Penang Hills and Trails - Reverse Kelicap Circular

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 short 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.

This is broadly the reverse of a hike we did a year ago in January 2019. That one followed a visa run to Medan in North Sumatra, this one preceded it. The only significant difference lay in the early part of today's walk. As I have explained elsewhere, we are hiking intensively on a near daily basis but I am being very selective on those I report, I need more free time to relax and work on other projects associated with this website (ie Indian metre gauge steam locomotives).

There are a number of streets with 'Kelicap' in their name between Sungai Ara and Bayan Lepas. Frankly, if someone offered me a rent free property there for the indefinite future, I would say 'thank you' but 'no, thank you'. Maybe one day it will be a monument to uncontrolled capitalism but right now it's an all day hell hole with a constant cacophony of building sounds, audible from the nearest hill tops.

We parked at the turning into the monkey temple in the hills and tried to shut our ears against the sound of people making love with concrete. Before we reached the temple we noticed small boulders on the road and looking up we could see that there had been a considerable landslide. Although we didn't investigate, it seems that it swept away the road which leads to the house at the top of the valley.

The first sign of changes was this renovated path to the left opposite where we had intended to go up the wide track but this was too interesting to ignore. We took it and almost immediately took the more used right fork at the junction.

Across the valley we could see a brand new concrete path going up from behind the temple before it turned right and headed for the road. Our path went past an old house but I was disappointed to find the old rubber rollers had gone. Beyond the house, we followed the now not very well used path.

It died at a stream but above us we could see some 'working' rubber that I recognised so up we went, it looks awful but was probably less than 50 metres.

As I had anticipated we met the path just above the house with one of the most obnoxious dogs on the island. I shouted hello and he replied in kind which ruled out checking the house for rubber rollers. So we turned left and continued climbing.

We left the rubber and entered the durians.

We temporarily rejoined the rubber and then when the path went right, I knew we had to straight on. Yuehong was not so sure as it's not a route we use too often.

At first sight she might seem to have been right, but brushing the fallen branch aside we hit the path through the old rubber.

I knew to turn left at the bamboo and climb the short distance to the ridge.

With a massive clearance and replanting this is now a very attractive path and represents 'knee friendly' hiking.

I wouldn't mind the view quite so much if more of the flats were actually occupied and less of them were held by speculators (sorry 'investors') many of whom are not even Malaysian residents.

We descended to the Sungai Ara valley and passed the lowest point on this side of the hill.

We now climbed back up. The map shows that the two paths are not far apart but they are at different heights and in between is totally ovegrown and has been for a long time.

I didn't take many pictures as we often come this way. The early and prolonged dry season has led to durian trees producing flowers earlier than usual. It's by no menas universal yet and no doubt varies from type to type. We soon reached the 541 rest area.

After the break we went our separate ways as Yuehong is very protective of her weak knee, especially going downhill. There has been a mass planting on the area previously occupied by abandoned rubber on the hillside below the top of Bukit Gambir.

The barrier has been removed by persons unknown and the 'stop order' remains but there is no sign of any enforcement, exactly as I predicted a year ago. Much to my pleasant surprise the small path to the left was clear. Despite haviing warned Yuehong against taking, I turned left without hesitation as it's a good short cut and much more pleasant than the roads.

Usually it keeps to the right of the durians but some cutting had blocked that so I had to go left and then look for the point where the path had crossed the stream. It was nowhere to be seen. Never mind, there were some boulders available instead of the usual bridge and on the other side I soon found the terrace that had the path.

I expected to find that the migrant workers here had gone home like the others and indeed there was almost no sign of recent activity.

For the time being the path is still completely clear and I dropped down to see the welcome sight of the resident pair of rubber rollers, in this case they are fairly new and anonymous.

The orchard's grass could do with a pre-season cut but the path is perfectly clear. When I saw the Da Ba Gong temple, it was time to put the camera away.

I had to walk round to collect the car and my timing was excellent, Yuiehong had been waiting about 30 seconds at the bottom of the hill. Lucky girl!

It's an excellent walk in an unusual area and it took us about four hours including breaks.