Penang Hills and Trails - Another Jalan Chai Quickie
Building an Appetite

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 albeit with a short 'off piste' section.

Please visit my Penang buses page for information on accessing the starting point.

We were feeling a little lackadaisical and it was noon before we were ready to set out, we needed a walk to fill the gap until dinner time. I had just what was needed lined up, a repeat of the main part of our Jalan Chai Quickie of 3 years ago, but with a calorie burning intensive hill climb added to replace the long flat sections as we would be parking Mavis at the Chinese temple in Jalan Chai. It's not the most popular of the many on the island, we are sure they will have one of the famous Hakka lunches at some stage but finding out when is another matter, we've never seen anyone here although there is a duty rota on the wall and there is no sign of an announcement.

The nearby Aquatic Farm name board had re-appeared from its covering of scrub, but the project still looks to be a fiasco. We started the day's climb in what, for us, is one of the most attractive orchard areas we visit.

This time, we took the first turning on the right and we kept right again as we passed the small dam. It was far too early in the walk to be tempted in for a dip.

There is a lot of overgrown rubber in this area not to mention neglected durian orchards and steadily this is being put to rights. As always there are constant reminders in the form of walls and terraces of the work put in by Hakkas to clear the land from jungle many years ago.

There are no junctions to speak of, the path on the right goes to a house. Pineapples are grown here as an intermediate cash crop.

The countryside opens up and in the background are the orchards on the way over to Air Puteh.

The concrete finished at this shelter and the path continued as sand for a short way before turning to stone steps up to the ridge.

Yuehong has had something of a crisis this week on the weight front. She has finally admitted it might have something to do with the large golden durian she had demolished. At the top, someone had put some plastic on a stick which suggested where we might enter the 'forest' which is just ancient overgrown rubber.

We were 'off piste' for the best part of two minutes and a little snipping was needed until we emerged into new rubber which was on the opposite side of the hill.

We dropped down to what looked like a path, there was no temptation at all to do a ridge walk here.

It was a little steep initially but we could see a hut not far below.

It was just a question of being sensible, it was far less demanding than some of the countryside we had been through recently.

Just a few more steps and then we were back on a proper concrete path.

Just beyond this hut, a short stretch of concrete road had been laid and we came out on the Bukit Elvira Road between poles HT BI 41 and 42 although the numbers are pretty illegible now. We turned left.

It wasn't long before we hit the climb, Yuehong used to find it challenging, these days, she roars up it. Near the top, a high tech solution was being applied to sort out the consequences of a recent landslide. Yes, those are old rubber tyres...

In no time, we were over the top and heading down. This near abandoned house has huge potential. It has a great view, 4 wheel vehicle access and mains electricity, but it seems today's younger generation is just plain uninterested.

These days the condition of the road onwards is such that it's good only for two wheeled traffic which as we saw includes mountain bike enthusiasts.

Malaysians are probably the world's worst gardeners, decorative plants are just not their scene. Just occasionally we see a few fancy shrubs on our hikes, few seem to have been planted deliberately. Since the summit we had been following the 'BI' electricity poles and we continued to do so, even though left here represented a short cut.

Mature knees appreciate gentler gradients and by continuing we could turn left and use the well graded main valley path.

There were too many mosquitoes according to Yuehong and I was denied my traditional second refreshment stop. Instead, I had to operate a mobile bar which isn't half as pleasant as indulging while sitting on a comfortable rock. We were now approaching journey's end, having been out for around 3 hours as planned.

It had been just the job, we had a quick change and soon were in Sungai Pinang for dinner. Being a Sunday, there were some exceptionally mad idiots on the road, not just the usual motor cyclists but also car drivers and pedestrians. Despite their best attempts, I failed to make contact with any of them.