Penang Hill

The last time I was in Penang, in 2013, I was unable to climb Penang Hill due to a sore and swollen knee obtained in the Cameron Highlands. Instead, I took the monorail up to the top and waited for Kristina, Lynsey, and Danna to arrive. As I waited back in 2013, I started to wonder what had happened to them as they were taking much longer than any of us had anticipated. When I did finally spot them, dripping with sweat, it became quite clear that the word 'hill' was a bit of a misnomer.

Despite knowing all this, I still wanted to be able to say that I had climbed to the top of Penang Hill, and Kristina and Lynsey agreed to climb it a second time. In order to do this, we hopped on one of the many city buses and got dropped off at the Botanical Gardens where there is a staircase that leads to a trail up to the top of the hill. There was some second guessing and backtracking as Kristina and Lynsey tried to remember exactly where the stairs started but eventually, we did find it and thus our journey to the top began.

We climbed stairs for about 45 minutes until the path evened out a bit and we started on a trail right near the road. It was along the stairs, that I saw two of the most exotic creatures I've ever encountered while hiking or trekking. The first was a snake and the second was some sort of bright red centipede or possibly millipede. We didn't take the time to count it's legs.

Eventually, we came to the part that I had been warned about. The first trail we were on ended and met up with the road. Back in 2013, they walked up the road because it had been getting late and no one knew how much longer it would take to get to the top. The grade of the road is 35% and did not look overly inviting. Instead, we found the original path from the days of Cornwallis in the 1800s. Choosing this path was a no brainer for me and onward and upward our journey continued.

Of course, any activity I do in SE Asia would not be complete without getting caught in a downpour and that is exactly what happened about 20 minutes into the second half of the journey. The rain jacket didn't even make it out of the bag because it was raining so hard. Plus, the water felt refreshing after an hour of hot, sweaty hiking. This part, at times, became a mad scramble up the mud and avoiding puddles. It made me happy I was climbing up rather than down.

This time, our path intersected with the monorail maintenance path. We walked on that and a combination of stairs passing private residences on our way to the top. The closer we got to the top of Penang Hill, the lighter the rain became until it came to a stop minutes after we found shelter underneath an overhang. The three of us hung out here until we were certain the rain had stopped for good and the sun started to come out. We had a lot of drying out to do.

The view of the city was not particularly great because of the clouds left in the sky and the general haze of humidity. However, being at the top was relaxing as the rain had scared many people away.

The game plan for getting back down was to try to hitch a ride all the way to the bottom. Unfortunately for us, only three cars passed while we were on the road and none of them had room for us. We ended up walking all the way down. Once we got off the road and onto a hash (running club) trail, the walk turned much more pleasant. In the end, I didn't find the hike up to Penang Hill as difficult as what I had been anticipating. Much of this, was due to taking that second path rather than the road the final 2 kilometers up to the top.