Penang Hills and Trails
Another Pondok Upeh 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.

We've done loops in this area several times before, but this was to be a bit different as there were a couple of sections which were unfamiliar, indeed there was one path we had never used before. These sections are introduced in the Sungai Ara Figure of 8 and Malihom Explorer hikes.

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

This was a 'red T shirt day' but I have resisted the temptation to recycle some of the earlier pictures. The huge advantage of having Mavis and choosing to start along the Pondok Upeh Cycleway is that it's 150 metres a.s.l. and a sweaty initial climb is avoided. Today I had been instructed to arrange a slightly longer than average walk as we had been off in North Sumatra and hadn't exercised properly for over a week. However, for domestic reasons we started a little later than planned at pole JTS 133 41 and began as we had done on the Malihom Loop walk. You can't ask for a better start to a walk, it's gently undulating with views of the Balik Pulau plains and also across to the area to the north side and below Malihom. Now there's a path from behind to the brown replanted patch but as we discovered last time, it's not readily accessible from the left where the bananas are in need of a serious tidy up.

We passed the 'Comfort Heart' orchard and this time went down to where there was (for us) a new road to the left. 

Having seen our durian farmer friend take this road, we knew it would do the business, but we hadn't realised just how quickly and easily. It curved round the hillside and climbed a little, we just had to follow the electricity poles. Yuehong was looking at the wires which were full of 'bee eaters'. The final approach to the hut had some particularly fine 'Hakka walls'.

Our friend was up here again, he's got a massive task as the overgrown orchard is some 14½ acres, since our previous visit the way ahead had been made clearer (not just for us). Yuehong remembered we had gone along to where it finished, but that represented a difficult short climb, so instead we located the original path that took us up the two levels.

It's the red ant season and Yuehong as always suffered more than me. She was not happy, at times like this I have to just accept it is my fault and shut up, she's impervious to advice.

I kept my distance as we went up the broad path and then down past the big house.

Since our last visit, someone had fixed the iron grid next to the locked gate, maybe they read my report? Rather than break our way out, Yuehong demonstrated how we could get round it with a simple climb. Then, we then had to go back down and get the sticks and bags. Up we went to the corkscrew, being passed by one of Malihom's less educated employees, he found it hard to believe that we knew how to get to Sungai Ara from here, despite my patient explanation in my best Indonesian. Driving a big pick up, he seemed to come from that sector of the Malaysian population that doesn't greatly believe in walking anywhere and is in danger of losing the use of its legs.

He left us to complete our climb and we were soon over the pass and going down. I was under strict instructions not to go via the rubber on the left with its millions of mosquitoes, but it was never part of the day's plan

The route is very straightforward, we went down past the small chicken farm and then had a view down towards where another path comes in. That's the dreaded rubber above Yuehong in the third picture and if we hadn't taken the smaller path to the left then we would have been entertained by the migrant workers and their noisy dogs.

It's an easy descent down the concrete road and this time we had our wild life moment in the form of smaller than average monitor lizard that seemed very confused by our presence.

The Thai temple was deserted but as always it was the perfect place for a refreshment break, we had gone well today and we had yet to make the 2 hour mark. Soon we were down on the Sungai Ara valley road.

There were signs of life at the Fig Tree Resort with new Chinese lanterns and one gate open, we didn't look inside. The mountain bikers' shelter is another of our starting points, it was a sign that we needed to turn left and start climbing again. There were flickers of a smile from Yuehong again, but I knew what was waiting at the top of the climb...

The concrete road is of no great age, at the point where it has multiple branches, the original path to the left is actually the best option.

Rejoining it, we knew to ignore the two turnings on the right. The first seems to be part of a development that has stalled (what a shame), the second leads to the path which becomes the zig-zags up to the place the mountain bikers call 'The Carpet'.

This time we wanted to try out the original concrete path which goes off on the left just before a small house and then passes behind it.

There's just one junction where we kept left and than it's underused but clear with just a few small branches and leaves to crunch through. Eventually, we came to the top of the orchard we climbed through on the Sungai Ara Figure of 8 walk. Yuehong must have been pleased as she insisted I have my second Tiger.

That was the end of the fruit trees for a while, the upper area here is still 100% rubber although much is abandoned. We knew what to expect, the path wound its way up, we could see the ridge above us but there no point in bashing our way through the undergrowth.

We knew that there was short section near the top which would be a little overgrown and there would be more red ants... Yuehong gritted her teeth and started squashing. The only critical point of the whole hike was to spot where we needed to take a sharp left turn at an almost invisible junction.

"5 minutes to the FCS" I said to encourage Yuehong, but it didn't really work even though she knew that the two wrecked motor bikes represented the end of serious climbing for the day.

We turned left through more red ants and I skipped the rubber (and its mosquitoes) as the FCS had cleared the ferns and grass in our way.

It's also a lovely spot for a Tiger, not to mention checking for residual ants, but soon we had to make our way down. The best way back to our starting point involved turning left at the only 'concrete' junction.

These two rubber rollers (presses) are 'preserved' here, Yuehong tells me that one of them was made by the 'Ling Nan' factory in Kallang, Singapore. the site of which will have long since been redeveloped as it's right in the middle of town.

There are some lovely views of the Balik Pulau plain here, the main range hills were cloud covered as they have been almost every afternoon of the stay and again we preserved our record of having got seriously wet just once on the trip.

The path down was just steep enough to make the knees rattle, so we took it easy. My instruction to leave the path and turn left was met with some incredulity as it usually is...

... that is until Yuehong saw the road just a few rubber terraces below.

We were just four electricity poles away from our starting point as we rejoined the Pondok Upeh Cycleway. I was told we had covered just under 10km and leaving out the breaks it had taken about 4 hours. Clearly our fitness is now greatly improved.

My fridge is more than full at the moment so it required only a stop at our favourite restaurant in Sungai Pinang on the way home, although we bought most of the stock at a fruit stall in Balik Pulau which would remove the need for a visit to our local superstore for the next few days. .