and in the top area at least, the 'traditional' concrete paths are a pleasure to follow. Eventually, they become concrete roads.

Roads like this are increasingly 'gated' but where like here they serve multiple orchards, there's no problem to go round the side if you are a hiker. Everyone we have met here has been very welcoming. We turned left to go past the FCS durian orchard which is a large and professionally run one, owned by Balik Pulau people 

The road is designated as the 'Pondok Upeh Cicle Route' and there are appropriate signs all along it although increasingly they are to be found horizontal owing to lack of maintenance. It was time to start climbing again and this meant taking the left fork. Probably this is one of the steepest sections of the whole walk.

We had picked a good day not to go in the area north of Balik Pulau because anyone venturing there today would have collected a soaking. There are a couple of junctions after the rubber, we turned left at the first and right at the second. Going straight ahead up the hill would bring us to probably the most inhospitable Buddhist centre in Penang (and it has plenty of rivals for the title). The gate on the road up is a relatively recent addition, although padlocked, it is 'hiker friendly'.

Just beyond is a well placed bench, it's now an established pit stop whenever we come this way. The clouds were building as we made our way up. Near the top, as often happens, the T junction where we turned right had suffered a landslide 

The top area has mostly been cleared of rubber and for the time being at least is covered in grass - it will need proper replanting soon. Rather than go along the ridge to Malihom and go down there, we turned left into what remains of the rubber on the hillside.

The path is fine, but with spots of rain in the air, the mosquito population was out in force, Yuehong raced through it, continuing to swat the pesky creatures even after she came out. Parts of my arms were black too.

It was downhill all the way now and from here a concrete road of sorts. The blue sign behind Yuehong promises a Pit Bull in English and Chinese for anyone who comes past it, but it must have been on holiday.

At the next junction we turned left to see how the renovation of the temple was going, a year ago what had been a modest establishment had been a building site. Now things looked very different, a range of donors had come up with the funds for something which is going to be rather special, at least as far as such things in the hills go. Many of the decorative items have been sourced from mainland China, but the chief decorator is a 'local boy'. He said he has worked on some 60% of the island's Chinese temples and I am sure that niche work like his does not come cheap. He told Yuehong that it would need another 6 months to complete, not least because the internal decoration had yet to start. There will be some party when it's finished, unfortunately, we'll most likely be in the UK at that time.

Another Tiger and it was time to continue to the Thai temple. The resident Thai monk was consulting his smart phone. I'd like to think he was looking for a special new chant, but since he seemed worldly wise having spent some time in Switzerland, he was probably updating his Facebook page.

Another Tiger and we were on the last leg. The Fig Tree Resort looks increasingly tatty these days and everything was shut up. However, there was a dog sleeping inside the gate and the website shows they are still in business. I guess they just had no one booked in, it's never looked very busy when we have come past.

This walk had taken us 5 hours, the time had flown by and I suppose if we had tried, we could have done it rather quicker. Overall it's still a delight and, were I ever to write a book about hiking in Penang, I would be sure to include it.

Naturally we went to the YoYo Huat in Sungai Ara for another excellent 'economy rice' and again we stopped at the Magic Tiger Tree in Sungai Pinang. We know what we like!