Penang Hills and Trails - Jalan Chai Explorer
Renewing Acquaintance

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. 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.

We've been back in Penang just over a week and everyday I am required to serve up a meaningful walk in the south of the island which will keep us out of trouble for some 3 - 4 hours. Today, it was time to revisit the trails accessed from Jalan Chai which is north-west of Balik Pulau on the road to Sungai Pinang. The climb starts some way along the road and by parking at the Chinese temple we saved ourselves a sticky 20 minutes at each end of the walk. Very soon after we left the sunbaked path and headed up into what is a mixture of old rubber and fruit.

When we got to the first junction and I said "Turn right" Yuehong said words to the effect that "I must be joking". Well, I did have the advantage that I had checked the report of our only previous use of my intended route before leaving home, but as it was two years ago and in the opposite direction I was suitably wary. As expected we soon came to a small waterfall and took the left fork. When we got to the first house, I was tempted to tick the 'job done' box.

However the potentially tricky bit was yet to come as the concrete path would finish at the next house. I recalled blundering down to it through knee high vegetation but this time there was a clearly visible route onwards although you won't see it in the pictures. The reason for this is that someone had been doing some seasonal tidying up among some durian trees.

By my reckoning we were half way through what I hoped would be the most difficult section of the day. Next, we had to turn right and roughly     follow the contour level till we met the stream. The banana terrace behind Yuehong was a good start and shortly we had to drop one level. It was a lot easier to see where to go where we got back under the trees and there was an easy way to cross the stream here.

That ranked as 'problem almost solved' and all we had to do now was to locate the concrete path which should have been just a short way up. For an otherwise intelligent woman, Yuehong shows an amazing degree of trust when I  say 'Up there please' and point at a set of rocks.

Two minutes later, there it was and in excellent shape too. Shortly after, Yuehong said 'Stop' and I thought she had stumbled on a snake, but in fact it was newly laid concrete and we had to go carefully up the side of it.

It was now time to burn some calories as we made our way up the hill. Ahead was a staggered cross road, ignore first the left turn (back to the main route) and then the right turn (also goes up to the main path above). It was warm and Yuehong called a water stop.

With the export market very strong, durian orchards are prime real estate and no doubt families are checking out Uncle Tan's inheritance and investing in getting it productive again. There's no need to burn and start again, even a decapitated durian tree will regrow and in the meantime until it is productive the bananas will cover the cost. Very soon we were on the road that comes over from the Bukit Elvira valley.

We turned left and soon came to a crossroads and turned right up the hill. The climb eased and we passed the remains of a water tank. We declined to go further up at the next junction and carried straight on.

It wasn't long before the path ended at a 'dog hut'. They scattered as we approached and not far ahead was a house. The terrain between must have been the boundary between two estates as it looked more than a bit rough, but we followed the pipes to the stream and another path onwards.

It was quite a nice house although I wasn't too sure about the swimming pool. The caretaker was, of course, a migrant worker. Beyond was a concrete road which had come up from the main route (at pole BI 34).

It looked new and interesting, we'd been going not much more than an hour and so up we went. It was more or less straight and when it took a sharp left turn it was clear that the constructors had not read ther text books properly.

The road finished here, behind the gates a rather nice, albeit modest, house was approaching completion. To the side and above it, accessed by the concrete path was a viewing gallery.

The owners clearly had rare good taste, just look at the view they will enjoy and they even have durian trees in the garden.

Such a spot clearly demanded a refreshment stop and afterwards we set off up the concrete path without any idea where it might lead. However, it would certainly require burning plenty of unwanted stored calories. Soon we reached the last house.

The path still climbed but now we were very close to the jungle. Today's windfall durian, sadly, was a dud and the path just finished, no doubt the area ahead will be cleared again in due course.

The view of the Balik Pulau plain was, however, stunning.

With a view like that there was no point in rushing off:

We retreated and instead of going back down the way we had come up, we looked to continue to the north. We walked along a durian terrace, but beyond was just ancient rubber.

Following what was clearly the estate boundary we went down into young rubber just across it.

We could see the hillside opposite which had been incompetently cleared some years ago and was still yet to regenerate. Best of all we found the top end of yet another concrete path.

Very nice going, it was too. Eventually we came very close to the 'house with the view', it seems we could have come to this path directly but that would have meant missing the last hour's fun and games.

We came down past the house with the blue roof and joined the main route at pole BI 42, just eight along from the previous junction. 

It was time to head for home, but again not using the direct well established route. We carried on a short way to what is the summit of the road and here we turned right (pole BI 46)

.There's a minor summit just up here where the path finishes and we had our second major refreshment break. We continued ahead through the trees and came upon an area where the rubber had been removed and young durian trees planted. These were not old rubber trees but young trees which had been sacrificed for the more rewarding fruit trees.

We followed a terrace, dropped down a level and were not at all surprised to see the end of yet another concrete path.

This, too, was gently graded with pleasant views.

Eventually it curved left to avoid a steep descent to the valley before curving right again to join the main route. From here it was a simple walk back down to the car.

All in all a cracking little walk which showed a familiar area in a new light. We had certainly earned our dinner in Sungai Pinang.