Penang Hills and Trails - Temple with the View Circular 2018
Completing our survey

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.

This account is linked from my Penang Peaks page which lists peaks over 400 metres as well as other places of interest and viewpoints. To find other hikes which visit this peak please check the maps of this are using this link.

We've been in Penang for 8 weeks and looking at my maps, we've covered just about every area in the Balik Pulau bowl between Pantai Acheh and Pulau Betong, this seems to be the last, hence the strange extra zig-zag section later on.

With effect from 2022, part of the initial climb described here has been blocked by the landowner and much of the next section affected by a new concrete road. For most people the best route now will be to continue further up the valley originally and take the new concrete road which rejoins the traditional trail part way up. A description of this is given on another page - the link will open in a new tab.. 

Having discovered I could pay our water bill in Balik Pulau, it was time to try the same with our annual 'assessment', broadly equivalent to the UK 'council tax' but a lot cheaper. That turned out to be just as easy with just one person ahead of me in the queue. No more visits to the ghastly Komtar!

The idea was to meander up the north-east end of the Balik Pulau valley, trying to avoid both our regular trails and also the new zig-zag road. Along the way. we had plenty of time to spare and Yuehong (and I a bit) had conversations with three of the durian farmers in the hills, all Hakkas and each with rather different circumstances although all were obviously enjoying a situation where their orchards are now literally a gold mine although you wouldn't guess it from looking at them. No doubt each was happy to have an excuse to leave wife (and probably grandchildren) behind.

We parked up at pole HT NH 4 74, between 'The Valley' and the main route up. We'd not tried the road opposite before. The first house on the left was abandoned and the next in use. We didn't need to visit it as there was a path on the right. This finished at the top of the rise and to the left through the 'grass' we found a set of 'Hakka Steps' probably the original way up the hill which we had also used further up to reach the first true house in the hills. We joined a concrete path and in no time were at the expected junction.

It was rather warm and we were glad to stop and chat with the owner who turned up on his motorbike for his daily inspection. After division, he had just 4 acres but it was very productive. We could have talked in English as he had been to St. George's School in the town but that was long ago and Mandarin was a better choice. As soon as he had had the orchard, he had completely replanted with high value durians and now he had a house in Botanica, they don't come cheap. He sold his fruit from a stall outside the Mount Erskine market at the back of Tanjung Tokong, an arrangement which cut out the wholesaler's margin.

Yuehong had been nagging me about the right turn at the next T-junction so today we took it. It's in the middle of old rubber and so rather shady and almost immediately crosses the main stream in this area. Since our last visit, it's been considerably tidied as there is a new hut where it ends whose lady didn't really seem much pleased to see us. Never mind, we knew, but she wouldn't admit, that we could turn left and go up the terraces here.

Once we left her vegetable patch we were back in a durian orchard and that meant a concrete path. We followed it past the next house which is now the terminus of the concrete zig-zag road. We didn't want to fry ourselves on that so we turned left at the next junction.

That brought us back to the stream and a right turn started us climbing again.

This is a house that we used to avoid as it had lots of noisy dogs when we first came here 5 years ago. In fact they aren't any worse than most as there are chickens, ducks and geese everywhere. Behind are two brand new houses on the cleared area next to the road, to modern designs and not like the traditional houses here at all. I'm not sure this was ever an 'Internet Cafe', in any case with universal WiFi and smartphones, such establishments must have had a lifespan of not much more than 10 years.

We tried to keep as close to the stream as possible which would keep us away from the main concrete path up, but each time we just looped back. We met our second durian farmer here, his is the house we had just passed. What he has is part of his grandfather's orchard which extended to about 100 (!) acres. It's now been divided up within the family but he's not complaining, all the durian trees yield premium fruit and now the road is built, he simply waits for people to bring an empty pick up and take away a full load. He even hosts groups who have come from mainland China who come to Penang specially to enjoy the durians. We've seen many old orchards being given a make over and old rubber being cleared for fruit this year and he said that some of the finance for this had also come from the PRC. Like all the orchards we saw today, he doesn't use chemicals. I asked him about the way the road and the earlier electricity poles came the 'long way round' via the temple approach road and, as expected, he confirmed that the land owner(s) below didn't want them. I would feel the same way, it would lead to unwanted visitors.

We took a look at the rubber which runs to the ridge above. There is some concreting but once again the old 'Hakka Steps' are still serving their original purpose. I guess the pipe from the house used by migrant workers is some kind of 'waste water' system, certainly our new friend would not be impressed if they polluted his orchard.

We passed a couple of concrete bridges and then climbed towards the top. We joined the main path for the short final section, we recognised the landslide as the one by the temple car park.

Now today, the 'Temple with the View' ('Bao Tian Gong') was deserted, but 3 weeks earlier that was not the case. We had recorded the rare sight of Peter van der Lans parting with money and a fairly modest gathering as once again the Air Itam Dam road was closed to casual visitors.

We weren't there by accident.. 

While there was time to record the preparation, when it came to lunch time, it was 'everyone for themselves' as the tastiest bits vanished rapidly.

Today we had our usual more modest snacks and refreshment and headed on. That's Bukit Elvira above which Peter reports as being rather overgrown at the moment. The approach road seems to have escaped the recent storms lightly.

Not so what was once a very attractive and useful jungle path which linked with the 5 way junction above the dam (the 'Iron Cross' as the mountain bikers call it). That landslide has come down from next to the road and behind the warning sign about removing 'forest products' trees are down. I went no further than the first minor blockage, I am told there are much worse ahead.

When I got back to the road I found Yuehong in conversation with an old gentleman who was naturally curious about her presence as he knows all the regular hikers. He's got early Parkinsons and comes up daily as it helps deal with the side effects of his medication. One welcome effect of the closure of the dam road is the absence of new litter at the shelter.

There's a landslide right next to it and at least 5 more along the road which branches off here.

When we first came, you could easily drive a car to the house behind the gates on the left, but it seems few people come here now.

I wanted to check the state of the path onwards ('well worn') to the point where we had left it on a recent walk.

We again paused for refreshment on our way down, we spotted this chameleon on a rock before turning past the Pinang palms.

We now met our third durian farmer of the day. He's got a house up here which he doesn't use, he (or more likely his wife) prefers to live in Air Itam. It looked to be a small orchard but he said it was 10 acres which would be a handful for him. He'd brought up two buckets of 'sea food waste' from Air Itam market, which clearly counts as organic fertiliser, recycling at its best. Like the first farmer, he was someone who had had the benefit of a traditional 'English' style education started in the days before independence although he too was happier now in Mandarin. Much of what he said was understandably less than politically correct and therefore 'off the record', the traditional work ethic of these Hakkas is not shared by the population as a whole.

We'd spent far longer than was strictly necessary in the hills today, but it had added further insights into life up here.