Penang Hills and Trails - Bukit Kecil Explorer
Tropical Fruit Farm to Sungai Pinang

This is part of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang. Click here for the index. This is a 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.

The 501 bus service needed to get to the start from the north of the island had been withdrawn by September 2022.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

We had been out guiding occasional hikers on a long walk above Balik Pulau the previous day which had left us with potentially two rest days, so I threw in a shorter than average walk. My buses page had read about the 501 "These buses may leave up to 10 minutes EARLY from the Teluk Bahang end." It has now been edited to read "15 minutes" and it was only my alertness while we were enjoying a coffee break that allowed me to sprint to the road and stop the bus as it went by. It was, allegedly something about the need to attend Friday prayers, future travellers you have been warned. Of course, more charitably it could have been regarded as the gods granting me an extra 15 minutes drinking time in Sungai Pinang.

I've been reluctant to use the initial trail from the summit of the round-the-island road owing to the area being redeveloped for a 'glamping' (= glamour camping) project but the aggressive 'No Trespassers' notices have been removed and it's dead easy to go round the side of the fence which is what the guest workers do all the time. Inside, there was rare evidence of thought, a wheel wash for trucks. Things have changed significantly in the nearly four years earlier since we were last here.

It seems that the purchaser has subdivided the estate. To the right and below and totally hidden from the road is a secure area. We continued through the unlocked gate roughly along the route we would have followed previously. Along the way we met a familiar figure, one of the development supervisors whom we had run across twice above Titi Kerawang. He now knows we are harmless freaks, he didn't attempt to scold us for trespassing again. He even told us how we could find our way out through the back of the estate, but he did seem a little surprised when we told him we already knew they had taken down the fence which would have stood in our way of going down to Sungai Pinang. However, little did he know that we had plans to do that the long way around... Thank you Ronnie, see you next time! Seriously, if you come this way, please understand that hikers are less welcome here than in other parts of the island.

We were immensely grateful that it was overcast, it's a lot greener than it was a couple of years back but it needs at least 10 years before it will look good. We followed the road around the side of the hill, it was too early to turn left.

There is still a nice view down to the dam and behind us we could not only see the security fence but also the ridge up to Bukit Laksamana which we hope to follow after our normal rest day. From this angle it doesn't look too formidable but I have been half way up last year and I know that is anything but the case (Rain Gauge Obsessional).

Now we saw why there was so much second hand timber lying around, it was to be used to build 'eco-lodges' for the tourists. We had seen an obsession with bullock cart wheels at the Anjung Indah restaurant, either it's the same owner or they drink together. It was siesta time and nobody bothered us as we climbed up behind the house.

It was of course unrecognisable from our earlier visit although someone had remembered that these rocks were significant. The trail was 'wide' and that rocky embankment is just a centimetre of concrete which is disintegrating rapidly.

We did a reverse here and headed up a trail which was at least 10 times wider than the one we had used before.

The whole point of coming this way was to avoid climbing up the concrete road ahead of us, there were a couple of routes in the valley which we had failed to sort from below and now we would attempt that from above. There were new tracks left and right on the north side but we ignored them and crossed to the south side of the hill. There were no surprises here as we had walked up recently, we turned left at the top, electricity pole JPA 32 72.

This we knew would lead us along the ridge. To the right and below the new path had acquired a a concrete covering but there was still no sign it would lead through the undergrowth to the fruit orchards below.

We crossed into the next estate, it's a right old mess. For a while we followed a water pipe and then followed the overgrown path.

We'd been along here before coming in the opposite direction along the ridge. This time we wanted to follow this recently sealed trail down. On the other side of the valley we could see the next area to be explored.

The path curved downwards, I wasn't expecting the junction but the other path up can't have gone too far as we had seen no sign of it above. At the hut, we joined a concrete road, the electricity pole said JPA 32 36 8 which was plainly wrong to me, later we found that it should have been JPA 32 46 8.

We passed an open barrier and headed down past the birds' nest factory. 

Next to the road is a representative of an endangered species in Penang. It's a clove tree.

There is no longer a market for cloves and the old man told Yuehong that the price is a ridiculous MYR 2 a kilo. Not only are they collected one by one by climbing up the ladder, they have to be stripped manually from the stalk.

This is an old tree, the leaves are also full of 'Oil of Clove', especially the young ones. It has some medicinal value as a pain killer.

That had been a real bonus and we met the road at the birds' nest factory, electricity pole JPA 32 46. From here it was a short walk up to our next junction at pole JPA 32 50.

We were looking for a connection down which would avoid using the road. That meant a short but steep climb, keeping to the right until we reached this shelter. 

We could have carried straight on but it didn't look like the path which can be seen from the road. Instead we went down the steps towards a line of small boulders which represented the edging to a proper path which had never been finished.

The undergrowth had been trimmed but the surface underneath was irregular owing to erosion from the rain.

The 'path' continued down and seemed destined to fade out. Fortunately, I could see a promising gap ahead.

Through it was a hut which we had visited while subjecting ourselves to the Sungai Pinang Fiasco, a day when just about everything went wrong a month earlier. Indeed we had solemnly been told here that there was no way up through the orchard we had just crossed. Our informant clearly didn't want to risk directing us off paths. Now things were completely straightforward.

We turned right at the junction below and went down to the third birds' nest factory of the day.

We didn't want to use the main valley road, so we turned left through the gate and met the old couple who as always didn't mind us walking straight through their front garden.

We followed the fruit tree terrace until we met the concrete path and walked down to Sungai Pinang, we had been strolling for barely three hours..

Yuehong had been due a seafood meal in December, but I had been a bad husband and booked the day for guiding others on a hike. Today, she had the economy version but it was indeed delicious.

It had been a more than satisfactory afternoon, we had enjoyed a gentle stroll mostly downhill and had sorted out a couple of missing links.