Penang Hills and Trails - Teluk Kumbar Explorer
You Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a medium length Grade 3 walk with a significant less straightforward section. 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.

Our hiking came to a sudden halt in early January when I developed an enormous blister on my left foot which seems to have been insect related. Now, conventional wisdom is to let such things take their course but when it got to the stage when I couldn't even get my shoe on, I got it drained. With a little care, I was able to resume light duties within a week and the fact that we had a pending 'visa run' to North Sumatra allowed a final full recovery but I'm left with a large scar. 

Yuehong enjoyed her 'holiday' enormously, between us we consumed some 21 durians in Berastagi for about the same price we could have paid for one in Penang. I had rather less than half of them and I certainly didn't demolish the 5 special ice creams from the Tip Top restaurant in Medan. Consequently, she is looking for some intensive hiking to burn off the accunulated calories which, to be honest, she didn't get today.

Now, if you read through these reports, you might notice the absence of a route up from Teluk Kumbar to the Bukit Papan area. Just before we flew, we had been tipped off about one by a farmer on the ridge and when I mentioned this to Peter van der Lans, he went out and found another one. We agreed to pool our information and the result was this walk.

One issue in this possible search has always been to know where to start, there are quite a few short roads off the round-the-island road, any one of which might have continued some distance, but Peter had identified the lane next to Heavenly Land Hardware Trading on the north side of the village - I would find it very hard to guess the ethnicity of the owner. There is no proper shaded parking here and we abandoned Mavis to get cooked in the strong sun. While I photographed the starting point, Peter and Yuehong motored off ahead.

The horizontal sticks as ever indicated that the path was nothing like steep enough for Yuehong but the gradient soon increased.

We passed the last hut and very soon the sealed surface finished.

There was still concrete under the grass for a while, at least as far as the only junction where it went left. I know where Peter had come out and I agreed with him that going significantly left would ultimately lead to us confronting a patch of jungle and we continued straight ahead. Those sticks would soon be called into action.

The route soon became what is best described as 'undefined', in other words freestyle climbing through a former rubber estate. It was easier going than it looked for those of us blessed with near normal vision, but I copped an earful from Yuehong as, based on what I expected to find, I had advised her that contact lenses would not be needed today.

Peter confessed to impatience on his first ascent such that he had gone straight up through the boulders including a 2 metre vertical 'wall'. We agreed to skirt them this time, even if it meant a slightly longer zig-zag route. 

Madam still grumbled of course, but from experience it was best ignored. Peter put his foot down in the wrong place, a wire loop animal trap attached to a bent tree which might have lifted him off the ground if he hadn't been eating so well lately.

By now we could see the ridge above us and we could cut left to avoid an unnecessary final climb. Out came the famous smile and even when we hit the ginger it remained because Yuehong knows this undergrowth is typical of the boundary between maintained and unmaintained areas.

Indeed we were soon on a concrete path which we had used barely a week earlier, so when we turned right for a few minutes we were on a 'common knowledge' section.

Peter had come to this hut too, as we had some 6 years ago and we continued along the well used concrete path and through the shelter.

Peter informed us that the path to the left was a dead end and to the right we could see what I take to be a monument to what I call DAPpery, a demonstration that whatever the former state government could do to allow the erection of inappropriate buildings the present administration could always do better. That's the Lexis Suites, a 5 star luxury resort which boasts that every one of its 220 suites has an individual private pool and steam room. A weekend here would probably set a family back what most of the kampung dwellers (and the hotel's staff) would earn in a month. 

When I first knew it, Teluk Kumbar had very few buildings boasting more than one storey other than shop houses but at least the other tall buildings seen here represent low cost housing. However, there are more outsized new towers out of sight to the right. Up here, this house was as far as the path went down until relatively recently.

On our recent exploration we had found this 'new concrete' and a Chinese farmer at the water barrels who had come up on his motorbike from Teluk Kumbar - this represented good news. We could have gone down then but decided to hold back as it had been a 'no camera' day with no expectation of such an interesting discovery.

As we went down we spotted another hut below and Peter and I were naturally interested to see if anything lay beyond it as we could see a well kept durian orchard on the next hill.

Alas, while the path continued beyond, it expired some way short of what would have been a rocky stream.

The next part was delightful, there was no real sign it had ever been cultivated.

Soon we could see a house below in the valley and our path curved round to join its access path.

Unlike many, this one showed some signs of occupation but there was no one at home. More importantly, there was a concrete path to the right of it which went up the hill... I think Peter may be back here before us as we have several 'shared' walks coming up - he is one of the few people we would do any exploring with. 

It wasn't long before we came to a kampong, compared to many it was very well maintained with attractive houses and absolutely no rubbish.

This was Malay middle class territory with Jawi signposts, people living in the 21st century but with traditional tastes.

We walked on until we came out on the main road, right by a bus stop and about 100 metres from the dreadful Lexis Suites.

It had taken just 2 hours but had been very rewarding, I can't think of when we last did a walk with so much 'new'. Unfortunately, we still had to get back to the car at the other end of the village (officially it's a town now). Owing to road works, the 401E has been temporarily diverted over Jalan Tun Sardon and although the 401 still runs past here to a short term turn round, we had to wait over half an hour for one to turn up. Peter had a late afternoon 'date' and tried to summon a 'Grab' hire car but despite identifying two drivers in the area, both seemed to be rooted in coffee shops and uninterested. It seems that it would be unwise to rely on the service outside the main urban areas of the island. Of course, we could have walked it in 15 minutes but the level of traffic here would have made it less than enjoyable and spoiled our day. Yuehong's 'app' showed a mere 3.6km, never mind, I've got some things more to her liking lined up.