Penang Hills and Trails - More of a Good Thing 
Titi Kerawang to Sungai Rusa

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a Grade 3 walk, based mainly on length. 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.

The 501 bus service needed to get to Titi Kerawang from the north of the island had been withdrawn by September 2022. This makes this hike impractical for anyone without the use of a car.

Three days before we had walked into the hills above Titi Kerawang and back again down a different route. It was a terrific experience and unusually, we decided to go back to the same area for our last walk of our present session in Penang. It was not something to be done lightly as it was clear that what had been the downhill section would have innumerable junctions going up many of which would not be intuitive in terms of which way to go. Fortunately, I had made a careful record coming down and we were able to ascend without any problem at all. At the same time, we did want to look for alternative routes and spent some time checking these out.

If you intend to repeat this walk, please print it out and take it with you or at the very least make some notes. If you don't, then I promise you will get lost.

We started with an innovation, a Roti Jalla at the Belimbing in Teluk Bahang next to the roundabout now Ibrahim's Roti Canai is no more. It was a more than adequate replacement, as cheap as it was delicious. Thereafter it was the 10.30 501 bus which dropped us off at our kicking off point, the first path up after Titi Kerawang.

We always like to start off with a view but this was pretty mediocre, that new housing estate is yet another blot on the landscape. The first junction was easy, just straight ahead back into the old rubber.

This is a proper view. The round-the-island road is just off centre and the hills behind are the last peaks before the National Park, we've done some very nice walks in there.

Back into the welcome shade we went and after a zig-zag or two we came to the first critical junction - that small path on the right is what you want. The path left has now been explored and is known to reconnect with the path described below at the 4 way junction in the rubber (see below). 

Time to check that the Gods are still on our side, that's Bukit Laksamana I think in the distance, it's unlikely to feature on these pages owing to the reported ropes on the major access paths. Yuehong is only teasing, don't take this or any other contour path, at least not yet...

This is critical junction number two. If you're stupid enough to turn right, you'll probably (not confirmed) find yourself on a path that zig-zags up to the top of the cultivated area and then stops. Instead turn left and treat yourself to what for a while is a gentle shaded trail.

Your reward will be another very nice view looking north. The new house is built in a splendid location we visited it back in early 2013.

That's Bukit Laksama ahead with a solitary nutmeg. Cue the next critical junction...

Do not take the curved exit left but continue straight ahead up what is to my eye, the minor path.

Don't ask me where the other path goes, this is what it looks like from above, it seems to be heading for yet another durian orchard. Our chosen trail winds up and above it and soon reaches the single most critical junction of the whole ascent. You need that small path behind Yuehong while the concrete version carries on up. I did check it for a while, it seemed intent on heading for the top of the cultivated area, not a good idea at all.

You've earned a gentle spell, follow this path straight across a four way junction with brand new concrete left and right. I didn't check either side but from what I know of this area they are of no use to us. Now if you've got this far, then you won't be tempted by what was obviously once a gateway to another orchard, just turn left.

The path now is not much used, it was totally clear in the dry season and if more hikers don't start to use then it may be less pleasant to tramp in the future. For us, it's what it's all about, we had been down it three days earlier and consequently knew exactly where it would emerge. Firstly through wild ginger which was about to flower and then into overgrown rubber.

The rest was easy, Yuehong is very fit now and that succession of cold towels is working a treat. All the way to the temple is a wide road through first durians and then near jungle. I had fancied checking out this trail but a local handyman dissuaded us. As we confirmed later, it is most unlikely there are any conventional paths over the hill top to the other trail up from Titi Kerawang.

Since our previous visit, hundreds of devotees had been up to the temple on an auspicious day and had left an appropriate pile of rubbish, its environments are rapidly becoming a disgrace and there is now an excessive amount of concrete too. Continuing we passed a Kapok tree, something I don't see too often in Penang, the cotton like material in the pods can be used for stuffing in mattresses and pillows.

The avenue of ginger may look attractive but it's a signpost of former environmental degradation, after ferns, it's one of the first plants to colonise an abandoned cleared area. The flowers though are astonishingly beautiful.

Very soon we were at the turn back point, today it was pretty warm, so here's one I took last time. Yuehong is on the road from the temple and that's our onward trail on the left. This is the nearest thing I got to a sour face all day, the sun was beating down but I wanted to show the onward trail climbing out of the valley.

This area is a disaster compounded by guest workers wasting water on mint plantations. No wonder that right now there is no water left in the stream below Titi Kerawang after what little gets that far is abstracted for the water works. Anyway, we were glad to pass on to the next section beyond the bamboo.

We had half a mind to explore below the next open area but we were discouraged by several farm workers. Instead we just speculated on the possibilities and enjoyed the view which was clearer than on the first visit.

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We were both keen to get out of the sun. That enticing path left seems to head down into new rubber and then stop, but it's one for another day. Below the rubber I did want to shoot the Leong Peng Villa but after the first exposure the dog pack woke up, I made my excuses and left.

On our first visit here, I had been fascinated by this gateway, maybe it would offer a route over the hill? In fact it was yet another failed Buddhist project, from the banners it seemed that it had been abandoned around 2009.

It's not strictly true that there is no trail over this hill because both here and on a dead end near the temple, I found traces of the 3rd Penang Rainforest challenge which had crossed our path back on 8th December 2012. I doubt anyone has followed their route since and having sampled parts of it elsewhere I wouldn't recommend trying it to anyone over the age of 35 unless they were of unsound mind. We carried on down the road and this time the view point had no one home. It's got a marvellous location and can be seen from a long stretch of the flat part of the round-the-island road near Sungai Rusa - we had previously wondered just how to get to it and now we knew.

The fact was that we hadn't added a great deal of positive knowledge to our data base and as we still had time in hand and weren't feeling too tired, it was time for a little exploration. Ahead was the 4 way junction and wimps would simply continue down to Titi Kerawang, instead we took the narrower trail left which brought us to the road which had proved to be a diversion previously. However, now we were going down and not up and we had been advised there was a route to Sungai Rusa. This time we took the right fork at the next junction and when we got to the hut went right again on down (ignoring the other path left which appeared to climb gently).

We shouldn't get overconfident, but it turned out to be perfect for what we wanted. We made a new friend who assured us we were on the right path and enjoyed the cool late afternoon sun. There was a gate to be skipped around for sure, but beyond it was another path whose concrete clearly was laid in our favour.

Below we could see Sungai Rusa:

Most importantly, the gradient was no threat to geriatric knees:

We came to a 4 way junction by a hut. I'm not sure whether the left path would have gone anywhere, the right path looked as if it would lead to the big bend between Titi Kerawang and Sungai Pinang, that's one to check out another time. We carried on down past durian trees which were clearly being stressed out by the dry weather. The lucky ones were getting sprinkled, others were rapidly losing their leaves and presumably their young durians. Soon we came to the upper (Chinese) area of the kampung.

At the bottom of the hill was a barrier, we skipped over it - the new road on the left just beyond it can be discounted as it seems to lead only to some building development. Soon we joined several other small tracks. Coming the other way our route is easy to spot as it is the furthest to the left of all of them.

The road headed on to the lower (Malay) part of the kampung eventually passing the back of the school before joining the road which we had come down previously as part of our Sungai Rusa or Bust walk. The second picture is taken from the bus shelter on the round-the-island road and shows roughly the area we had climbed down from the view point.

We had a fair time to relax before the 17.30 501 bus turned up, our regular driver has just about got used to our antics (and our foul smells) and did allow us on board. After which we had a Nasi Kandar in Teluk Bahang, dropped into the shop next door to restock the fridge with Tiger and went home.

It's been a great 4 weeks, we really rate this area between Balik Pulau and Titi Kerawang, it's unspoiled rural Penang at its best and we'll be back in March 2014 to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.