Penang Hills and Trails - Penang's Quietest Road?
Balik Pulau to Sungai Ara

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.

As of 2015, there are significant changes in the route which are recorded below in red, overall these probably make life a little easier (27th January 2015).

Two days earlier, we had stumbled on a new route over the ridge between Sungai Ara and Balik Pulau. Apart from the western descent, we had 'discovered' a road that went almost to the ridge on the east side, the only issue being that the house it served was infested with large dogs. However, we could neatly sidestep that by using the other west side ascent in the same area. In fact, I was quietly confident that I could set up a day's comfortable hiking which involved previously unused routes which would nevertheless join familiar places. And so it proved, we used no less than 7 different buses (5 different services) yet managed to complete the hike and return home exactly as planned.

Teluk Bahang is a large kampung and as such doesn't really boast much in the way of 'must photograph' objects, but given that we had a clear day following rain, it was a good time to shoot the pitcher plant roundabout, especially as I could include a new Rapid Penang Scania. After breakfast we went over the hill on the 10.30 501 to Balik Pulau bus station where not only did we find every bay (8) occupied but we had examples of all the services using it (401, 401E, 403, 404, 501 and 502). There was nothing unusual really about the first five but the 502 normally only stops briefly here and today's example had actually broken down. It may not look like 8 because two of the Chinese Higers have parked up a bit.

In my book, the most difficult thing today would be to persuade the 502 driver to stop where we wanted half way up the Jalan Tun Sardon climb, there being no official bus stop in the vicinity. In the end a little bit of tourist pressure did the trick. It's one of those places you really need to know about in advance but at least it's in the middle of a long straight stretch of road... There's a nice view out but you wouldn't know it from the bus.

One of the prices we will have had to pay for starting and finishing late in Penang this year is to miss our daffodil display. These are Penang's (lily) alternatives just around the corner on the Pondok Upeh Hill Cycle Route. This is a pleasant concrete road...

Which is more than be said for the first turn left - our ascent for the day - it's 'under development'. This is not a plastic bag tree, in fact this is standard practice to protect young fruits.

This local house was nicely decorated in traditional pattern, but the hillside was under attack. I estimated that the new road was progressing at between 10 and 20 metres a day. (By 2015 naturally it was complete.)

At this point mercifully, we turned left up the hill past this house and started to leave the awful noise behind. Once again the dominant sound was bird song.

The view back is splendid, of course, that's Pulau Betong in the distance.

At the top, the important thing is to head straight on down the other side; after you've recovered from the climb of course. It's a very pleasant short descent if not overused. By 2015 the original descent shown below had been replaced by a concrete path through the rubber although the start in the first picture is similar. Turn right at the birds' nest farm and at the crossroads that follows go up to the hut shown in the fourth picture below.

At the hut we went straight ahead and down, there are two perfectly good alternative routes here to the left but we knew all about these from earlier visits (The Carpet and Twelve Bends to Heaven).

Sometimes, the nuances of my cunning plans are not immediately appreciated by Yuehong. She wasn't totally appreciative of my taking the new 'expressway' up but now she realised that I had got her on the the new road without a hint of nasty dog and all I had to do was find her somewhere to stop for lunch that was not mosquito infested. Not an easy job after the recent rain but eventually the sandwiches were disposed of and the traditional Tiger quaffed. There's just the one house at the top and the road is barely used, it was a very pleasant downhill stroll, in my book it's Penang's quietest road, we were probably its only user today.

I at least was seeing familiar landmarks, that col on the left we had traversed on our Not Malihom walk and the concrete bird farm was on the Malihom Eastbound walk.

Exactly as I expected we passed a junction with a road that would lead back to our very recent Twelve Bends to Heaven walk - that's the view looking back. Not totally anticipated were two concrete roads to the right, particularly this one which had the mountain bikers '101' sign on it. They were left for another day, we really didn't have the time or energy for a further significant uphill climb this time around.

In 2015, I was able to check these out and can confirm that they join together and expire after 10 minutes stiff climbing: It never ceases to amaze me that people in Penang can invest serious money in building an access road and clearing land to build a house and then abandon the project leaving it open for squatters to occupy it.

I think Yuehong thought it was too good to be true, we were heading straight down a road which would lead to Sungai Ara in just half an hour and it was barely two o'clock,  "Hold it there, we're turning left!". Conscious that extending the walk might cut down my beer consumption she agreed but she had forgotten we had been here before on The Carpet walk and how pleasant it was.

In just 15 minutes we were at the top of the short climb and there on the right was the brand new concrete road which had been completed since we had been here two days earlier. 

As soon as we rounded the first bend, we turned right on to the original concrete path down from here, it was a lovely walk as it was nothing like as steep as some newer ones.

On down we went, we were joined by another concrete trail on the left which undoubtedly also came down from the ridge above and we passed a small shrine which doubled as a mountain bike park. Next we came round the back of what I though might have been a house but was in fact a temple I had visited lest year, their pet pig was still in residence but can't have been too happy with its accommodation.

In no time we were on the main Sungai Ara valley road again and soon passed our previous ascent. We quickly moved on down to Sungai Ara where we waited for our bus outside the school. There was a poignant reminder of Malaysia's current agony.

We had a short wait for what turned out to be a 308 bus (a 302 would have been equally good) and we changed to a 401 at Teluk Kumbar before arriving in Balik Pulau with plenty of time to spare. We enjoyed a drink, bought some fruit and went back over the hill on the 17.30 501 bus. We had a quick Nasi Kandar and after our 101 bus home, a near perfect day was rounded off nicely by our being offered a lift up the hill to Seaview Garden. People often take pity on us which we find a bit strange after all the far more strenuous hill climbing we have done earlier in the day. I don't think any of these nice people really begin to understand the pleasure it gives us.