Penang Hills and Trails - Da Ba Gong Explorer Part 1 
Titi Kerawang to Titi Kerawang (with trimmings)

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a long Grade 2 walk. 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.

See also Part 2 of this exploration although it is a significantly more challenging hike.

The 501 bus service needed to get to Titi Kerawang had been withdrawn by September 2022.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

If you pressed me for my favourite route in Penang, I would plump for the climb up from Titi Kerawang to the Da Ba Gong temple on the path that continues to Air Itam although we never go that far. When we first came this way, I was so confused by the mass of trails as we came down that I thought it would be very difficult to find our way back up. However, we've now done it several times and it's not quite as complex as I imagined and best of all, the trails do tend to converge on a readily identified critical point. The main ascent is described in our 'More of a Good Thing' report and you may want to consult that, especially as it shows pictures of the early stages. This report concentrates on the key differences.

We climbed up as before, normally I get worried when I see 'slash and burn' but in this case it had been totally overgrown rubber. I suspect the replacement will initially be bananas and hopefully something reasonably benign will follow. When we came to the Y junction below, this time we went left. Almost immediately we came to a brand new gateway, should you find it locked, then you'll have to use the original route. Very soon we passed the only path we saw going down towards the stream. Peter van der Lans has spent some time exploring this area and failed to find a way across to or from the orchards on the other side.

Few people live up here, this is the only occupied house near the path. Afterwards we could see our path continuing below us up the valley.

Before we could reach that, however, we came to another junction, straight ahead would surely soon have joined the original route so we went left and down a bit. Very soon it started to climb through a series of zig-zags, at one stage you could look back towards the previous junction. What looks like a junction below is actually just one of the many bends.

Reassuringly we could see the expected young rubber up ahead while the fruit orchard on the other side would be much more attractive for hiking if there was a prospect of a decent path up out of it...

Entering the rubber, you might be forgiven for thinking I had had too many early Tigers, but the trees are on a slope and bending towards the light - two normal trees are on the left. At the T junction, the main route went right (and hence back to the normal route but lower down) but left better suited our purpose.

These trees are entering their most productive period and really need to be tapped, hence they are the only 'production' trees we have seen so far this year, the price of rubber having collapsed in parallel with the oil price. Still the zig-zags continued.

Until we finally got to the familiar 4 way junction through the newly erected gate, unlike the lower one this would be easy to walk around. Now it was just a case of following the path behind Yuehong as it winds its way through varied terrain while climbing gently, compared to the last time we were here, it looked clearer and more used. As we neared Da Ba Gong, we saw the first of five less than welcoming signs. For the time being at least they can be safely ignored.

This is the path we wanted, in February 2014 it was a lot more obvious! It briefly enters some residual jungle before coming out into an overgrown vegetable garden.

It finishes at this abandoned hut. From Google Earth I knew it was only a short distance from the top of the cleared area behind up to the ridge but it didn't take long to see that there was no regular route up and so we retreated, it would now need a look at the opposite end. When we were here in February 2014, the path in was well used and I am sure the hut was occupied and vegetables being grown.

We rested at Da Ba Gong, taking appropriate refreshments. It was very quiet, the dogs had vanished as had the guest workers like the hut occupants. There seems to have been a crack down in the last few months, we have seen many abandoned 'farms', it's not just the untapped rubber that shows things have changed. Last week, when our bus was stopped at a routine licence check, one of the non-Malaysian passengers was invited to accompany a policeman and I guess he's since had a flight provided 'back home'. I have mixed feelings, they have certainly kept some of our paths open and did jobs no Malaysian would touch, but in some places the slash and burn, not to mention their rubbish has had dreadful effects on the environment. We haven't been to Nanshan which is the largest vegetable area yet, it will be interesting to see what is happening there; some retreat and regeneration would be very welcome. Afterwards we walked on to our furthest point and turned sharp right (left in the picture).

For a full description of this section, see the earlier 'More of a Good Thing' report. The presence of the electronically controlled gate at the bottom has had the very welcome effect of clearly reducing the number of 4 wheel vehicles using this track and with zero maintenance it's now really only suitable for 2 wheeled traffic. The vegetable gardens here also looked largely unloved and we walked along the contours looking down to Air Puteh until we came to the point where the road starts to descend again. It was time for more exploration, from here a path runs back up the hill to the right. I had no expectation that it would go through as I knew of no candidate on the other side but I left Yuehong clear of any trees that might harbour a snake and was well satisfied to quickly reach the ridge above the vegetable garden where we had been earlier. It was too late to check out what will clearly be a tricky descent - even if the horizontal distance is barely 200m - we'll be back up here another time.

Now the road may be wide, well graded and good for walking but it goes past a large dog farm which is best avoided. So we struck out along the ridge, on the trail which would normally lead down to Air Puteh. However, just where it swings to the left, we went right entering the top of the rubber. As you can see, Yuehong thought this was a very good idea.

It soon becomes concrete and winds down back to the road, it's still in good condition but with all the erosion on either side it won't stay that way for very long.

After this we walked straight down the road to near Titi Kerawang, rather slowly, not because we were tired which we weren't but because there was going to be a long wait for the 501 bus. Overall, some success but equally some frustration.