Penang Hills and Trails - Bayan Lepas without Tears
Bukit Papan Lollipop

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.

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

This is a hike for those who like endless paths through orchards and old rubber, with the odd climb thrown in. It's largely above Bayan Lepas but doesn't require a visit to that village 'ruined by progress'. Perfect for my book of hikes in Penang in other words, should I ever decide to publish such a volume.

By 2023 access between the two orchards on Bukit Papan was blocked, it's a shame as it has been a very useful transit in the past.

Our good friends Nathan and Tom were on their annual visit to Penang and we always like to offer them a chance to get out of their comfort zone. We had taken them to the Hakka Makan at the Da Ba Gong temple above Titi Kerawang a week earlier and now we would show them an area of the island they had never seen. They left their wheels in Jalan Kenari in Sungai Ara and we all piled into Mavis to get to the starting point. Yuehong now monitors her performance with her 'toy' but this time she nearly forgot to get it going.

It was an earlier than average start as we needed to finish in good time before evening dinners which meant we would complete the main climb before the temperature rose. Yuehong set a cracking pace and I just watched from the back.

It's turned distinctly drier in the last week (at last) and some of the lush greens have gone slightly orange. Soon we were up at the junction for the 541 resting point, the time stamp tells me we did a 'personal best'.

We used the path beyond through the old rubber a couple of times earlier in the trip and were slowed by trees down, but someone (maybe the 541 man) has been up here with a chain saw and although it doesn't look too good, there is a clear gap you could get a mountain bike through now.

We breezed through the durian orchard, Yuehong was so confident today that she didn't bother to use her contact lenses. We went down through the rubber and Yuehong explained how her idiot husband had managed to miss the U-bend when coming in the opposite direction and consigned us to an unnecessary twenty minutes in the undergrowth. (A day later, another of our guests was ahead at this point and made the same mistake and had to be rescued.)

The oil palm junction looked a little different as the bridge had been repaired but the sun was beating down strongly as we climbed towards the coconut farm on the ridge.

Yuehong demonstrated how to dodge round locked gates and by now the main climb was nearly over.

We had turned right here into the rubber before, but to get through to the other side is 'private business', we have learned not to stray from proper paths when we have visitors. The high yielding dwarf coconuts are most impressive.

There's just one point on the walk where some care is needed and that's the ditch that divides the coconuts from the next fruit orchard. Just ahead was a small hut with seats with a marvellous view of both the airport / Pulau Jerejak and Teluk Kumbar / Bukit Gemuruh, a perfect place to enjoy a cold Tiger in other words. Afterwards, Yuehong raced off into the distance, she had been on her favourite water melon instead.

By 2023 access between the two orchards on Bukit Papan was blocked, it's a shame as it has been a very useful transit in the past.

It was time to go down and we left the ridge and joined the wide path down through the old rubber.

 The youngsters were leaving me behind and it was as well that Yuehong stopped to show Nathan and Tom the mysterious cave just before the Da Ba Gong temple, which was an obvious choice of location for the second Tiger stop. Oh dear, that meant we had to climb back up the hill afterwards. 

However, the scenery is great and I am sure that our visitors weren't very sure where they were by now.

We see these rubber rollers (presses) everywhere we go but this pair are totally anonymous. Yuehong led N & T through the mud trap before the stream before managing to take a wrong turning - the only one of the day - which allowed me to catch up.

Soon, we were back on '541 path' and as Nathan had decided to take the lead, he was the lucky one to spot the wild boar getting away from us, he said it was not totally dissimilar to a large black Labrador dog!

A major feature of this path are the stands of bamboo, but Nathan was more impressed by the 'live' rubber.  

Another improvement was a repair to the path in places where the combined effects of mountain bikes and heavy rain had created gullies, I'm sure this was a 541 initiative.

Look at Google Maps and you'll see this place is marked and on Sunday morning it will be very busy, fortunately today was a Friday. In this area, many of the durian trees are starting to flower, this tree had a huge number of potential fruits, other areas are well ahead and we have seen tiny 'aborted' durian fruits lining the path.

The containers are a reminder that durian trees usually need supplementary water through February and March. In no time we had reached the bottom of the main climb and started on the final stretch.

I had anticipated we would take 5 hours, but in fact we had shaved half an hour off that and taking off the drink stops, we had been hiking for just 4 hours. Apparently, we had covered nearly 12km. No wonder I was breathless, unlike the men with toothache who would shortly be starting up down in Sungai Ara.

It's a great walk, I've not used too many pictures, as there are many in other reports of shorter walks in the same area. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that the next day we came back with another regular visitor, John Baker from Bangkok. He's nearer my age and not a regular hiker, so I'm pleased to say we had a much more relaxed outing and it took an hour longer!