Penang Hills and Trails - Twelve Bends to Heaven
Relau to Balik Pulau

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 although quite long. 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.

As of 2015, there are significant changes in the route which are recorded below in red, overall these probably make life a little easier (27th January 2015).

It was a Sunday, the only day of the week that I will voluntarily get on a bus headed for George Town. I had a pair of (Made in China) walking shoes which had started to disintegrate and the Komtar shop had promised to get them repaired to keep me quiet. Normally we have a one day on and one day off hiking schedule but we had needed to lose a day as we had to fit in a visitor with a masochistic fetish coming later in the week who wanted to see what it was we raved about. It was an open invitation to the gods to crap on us big time, but the aforementioned gods were smiling as there was just enough time between buses to collect the shoes and leave with the threat that if they fell apart again we would be back at the end of the day. The 301 follows an 'interesting' route to Relau for which the word 'indirect' could have been invented but in the end we were off at the stop just after the Seri Relau secondary school before 11.30 which was an hour better than we had managed 3 days earlier coming round the island the opposite way when we started from nearby Sungai Ara.

I have history here, when I used to get bored pretending to be an academic at the nearby Universiti Sains Malaysia 40 years ago, I used to jump in my baby 360cc Honda mini, park up in Relau's kampung and go looking for hash runs which gave me an excuse to gorge myself on the rambutans, mangosteens and durians which grew prolifically behind. Today, the entire flat area is covered in concrete which is beginning to spread upwards. My old approach was unrecognisable and I needed a combination of the web and a loaned local map book to get started.

We set off down what I believe is Jalan Darat. This is what I saw, it was almost enough to make me turn around and go home except that I knew from my previous walks that there was a way out into the hills behind.

We skirted the cleared area and came upon Cangkat Sungai Ara 11 which the map suggested would help and we turned right. I don't know who owns the Setia group who are responsible for some of the most egregious monstrosities in this area but I hope that sometime soon someone fries his testicles before eating them, preferably while they are still attached to him. We continued into Cangkat Sungai Ara 19 and discovered we could have used Cangkat Sungai Ara 20 as a short cut. Yuehong was giving me some strange looks and all I could do was point out that there seemed to be a way out ahead. Suddenly we were in a different world...

Back in the fruit orchards and in an area where hashes flourish, out came the smile. I had to confess, I had been consulting EveryTrail and my heroine Jenny Lau had posted this route. Ahead we could see the mast we had passed three days before and then we were at the key junction in this area. To the right was the well documented climb to the ridge and ahead was today's venture into, for us, the unknown.

In fact this represents a mini summit, the stream to the left must empty into the Sungai Ara and for a brief couple of hundred metres we were on a familiar trail. At the next junction we went straight on and to my mind the worst that could happen would be to end up in Sungai Ara 'kampung'. but I had hopes of something more interesting.

I invited Yuehong to 'do the business' but she declined. Small wonder then that the path appeared to end with the gates and what will be a security fence. Even worse,  the place was awash with dogs but fortunately they were of the cowardly kind and the caretaker suggested we should simply follow the edge of the fence-to-be and we would reach a path down to Sungai Ara. 

No doubt he was pleased to see us go but he hadn't lied and we soon found a (former) concrete path which led onwards and down but not before we had seen the bird's nest factory below Malihom ahead.

Yuehong was beginning to purr, this was absolutely her kind of walk. Our route now was instinctive, we followed the path downwards, there were alternatives (mainly to the left) but they made no sense to us. I predicted a concrete bridge because I could see a track on the other side of the valley and so it proved. At this point we joined a concrete road which I knew would lead down to Sungai Ara but it was only 13.30 and far too early to quit exploring. Glum doesn't do justice to her reaction when I explained that we were instead going to turn right and climb again. That ice pack on her head was going to work overtime!

Reluctant acceptance that she had a husband who was clinically mad turned to a smile when the trail turned out to be well used and we met a sign that showed that the mountain biker fraternity were here frequently. The next bend produced signs that were both reassuring and less so.

Look carefully, can you see a small reptile? It's a chameleon of course!

I think Yuehong had got the idea, these idiots were using the hill for a time trial...

Of course when you are obsessed with your performance, you never look left or right which is a shame...

By now we were surrounded by strange noises, some were natural like this frog, others came from the bird's nest factory above the mast we had seen earlier. In other words we were approaching 'The Carpet', the final bend suggested the title for this blog.

Indeed it was so... I had seen a house to our left and I asked the gentleman who was mowing the carpet for his opinion on it leading to an alternative route down towards Balik Pulau. His reply was in the affirmative and so once we had rejoined the main trail up to here, instead of turning right and up as before, we headed to the left of the house and down a little, coming out, much to my surprise, on another concrete road.

Our adviser had mentioned the 'fierce dogs' and indeed they were large, well fed but still looking rather hungry. We waved sticks at them which almost did the trick, but we only knew we were safe when we found four very young Chinese girls in charge of them. Just to the left of the house, there was a track off to the left which seemed to head for the ridge. I know there are old tractor freaks out there but this is the best I could do as I was tired and thirsty and Yuehong was quivering.

Yuehong was sceptical to put it mildly but the next junction offered some relief, the main path to the left going nowhere. Up and over we went and there was a small hut in the rubber.

There was no time to waste, the drought had broken and the mosquitoes were celebrating. I could have tried north (left looking at Yuehong) but I knew that was jungly from our last walk. Fortunately, in the opposite direction was the top of a durian orchard with a concrete path... I was absolutely 'over the moon', it represented a brand new 'up, over and down' route but I have to say that my enthusiasm was not shared by my wife.

The views in both directions were splendid despite the rain, discretion suggested I not check too carefully ahead but the former ridge path looked to be history:

The path down was new and a little steeper than we would have preferred but overall it represented good hiking. We noted that coming back up generally keeping left would be a good idea. 

It was excellent walking through an estate that was clearly well managed with individual trees marked.

It was something of a relief to see a house below and after some initial surprise we were made very welcome by Messrs Tham and Lim, the joint owners of the FCS Fruit Farm, local people, brought up in Balik Pulau, who had bought the 30 acre estate in 1989. After 4 hours of tropical hiking, we were at least as smelly as the durian they shared with us. 

Just outside the gate was the concrete road running towards Jalan Tun Sardon designated as 'Trek Basikal Berbukit Pondok Upeh' which would soon lead us to the 502 bus route. Here we had to wait a little longer than usual but there was still time for a 'Char Hor Fun' and a couple of Tigers before heading for home on the 17.30 501 bus to Teluk Bahang.

Given that 98% of the route was on 'new ground', we hadn't put a foot wrong throughout and there was a previously unexplored concrete road on offer, it had to qualify as a perfect day. At the risk of repeating myself, there are few such days left for us.