Penang Hills and Trails - The Millionaire's Valley 
Sungai Pinang Horseshoe Part 1

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 with a short Grade 3 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.

See also the Sungai Pinang Horseshoe Part 2 and Tiger Ridge Walk.

The 501 bus service needed to get to Sungai Pinang from the north of the island had been withdrawn by September 2022.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.

It's rare indeed these days for us to spend even 50% of a walk in new territory, but today's hike was along completely virgin trails as far as we were concerned right up to our final descent around 15.00. If, like us. you travel regularly on the 501 bus from Teluk Bahang to Balik Pulau and back, you cannot fail to notice the large houses and immaculately manicured durian estates in the valley below Titi Kerawang together with signs, fences and gates that suggest that this is not prime hiking country. We had previously been reluctant to venture here, but this walk totally disproves that theory.

We walked past the Chinese school in Sungai Pinang on the Pantai Acheh road and turned right over the old bridge across the stream and immediately right again. As it was our first visit, we were more or less obliged to follow the main road up the valley.

It's the school holidays in Penang and the stream was full of young lads cooling off. There was a tasty path off to the left which we chose to ignore, we needed to check the road first.

By and large you won't find anyone but Malaysian Chinese living any height at all above sea level in Penang and the small shrine came as no surprise. Further along was a house to die for, this seems to be the 'Stone House' or 'Rumah Batu' of the eponymous estate. It's simply stunning and total class.

On the other side of the road was another simply amazing residence and estate, we could see at least half a dozen gardeners at work, this picture does not do the place justice. About here the electricity poles changed from being JPA (Jalan Pantai Acheh) to JTK (Jalan Titi Kerawang?) which suggests there is another route in, the first one I recorded was JTK 9 14 11. The good news was the road became a more modest affair and there was no sign of any attempt to limit access.

We came to a major junction, ahead the (original) path narrowed, we could see a house ahead and we decided to turn left on the newer wider road. It climbed gently and at the point where it levelled off, there was a concrete path on the right. It looked extremely inviting but first we had to check ahead.

However, the road soon forked and each branch very soon led to a house. 

We returned to the concrete path and started to climb. It was extremely pleasant going and ahead we could check our bearings as we could see up to the area of the summit of the round-the-island road.

Inevitably the trail petered out and just across the stream bed we could see a small shrine and a shady tree which would make a great lunch stop. Ahead and above was jungle, but just below was another estate, I could see two houses, a concrete path and electricity poles. I am sure this would have been accessible from behind the large fence and gates next to the summit of the round-the-island road but there was no point checking now.

The ridge was clearly (maybe not the right word) not too far up through what was obviously the remains of a seriously overgrown old rubber estate. I 'parked' Yuehong and took the shortest way up which took about 10 minutes and ended up ripping my shirt. At least I found both a durian estate and a concrete path. I tried a different way back, but it was almost as overgrown. It was not something I wanted to go back into let alone force Yuehong through. It was time to use brain instead of brawn and looking back and up I could see a black plastic water tank much higher on the ridge. So back we went and it was an easy scramble up to it.

Of course, that didn't solve the fundamental problem but we had less height to gain and ahead was a more gentle slope. Left was a recently cleared area which was out of the question, right was totally overgrown and ahead were 5 foot high ferns. We chose the last of these and came into a reasonably clear area, the pool had probably been dug by a wild boar ('babi hutan').

We could see right back down to Sungai Pinang...

I'm pleased to report that the new Yuehong took this off piste section in her stride, we've certainly regularly done much worse.

And out she came just 14 minutes after entering the ferns (time data from the digital images). My original plan had been to reach the new house on the hill opposite, but that was a long way around and there was an awful lot of 'nonsense' between where we were standing and it.

Common sense dictated that we sort out the paths in front of us. If you look at the map you will see that they form a large pair of zig-zags although they weren't always as straight as it implies. We did check each branch but basically we started on the north one (across the low plastic fence which separated two estates) and then crossed to the south one.

This was effected at this 4 way junction, of course any combination of paths would work.

Even in the strong sun it was pleasant and Yuehong spent some time talking to this old Hakka couple. His grandfather had established the durian estate and his father had built the house from tropical hard wood some 50 years ago. 

We walked on down past the birds nest factory where the other path joined and shortly after came to the main road up the hill at electricity pole JPA 32.35. That meant a lot of poles going down the hill and through the kampung to the Pantai Acheh road not to mention a fair few more till we got to this modest establishment which has an adequately charged fridge with the necessary refreshment. The plan was to take whichever of the 404 or 501 came first to Balik Pulau but for once my knowledge of the timetable failed me by 15 minutes and the 404 came while I was half way through my second can of Tiger. After that we made sure we got the 501, we had plenty of time for all the regular things we do including Yuehong uploading her day's effort using the Hometown Food Centre's Wifi. Since I write copious notes and produce a map, that had to wait. In the meantime there was some serious drinking to be done before taking the return 501....

There's more to finish here, but it was great to find a new area which was unexpectedly fruitful.