Penang Hills and Trails - Jalan Chai Explorer 2
Balik Pulau to Balik Pulau

This is part of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang. Click here for the index, this is a Grade 2/3 walk although it was planned to be Grade 2 and would have been if things had gone to plan. 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.

It would be a good idea to read our Jalan Chai Explorer 1 report before reading this in too much detail.

We were into a week of short walks, our normal 'one on, one off' routine being disturbed by the builders (not decorators) in the next door flat making life at home near intolerable between Monday and Friday. The purpose of this walk was to sort out a couple of downhill paths which we had spotted on a previous visit to the area. Rather than repeat the walk, we decided to go in from the Botanica development, it's not our favourite place on the island by any means but we had previously found a good way to avoid most of it by walking in from opposite the Indian 'Hair Derssing Saloon' on the main road at its south end. We had reckoned without MTT Properties who seem to have bought up much of the area and promptly fenced it off in an attempt to prevent access. We got in (and out) eventually but we won't be doing it again, we'll have to use the main Botanica access road instead.

Botanica tries to pretend there is no point in walking through their building site, but otherwise the houses above would have no access. Some kind of high rise is going up but behind it the road remains the same and for the time being the 'NOTIS' from MTT can be safely ignored. The view out will be good, but only if you ignore the concrete jungle in the foreground. That large building is POWIIS which claims to offer a British style private education but if (like Eton) it's got any playing fields they are very well hidden.

Clearly the Gods were smiling on us because not for the first time this road produced an out-of-season Durian sitting unwanted on the roadside. The going rate in Balik Pulau is MYR 15 per kg for those brought in from Taiping, that's several GBP per fruit and in our books too much for one to taste good. 

If you're new to this area, then you need to know to turn right at this T junction. Here we met a young local couple on a motorcycle doing a bit of innocent exploring for the second time today. We stopped them on the way back and explained how to get to Balik Pulau. They turned around and we never saw them again so they must have enjoyed their ride. Oh yes, there's the beautiful concrete jungle again...

Yuehong prodded some more fruit found along the way but a million ants had got there first. Right, below, shows the next critical junction, we approached from above and if you fail to turn as indicated and continue over the bridge, you'll end up in Jalan Chai and Titi Heights. Going that way would have totally negated the purpose of our walk.

Instead we maintained height broadly following the concrete electricity poles until we came to BI 19 (left below). The right turn here needed some investigation but first I wanted to look at the next concrete trail around BI 13.

That actually proved easy to sort, it went down then swung right and came out at a point I recognised, it was on the trail down from BI 19, very close to where we had come onto it from the opposite side on our previous visit.

So suddenly, time was on our side and we only had to turn left and make our way down... Easy-la except that after quite a while the path finished, ahead was a streambed which we try to avoid especially going down, but to the right there was a fruit orchard trail. It wasn't too difficult to follow until we came to an open area but at least we could then follow some water pipes.

When that started to get steeper and pose questions, we cut right back up a short way into some overgrown durians and I might have felt obliged to give up and go back only I saw a ruined hut ahead. Now where there's a hut there's a proper trail and on down we went.

This was the scene that greeted us but indeed there was another concrete path below which soon improved as it passed a second ruined hovel.

I predicted no more than 10 minutes to a main path and it was just 2, thank goodness for experience. We'd been here on the Jalan Chai Quickie, we would have stripped off and cooled down except that this path looked well used...

In fact the main path down to Jalan Chai was just around the corner and our 5 minutes in the undergrowth had been time well spent. At the temple at the bottom, Yuehong gave appropriate thanks, not for our safe delivery but for the durian. Could we have a few more please from time to time during the visit?

I was feeling my age and more in need of a Tiger or two to replace the fluid that had turned my shirt from light to dark grey.

I had saved one small gem for the end of the walk. Normally, it's a drudge of 1km or more to Balik Pulau from where Jalan Chain comes out but it just so happened that it was coming up to 15.30 and that meant we would have only a few minutes to wait for a 403 bus from Pulau Betong. Thank the gods that the brain was still working and I spotted the opportunity. After which the brain was switched off and we went through the motions until we got safely home.