Penang Hills and Trails - Bayan Lepas Explorer Part 4
Almost Bukit Papan Again

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, unsuitable for those without experience of walking in overgrown areas without formal paths! 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.

To understand this mad hike, you need to first read the Bayan Lepas Explorer Part 3 report, which if not entirely unsuccessful did leave some room for improvement. First though, we needed to establish the status of the only known path which connects the two cultivated areas above Bayan Lepas.

Today was Thaipusam, when thousands of Malaysians of Indian origin indulge in public self flagellation in front of a vast audience of tourists and locals along Penang's roads. Participation is in the category of 'Morris Dancing and Incest', observation of this bizarre spectacle is probably best done just once. We do our equivalent activity in private, today I had two 'forest bashes' in mind to satisfy my personal curiosity, something Yuehong tolerates if I can deliver her safely at the other end some time before it gets dark.

We started part way up the hill behind the Orchard Ville condo off Lengkuk Kelicap, this meant we could escape the concrete chaos a little bit quicker. Round the bend one of the fish farm ponds was being emptied and there were dozens of catfish floundering around, no doubt bound for a Pecel Lele in due course, a delicacy for which I have yet to acquire a liking.

This is such a specialist hike that I have included minimal details of the access road, there are several other accounts available. In a perfect world I would have liked to come out by this hut, but that was only ever going to be a pipe dream when I looked down a short while later and saw there was a steep jungle covered hillside leading to it.

This was the real start of the day's adventure, a small path off to the left, which we had only ever used once and that some 5 years ago. At the time, Yuehong was much less fit and tired towards the end of what she would then have been considered a long walk. The time stamp on the pictures suggested this section took about 25 minutes but today it would take even longer, blindingly obvious if you look at the start. Since we last passed, someone has tried to burn the path clear, not without some success but we still had to be careful clambering through.

It's a good path for all of 200 metres until there was another obstruction. We quickly dodged round it to the left.

There was an easily missed junction in the middle of the ginger. I remembered from last time that there was a shelter for migrant workers to the right and we had to go straight on.

Some blockages Yuehong could skip over and we made fair progress.

For encouragement there was a concreted section. Yuehong is looking grumpy because it took a little while to find the path after the next obstruction, but once that was done, it was back on the concrete.

It's often difficult to convey the problems caused by a few trees coming down. These two picture were taken at least 10 metres off the path which was completely impossible. We rejoined it and were grateful that the next tree had fallen in a thoughtful manner.

Fortunately, this obstruction was a lot easier than first apparent, there was room on the right to get round.

Finally, we emerged at what had once been a T-junction with another path, although that too appeared overgrown. We turned right and came to what appeared to be a T-junction, I went to the right but when I was invited to cross a stream I went back.

With our experience, we could see the right path through the greenery, we kicked our way through and eventually as expected we could see the hut in the clearing we had visited twice before.

We waded through and came to the bridge. Could we now find our way back in the opposite direction? I would doubt it.

It had been a fun hour and we took a well earned break. The hut had been a pump house at some time, the equipment had gone but some pipes remained. At some stage, a large pipe had been installed here, I assume it will have been for the rubber estate which once occupied this land.

It now started to rain so we sheltered for a while, it eased, we started out but again the rain fell. When the next break came we set out regardless which wasn't a great decision as the third attempt was a more serious matter. After I took these pictures I put the camera in the bag. 

We followed our previous route to the end of the path and along the rubber terraces, obviously quicker than before because I could follow where the prickly vines had been snipped. We initially  ignored the temptation of the first durian orchard, but found that the old rubber terraces 'died'. So we joined it higher up and instead of going down, continued to roughly follow the contour we were on. That brought us through some bamboo  and old rubber until we came to another durian orchard running down towards Bayan Lepas. Again we maintained height and by now the camera was rather sick, it was more than a little misted up.

I got criticised for not using the secateurs enough but the reality was that the ground was now rather slippery. There were two (or maybe three) more overgrown terraces to cut through and then we were in the clear. Looking ahead we had come out next to the recently cleared area we had passed earlier. Never mind, we had avoided a steep descent and an ascent and were soon back at the Da Ba Gong temple.

While we were relaxing, a local Chinese pitched up on his motorbike for his (daily?) observances which included a visit to the small side 'chapel' up the steps at the side. Fortunately, by now the camera was largely restored to health although the zoom control was out of action.

Afterwards, he explained to Yuehong the meaning of the various paraphernalia he had brought with him. Finally, he showed us a nearby small cave, no one quite knows its origin but it is said to date from the time of the Japanese invasion and maybe a Japanese had been killed in this area...

On our way down, he came past and stopped to show us one of special possessions. It's a 1939 one cent coin issued by the Commissioners of Currency Malaya and bearing the head of George VI, King Emperor. Despite being born after independence he was convinced that it would have been no bad thing if the British had continued to control Penang, at least everyone would have had an equal chance to work hard and prosper.

Malaysia has a general election coming and as always the 'politics of race' will sadly be to the fore. The current (opposition DAP) state government has some (awful) prestige projects in mind, starting with three artificial islands to the south which will will generate funds from developers to pay for an undersea tunnel to the mainland and three 'paired roads', one of which will cut through the hill behind us and then later carve its way through the forest reserve past Batu Ferringhi. However, currently the (BN) Federal Government has vetoed the reclamation and hence there is no money for the other projects. Fingers crossed, they will still be squabbling when we are too old to hike and quit the island.

They'll all probably come to pass in due course, it's the mainland Chinese "if it can be done it should be done" attitude all over again, without regard to long term desirability.

As for the day, it was effectively mission accomplished, we had followed the desired path even if it looks to be doomed and we had found a direct route back. Job done for the time being. We went down to the YoYo in Sungai Ara, had our usual Economy Rice and went home - the long way round as the Thaipusam fun and games would have blocked the direct route.