Gunung Jerai 16-18 Oct 2009

Our chartered bus headed to Kedah at about 9 p.m. from PJ and reached Cinta Sayang Resort, Sg Petani at about 4 a.m. As our bus was early, we continued sleeping on board until 6.30 a.m. when we woke up for breakfast. En route to Sg Petani, we stopped over in Ipoh for a midnight supper of the famous Ipoh steamed chicken and bean sprouts.

It was already 9.30 a.m. when we finally located Titi Hayun Resort at Yan. We quickly organized into a hiker group and a waterfall group. After several group photography sessions, the hikers took off at 9.45 a.m. for Tangga Kenari, the trail head for the climb to Regency Jerai Hill Resort while I joined the waterfall group for the Puteri Mandi Waterfall, 3km away.

After trekking for about 20 minutes, we noted that the wide muddy trail stopped abruptly at an abandoned pump house and we were forced to continue along a narrow trail behind the house. However, we backtracked within 5 minutes, following sighting of numerous leeches of all sizes springing up along the trail and ‘attacking’ us. We did a de-leeching exercise immediately upon finding a safe spot. As expected, there were several casualties.

To kill time, three of us decided to climb the Tangga Kenari 1000 Tahun ala 1000 years old stairway. The 1200 steps took us about 25 minutes to climb and 15 minutes to descent. Next, we made our way to Lembah Bujang to visit the Archaeological Museum and the nearby cascading Sg Merbok.

After lunch we went up to Regency Jerai Hill Resort by vans. At the Resort, we were treated with a panoramic view of the chequered padi fields and the fine coastline as well as the surrounding islands. Midway uphill, we did a whistle stop at the Forestry Museum to explore the surrounding area which included a waterfall and a great vista of the chequered Kedah padi fields also. In the late afternoon, a few of us took the opportunity to walk up the 3 km tar road from the Resort to the Gunung Jerai Peak hoping to catch sunset. Unfortunately, the peak area was a restricted area for Telekom Towers and thus off limit to the public. The uphill walk took about 35 minutes.

We left the following morning and reached home about 6.30 p.m.

For record purpose, the hikers took about 2½hrs to scale up to The Regency Jerai Hill Resort (960m asl) from Titi Hayun (65m asl). From the Resort, the tar road snaked up another 3 km to the Gunung Jerai Peak (1200m asl).
There is an alternative longer route named Warisan Trail running directly from the Archaeological Museum and exiting at the tar road, the location thereof is about 2 ascending road bends or 300m distance to the Telekom Towers. Based on the official trail map, there is a trail linking the Titi Hayum Trail (which goes to The Regency Jerai Hill Resort) to the Warisan Trail (which goes to Gunung Jerai Peak). Check out the hike photos at http://yeohsk.multiply.com/photos/album/42/Gunung_Jerai_16-18_Oct_09.

For the photographs, please refer to http://happytrekker.shutterfly.com/pictures/7015.