Ever since I moved to Penang, I've been hearing a lot about this huge tree with its roots 3 times bigger the size than human. That's probably why the Cherok Tokun Nature Park is famous for among the locals - nope, didn't get to see a single ang moh (foreigner) today.
As usual, most of my (local) hikes are pretty spontaneous - I didn't study and check which trails are there and decided to "follow the crowd", which proves to be a waste of my first 1 hour. I will share this in a bit later.
Parking is plenty and free - if you arrive early enough. I arrived around 07:45am and most of the spaces were filled. Most cars were then gone by 09:30am.
Right at the start, there are 2 different hiking paths to choose from: either left or right. I did the mistake of following the crowd, taking the left trail. All in all, the hike wasn't that impressive - steep asphalt road all the way up with no pretty pano view. This path is crowded with locals jogging and cyclists but the road is wide enough to maintain SOP.
Seriously though, I would not recommend this to anyone, especially those with serious health conditions.
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| I'm not a big fan of asphalt road. |
Now the other trail, the "right" one (pun intended), is the highlight of this post. This trail is full of greens, soil road, and most importantly: the pathway to the biggest buttress tree in Penang. Overall, it's an easy hike (about 20mins one-way hike to the famous big tree), suitable for monkeys school kids too - we actually saw a few along the hike....and monkeys too.
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| The trail on the right - path is narrower but less crowded. |
Though lesser people, this trail is marked all the way, it's hard to miss the big buttress tree.
The trail actually doesn't end there - it actually goes all the way to the Mengkuang dam. Due to the time constraint (and mum), I shall leave this for the next hike :)
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| Attempting to lift the tree. |