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Nature Trails of Penang Island
by the Malaysian Nature Society
Penang Branch

My father, when he was in the mood, which was often, would wake us up early on a Sunday morning for a walk downhill to Balik Pulau along a path which has been since swallowed up by the jungle. As it was 5 o'clock in the morning we kids, not yet fully fed on sleep, reluctantly stumbled down the path aided by flaming torches. But a rich reward awaited us at the house of Mr Chee Swee Ee, a champion billiards player and the uncrowned king of Balik Pulau whose house, the tallest in the row, still stands on main road. There Mrs Chee served us her famous laksa, said to be Penang's best. 

Not many walked the hills then. The British colonials, who spent their week-ends on the hill, confined themselves mainly to Footpaths A to H, occasionally trudging up the four miles from Moon Gate, which was popular with the less privileged schoolchildren. Today it is all very different. Hundreds do Moon Gate and the Jeep Track and the more adventurous have explored the many other tougher paths

According to the Health Ministry's Second National Health and Morbidity Survey 1996 only 11.6% of the population did regular physical activities and of these 37.6% did it adequately. That would at rough guess give the figure for Penang's adequate exercisers as numbering more than 40,000 . Leaving aside those who walk, jog, run, cycle and strenuously sweat on indoor machines, there must be a considerable number who climb. How else to explain the current wise crack  that there is a traffic jam on Sundays at Youth Park

Penang people are lucky. While those in Kuala Lumpur are confined to the humble Bukit Kiara and its encircling cars spitting petrol fumes, in Ipoh to the more challenging Kledang Hills and luckier Taiping walkers to the loftier Maxwell Hill, Penangites have a wider choice: Bukit Jambul, the Ayer Itam Dam, Youth Park, Hye Keat Estate, Moon Gate, the Jeep Track, Waterfall Gardens paths and Glugor and Telok Bahang. 

While our hills  may not have claimed the attention of writers such as Eric Newby or Bruce Chatwin, and while we are unable to point to any one path and claim that  the great walker Mendelssohn was here, they can boast of offering  the widest range of paths to choose from; no other hill offers such a wide variety.  And the new edition of the Malaysian Nature Society booklet priced at only RM15 is the best guide you can have to these wonderful walks among the hills . It has useful introductory passages to the bird and animal life of the hills. I did not like the history which was obviously not well researched and which should be left to some other book to describe. But these are minor criticisms of an otherwise excellent work. 

Although the current booklet on sale is a 1999 edition it somehow failed to notice yet another "tea house" at the Youth Park path (Trail No 1), called by its founders "No 3". While I liked the critical remarks about damage done to the hills, I puzzled at the term "Not-So-Grand-Canyon". "Former granite quarry" would be more accurate and descriptive of the  ugly scar caused by a wanton quarry operator who tore into the hill in the 1950's and the continuing damage done to it by some walkers in the area using changkol and fire to clear even more of the land and eroding it. I thought the notice of the so-called tea house at contractor mark 84 on the Jeep track was rather uncritical.  Why, one is prompted to ask, do people build such huts for tea and coffee when the ostensible object is exercise. Already "84" is being imitated by two other groups. Did the Forest Department and the District Office  approve of the destruction of the environment? 

To describe the Moon Gate (Trail 2) as "a circular concrete arch" is to forget history. The Moon Gate was the the entrance to the country house of Cheah Chen Eok, the ruins of whose bungalow can be seen just a few yards up the path. It will be recalled that Cheah Chen Eok was the millionaire who donated the landmark clock tower at the Esplanade in honour of the silver jubilee of his Queen Victoria . It is not right that he is  forgotten but Moniot is remembered in detail (see Trail 5) Incidentally it was up this path that Tye Poh San and and his cousin Tye Keat Kwong  drove their car to the summit  in 1922

It is puzzling to read that the Moniot Road East was well used in colonial days.(Trail 4)  This track is only a section of the Moon Gate trail which divides right to rise steeply to the summit, and straight on to cross the railway line and then on to the Mont Sejour, hill retreat of Loke Chow Kit of Chow Kit Road fame.  The section does not deserve separate treatment 

Trail 5: I find this the most unsatisfactory of the descriptions of trails. Why should the walker have to ‘bash his way through bushes." Why should he have to cut through the growth now blocking that beautiful walk leading from Moniot Road just above Claremont and skirting Soon Eng Kong's Soon Cottage to Southview at the top?  Should not the authorities see that paths are cleared of obstruction, man made or otherwise?  The task calls for the establishment of a hill authority

Trail 6: This path was known as the rain gauge readers' path, the steep road that meter readers loyally trudged up to take daily rainfall readings. Presgrave of the law firm of Presgrave & Matthews had his hill bungalow here on the flat,  where the path leads to the jeep track; access was comfortable for him as he was being borne to his retreat by sedan chair carriers 

Trail 7:  Mount Olivia is mentioned  but it should have been noted that Olivia was the wife of Sir Stamford Raffles and that some of the ruins of her  bungalow can still be seen 

I should have liked a section on the paths from Mount Erskine and  from Fettes Park to Mount Olivia and another devoted to the path from Mount Erskine to Telok Bahang. The editors might also consider including the path starting from the Temple of Heaven and running parallel to the railway line made famous by Ambrose, the man who roller skated backwards up the hill with his hands tied behind his back, after he had single-handedly cleared the way

Some suggestions: perhaps in addition to saying that the distance from Rock A to Tree B is 5 minutes it might be better to say "so many paces" and grades could be happier described as "easy" "tough" and so on

The late Dr Ong Eng Khuan, the greatest walker of the hills of recent times, would have loved this book
 

Review by Lim Kean Chye