Frog Hill is the nickname for this abandoned tin mining site. This hidden gem is surprisingly close to Penang Island. Its existence is well known among locals through word of mouth. Some say that it resembles Jiuzhaigou in China.
Here’s everything you need to know before visiting this beautiful place!
Best Time To Visit
If you’re scared of getting lost, go on a weekend since there will be plenty of people to follow! For avid photographers, go for sunrise or sunset – either view is breathtaking!
How To Get Here
Besides Frog Hill, this place has a few other names, Lombong Kampung Guar Petai or Froghill Tasek Gelugor or Guar Perahu.
Its actual location is in North Seberang Perai which is on the mainland rather than the island of Penang.
We made this trip from Ipoh one weekend since we happened to have a wedding to attend in nearby Bukit Mertajam too. Our journey began early in the morning from Bukit Mertajam but you can also do this trip from Penang Island.
For us, it took about 30 minutes’ drive to reach Frog Hill from Bukit Mertajam, If you start from Penang Island, you can add on another 10 minutes assuming that traffic is light.
As we got closer to our destination, we found ourselves driving through a kampung (a.k.a small village in the local lingo) area.
There are apparently two ways to enter the site. The signboard is not obvious, and we had to rely on coordinates that we found online through other blogs and Facebook posts.
But we’ll do you one better as we have 2 sets of coordinates for you:
The first are the exact coordinates to the entrance –> 5.442677, 100.473271. And the second are the coordinates for the address of Frog Hill –> 5.435507, 100.484705
You see, the site of the old tin mining grounds is further in, past a red brick factory. So, you can either opt to park your car a little way off the brick factory and walk to the mining site.
Tip: Motorcycles and a 4-wheel drive aren’t necessary, but they certainly will make the passage easier.
We chose to leave the car and walk in. It’s about 15 minutes’ walk from the brick factory site. You can see the entrance from the picture below – the track goes in between all the vegetation.
At this point, GPS signal may not be as strong anymore. We have more pictures and directions below, so you don’t get lost (like we did)!
PS: In case you are wondering, there are NO entrance fees to visit this place. And with that, you can’t expect any proper facilities either. So make sure you prepare accordingly.
How To Prepare For Your Visit Here
If you’re wondering whether it’s better to bring hiking shoes or flip flops, we would suggest flip flops unless you have an old pair of sneakers you don’t mind getting dirty. If you happen to have wellingtons, that might be a better option instead of flip flops.
We further recommendslapping on some sunscreen before you go. And if one of your concerns is insects, we hardly saw any insects, let alone frogs here. I think the water chemical composition is too high in iron and other minerals for them to breed.
Make sureyou use the bathroom before you go to Guar Perahu – there are NO toilet facilities here.
You might want to eat ahead of the trip. Or bring something to eat (just don’t litter!!!) because there are no food stalls or eateries in this area. Do bring some drinking water. It can get hot as there is no shade on the hill.
If you’re going in the rainy season (like us), avoid having your car washed the day before. Because it’s only going to get dirty again with the red clay that is prevalent and unavoidable when you enter the tin mining grounds.
Also, if you really care about your car, you’ll leave it parked in front of the brick factory and walk the rest of the way in. Because the road is not only very muddy and narrow from then on, but there are potholes. Furthermore, branches get close to the road, and it is not possible to avoid them if you are driving (i.e. you’ll get scratches on your car paint).
How To Avoid Getting Lost
You know you’re going the wrong way when the path becomes gross. The mud is sticky and thick. The clay is slippery. There are cow hoof prints and cow poop. More pictures below.
We turned around when we realized we hit a dead end. We kept moving because we could see people climbing the hill from where we were.
Trust us, you don’t want to get lost here as you can lose a lot of time trying to figure out where you are. We had started our drive from our hotel in Bukit Mertajam early in the morning at 8am but it was almost 10am and we still weren’t there.
If you take the correct path, you will not be as close to the ponds as we were (as seen in the photo above).
We ended up backtracking through all the muck to where we started from.
More Tips:
- Don’t rely on GPS here, you’ll end up getting lost like us.
- Also, limit the number of personal belongings that you bring with you. You might drop your phone (like I did) while hiking and not realize it’s missing until you need to turn the GPS back on to get out of the place.
The Right Track
Again, if you refer to the picture above of the “entrance” (with two cars parked):
Walk straight in and you will reach a fork in front of an old structure that is over a small stream (pictured below).
Continue straight past this landmark, keeping it on your left. And just keep going straight from there onwards!
After the landmark (shown in picture above and marked with a green circle in the map below), we chose the other path this time.
Note: The red cross in the picture above is the wrong route we took that day.
We found that this path was much easier than the previous path we had taken. Less mud but still a lot of wet clay.
Soon enough, we came across an old uncle on a motorcycle who assured us that we were going the right way.
Presently, a four-wheel-drive full of people came up on the opposite lane. As they passed us, they said we should turn back cause the road was much worse closer to the hill. We just nodded and smiled at them.
We were already dirty from ankles to calves so we just went on despite their warning. Turns out, the path was not nearly as bad as what we had encountered earlier. We walked on the grass instead.
Before long, it looked like it was about to rain. Since we had no umbrella with us, we debated about it for a bit but decided to press on. Our hopes increased the closer we got to the hill.
There was a drizzle, but it stopped after a while. And in about 20 minutes or so, we had finally made it to the hill.
Hiking Up The Hill
The start of the hill is loose red clay which gives way to rock as you go higher. It’s a short but steep climb (~5 minutes or less depending on your fitness) to the top.
Tip: Be careful what you grab on to and where you put your feet.
Anyways, the view is so worth it! The pools range from a forest green to a dark aqua and even something close to turquoise on that cloudy day.
And the water is clear enough at the shallow parts that you can see some metal scrap pieces, probably remains of the previous tin dredge.
Sometimes there are monkeys swimming! Just don’t follow their example!
From up here, we could see more people making their way to the hill, a bit of the highway, a train track and we even caught a glimpse of water buffaloes!
We stayed until the next group came up. At this point, we were starving and hadn’t had breakfast yet. Our next question was where to go for our much-needed breakfast/ lunch.
Yam Rice At Bukit Mertajam
Okay, so now we could go back to town and find the reputed BM yam rice we had been thinking about the whole morning.
Here is the meal we had (it cost us RM 17 for everything). There was rice with yam, pork soup with pork meatballs, a hard-boiled egg braised in light and dark soy sauce and tofu. The restaurant has a franchise feel to it and the portion of yam is somewhat small.
But the food is really delicious.
Note: This restaurant has changed location before so make sure you go to the new location. Google “BM Yam rice”. Of course, there are other people trying to leech off the success of this original restaurant. Do be careful of similarly named stores that are also nearby.
After our meal, we headed back to the hotel to shower, pack up and check out and make our way back to Ipoh.
Where We Stayed
We chose Chariton Hotel Alma as it was close to the wedding venue.
Chariton Hotel Alma
This boutique hotel shares the ground floor with a non-halal coffee shop called Brava. You can have breakfast or lunch here (But there are many places to eat around this hotel too).
This boutique hotel shares the ground floor with a non-halal coffee shop called Brava. You can have breakfast or lunch here (But there are many places to eat around this hotel too).
AEON is not far away from this hotel if you need to pick up something. We paid about RM130 for one night in the king standard room (breakfast not included). We got RM20 ringgit off from an Agoda coupon.
Our room was small but clean, well equipped with basic facilities and has free WiFi. We did not use the TV as we had brought a laptop to plan our upcoming Hanoi trip in December 2017.
Tip: For RM10, you can get the yearly membership and check out late at 3pm. Not sure if they still have that promotion but it’s worth checking it out. There is a Chariton Hotel in Ipoh too.
Conclusion
Try and find the time to visit hidden gem, Frog Hill in Penang before all the tourists do. Or before the owners realize the money-making potential of this rather unique and enchanting place.
It helps that the beautiful location isn’t too far from Penang (Or Ipoh) too. It’s not every day that you can see an abandoned tin mine. =)
Penang Attractions
If you’re looking for things to do in Penang that are more tourist-friendly, consult this list instead.
Penang Itinerary
You’ll need more than one day to see all that Penang has to offer. Here are some suggested itineraries that you can make use of to get you started!
