Balik Pulau Explore – a day in the green heart of Penang

Forget George Town for a moment. This route takes you along roads as flat as a table and completely empty Balik Pulau. We'll wind along gravel paths through rice paddies, past fruit plantations and along the mangrove forests on the coast.

There's no way around stopping at the tried-and-tested cafés where local cyclists traditionally pause for coffee before heading on. From there the route continues between orchards of rambutan, nutmeg and durian, whose season (roughly June–August and November–January) you can smell in the air a kilometre before every village. You pass wooden houses on stilts, buffalo standing ankle-deep in the mud of rice fields, and roadside stalls selling fruit straight off the trailer.

The final stretch runs through the fishing villages of Pulau Betong, where wooden boats lie pulled up on the shore and nets dry on bamboo racks. The route loops around the entire western and southern parts of the island, away from the traffic, showing you a Penang the postcards never do – slower, more local, smelling of ripening fruit and sea salt at the same time. It's the essence of the Round The Island route, but without the rush, the climbs or the busy rest of the island to tick off on the same day.