Malaysia | Costs, Culture and Can we retire here???

big question for us as we completed our three months in Malaysia was how realistic would it be for Malaysia to form part of our retirement plan and to answer that we would need to consider the culture and whether we feel at home there any additional benefits it would have over similar locations in the world the practicalities and the cost of living and we're going to get into all of that in this video so do you think Malaysia could form part of your retirement plan let's get straight into it with regard to the culture it's not that we're going to critique the Malaysian culture it's more the fact can we actually fit in to the culture yeah and actually live a fairly normal life the way we want to well there are a few items that go into deciding that for us the first one is around the language barrier are we going to be able to speak normally there and be understood there's things like money using ATMs and all the other kind of good stuff would be like the Malaysian food and then lastly probably most importantly are we going to be made to feel welcome in Malaysia so let's start with language barrier or lack of it it's like a really nice thing about Malaysia is it does have its kind of indigenous languages such as Chinese and Malay but also included in that mix is English so we're going to be talking about food shortly but in the food section just looking at a menu is easy because a lot of the menus are in English did you find any issues with language now at all not at all everyone we spoke to every shop you went into it was all English was spoken we got into some really deep and fun conversations and medical um yeah yeah the medical stuff was important but fun being I remember a driver one day talking to us about his love of rice and and this this conversation went on for about 20 minutes about how much he loved basically rice is his main food stuff and his wife knows how to keep him happy and just keep him right just give him rice yeah I was asking what do you want on your rice nothing he's just happy with rice so it was good to be able to have a conversation with someone and have fun and have a laugh with somebody when we're not speaking in in his night it was uh Native Chinese but his English was good enough that he could speak to us in in our unusual weird language other countries we go to obviously will try the language because we are tourists in that country but here there was no shame at all because everyone spoke English there was no shame in terms not trying their own that's a that's a good point normally anywhere we go in the world we learn how to say hello goodbye thank you sorry yes I don't know those no I don't know any of those didn't bother just do it in English everyone's cool with that so let's get on to the money aspect is it a is it a card based culture or cash-based culture meleicard who I took the chicken pin as we're used to using now so yeah I think if you're doing street food that's going to be cash but everything else is card we use two cards predominantly from the UK we didn't get any extra charges conversion charges there at all everything just went through in Malaysian ringing the ATMs no charges no charges on the ATMs either so that was that was all very easy and also when it comes to using cards the main Rideshare app and also I guess for ordering food if you want food delivered to your apartment is grab grab is very similar to Uber nice thing about grab is you can load in your credit card details into there and you've got not fumbling around dealing with cash when you finish your ride share and I actually use the wallet part of that as well so I pre-loaded can't remember the amount now but preloaded that so then I knew I had that amount if if I needed to get a grab on my own yeah in case there's any problem with your card all of a sudden so that was perfect yeah so so fraud Finance day-to-day Finance perspective no challenges actually we even bought Tech like big Tech new computers and things like that and I was expecting there to be challenges but I remember buying brand new laptop expensive and I gave my card he put it in a machine didn't even need my PIN number said yep that's approved well that was fresh before so money not problem so the next one food Malaysia is it known for is it known for his food's food it's very nice food yeah very nice food we have to be bit careful because we don't eat seafood and there is significant amount of shrimp and Anchovies and things that we really don't like so we did have to be a little bit the main dish yeah the main dish in Malaysia even if I've seen people ordering the vegetarian version of it and they come in with anchovies on top that's good enough for me so the food is fantastic but if you like Western food we like a bit Western food as well we're going to be coming on to how much we spent and we'll be talking about that as well just to say as well vegetarian vegan no problem at all yeah everything you want is available but you know it all comes down to one thing were we made to feel welcome we were we were a first I have to say when I first got there I felt a little bit uneasy but that soon when one sister had gotten bearings and just got news to people and again being in Big City I think when we first arrived it was during working hours and things and people on the lunch break maybe not as friendly but then once we eased into the city but it was very very friendly larger or parallel with you there and that is people who come to the UK if their first introduction to UK is London they go oh no people from the UK not for friendly but if their first introduction to UK was Liverpool they go oh people in the UK are wonderful so we found when we went to Penang yes people were absolutely fantastic there yeah um yeah you just have to open them up a little bit like any big city I guess in that way but yeah absolutely we were made to feel very very at home which was a great start so how would it compare to similar locations so I guess similar locations we'd be looking at other places in Southeast Asia because you know that's what it's surrounded by so if we use Thailand as a good example of a well trodden the southeast Asia location and do a quick comparison so first of all there's speaking English in Malaysia it was so much easier because as we said it is a language that is widely spoken in Malaysia less so in Thailand so I would say that Malaysia's got the jump over Thailand on that one yeah and then what about cultural similarities do we feel anything there I think the first one that Springs to mind is probably football everyone we spoke to seemed to ask what team did we support it was always the Icebreaker yeah so definitely cultural yeah and I know you know any any Thai people watching or fans of Thailand will know I remember we we uh stayed near a mile in Chiang Mai and in that mail was a Liverpool FC shop so they love their football as well but first of all everybody in Malaysia supports Manchester United but they could have a conversation with us we had a really detailed conversation with the lad about David Beckham Argentina yeah and another guy is he said so what team do you support hoping I'd say man united and I said oh you wouldn't know it's a team called Swindon town he's oh I know Swindon they were in the Premiership in the in the 90s but how do you know that people in there in their food short time and surprised anyone remember boys Slow Down slow down Sarah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] http [Applause] fly high so what about comparing Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok I think from our experience in Bangkok we only spent a short time there but it was Bonkers completely crazy completely fast-paced so Kuala Lumpur is a slow yes slower certainly and um I guess more green spaces there are big parks and things in Bangkok but just walking down the Avenues in in Kuala Lumpur there's trees everywhere it just felt a lot more kind of natural and then safety and this is Thailand to Malaysia not Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur well in both places we felt very safe yeah so so we wouldn't say Malaysia it's more safe or less safe both of them felt super safe to us if we start looking at the practicalities for staying in Malaysia long term where should we start airport that's where the first okay so it's the right yes that's where we arrived so the airport the first thing I'd say about the airport is it's a little bit far away it's about an hour in a car from the airport into the center of Kuala Lumpur we flew in from Singapore also getting a grab at the airport pretty damn chaotic so if somebody said to me Neil we're going to give you the keys to Kuala Lumpur for a year you can make some changes I'll pick up the airport shift it shift it about a quarter of an hour from the center of quite a long per not an hour and then I changed the whole ride share thing we had to pick up uh SIM cards and that wasn't straightforward to do from the airport so we actually got those in quite a lump of the following we tend not to do at the airports because generally more expensive so Healthcare we're not going to go into detail on health videos yeah if you're interested in that whole videos in healthcare yeah and we're going to speak about Healthcare in the conclusion to this video as well because that does form part of our decision on what we're going to be doing long term so Malaysia Sarah is it walkable certainly KL yeah uh Big Y Pavements down all the roads and also they had these air Bridges which were brilliant when it's so hot and humid yeah all air conditioned Bridges and they'll take you through down to the Patronus towers and yeah so let's go over there way away from the traffic beautiful but conversely we stayed in Penang out of Georgetown which is the main tourist center if you if you went off the main roads and you saw a pavement you were lucky I now did affect our feeling about panang a little bit because it wasn't walkable it got tiresome dodging cars and bikes the scooters come from absolutely nowhere yeah so we're leaving our ippo actually and we we really thought hippo was walkable hippo was really well yeah that's a good point because I think we said in the hippo video we watched a YouTuber tear into hippo saying not very walkable we we got there and thought this is important we've seen in in Southeast Asia so the last practical element is visas this is really good and that is that there are around 60 countries the world highly likely the country you come from is on this list where you don't even need a visa to get into Malaysia and that gets you 90 days in the country you can't however extend your stay once you're there if you if you get into Malaysia on a 90 day you've got to leave within that 90 day but that's nice and easy nobody is required just land and Away you go so that's the practicalities dealt with so now the big one and that is cost of living we spent three months there or to be exact 87 days and we always break out our spending into six categories that being accommodation groceries transport eating and drinking out entertainment incidentals well done well done and incidentals is actually a catch-all for every anything that doesn't fall into those other five categories falls into in stencils we're gonna do this we're going to give you two numbers basically one of those is everything that we've spent but then we're going to give you the total again taking off some of the incidentals two things in particular that skew the cost but also it doesn't make it as practical for you to use because it's very personal to us first one is Insurance our travel insurance costs around us I forget what it is it's about 191 pounds 191 I think it was 119. it varies it varies based upon the currency fluctuations 180 200 200 quick we're going to give you the total cost but then the cost after that we're going to remove that so you can apply your own insurance figure into it and the second thing is we turned our travel into Malaysia into a real Medical Extravaganza okay but check out check out videos if you're interested in that so you're going to see how much it cost us with all of that included but then we'll take it out and you can breathe a slightly relief to see it wasn't quite as expensive contract like me right so accommodation we spent a total of 4838 US Dollars we're going to do all of this in US Dollars and then convert it up on screen that equated to around 56 US dollars per night and that was for a luxury condo in the center of Kuala Lumpur fantastic views of the Patronus towers and the KL Tower absolutely stunning at night we also had three or four nights in a hotel in ippo and that included breakfast and their member in Penang we had an Airbnb one bedroom apartment yeah so just to be clear that was two months in Kuala Lumpur and a month in Penang let us know in the comments what do you think is that expensive well it's actually over Christmas New Year in Kuala Lumpur as well the price did go up yeah during that period we know we know full well that we chose to go to Malaysia at some of the seasonally most expensive times that being Christmas yeah New Year Chinese New Year so you've got to reflect that if you were going to come to Malaysia at a different time of year then the costs will actually be lower certainly cheaper Apartments but we did for the view we got there's absolutely worth the money yeah so eating and drinking out was 1802 or equivalent to 21 per night yeah we we tended to eat out at least once a day you know if you would if you want to look at over a whole month probably say like one and a half times a day we would eat out certainly Kuala Lumpur and we leaned more towards Western food the main reason for that was because I just I was well and if it wasn't well I wanted to I wanted to just go for something that I felt comfortable eating that isn't to say we didn't get involved in Malaysian food all we did that's the amazing thing about Malaysia and the street food incredible so there you go twenty one dollars and that's for both of us that's not each entertainment that was 151 US dollars or just two dollars okay the biggest Lion's Share of this category was actually the Malaysian Cup Final we went to you would have seen that in one of our videos from Malaysia an amazing experience about 70 or 80 000 people there and the tickets for that cost us 45 dollars each the other things were mainly going into museums or giving donations and that kind of stuff but Sarah what about the groceries and that would be 1166 or equivalent to 13 a day so I did do breakfast most days you did made it for ourselves yeah normally that was I was a Greek yogurt great yogurt with fruit yeah honey and uh nuts and seeds yeah all eggs that's generally what we did and also when we were in Penang because Bill wasn't well and we just needed a healthy month really so I did a lot of cooking there so I got lots of fruit and vegetables next onto transportation we spent 322 US Dollars that's around four dollars to per day this included our train travel from Kuala Lumpur to ippo our train travel from ippo to Penang our train travel went out back to Kuala Lumpur various grabs that we took and which we did we did use grab fairly often because it was so hot to walk around yeah we did but also for the for the local Metro train system as well so that's pretty good 322 dollars so 100 a month not bad at all good so let's okay incidentals time for that sharp intake of breath everybody one two three thank you it's lovely to hear you but yeah we spent 4085 US Dollars which is equivalent to 47 a day but as I say that includes all of the tests out of brain scanner I had heart scans or sketches and we also had uh enhanced screening medical screening for both of us and that included our insurance if we remove all that that brings it down to 1 382 US dollars or 16 US dollars a day so that includes just living really so clothing stores and bought clothes and you know just the general stuff that you do sim cards for our phones so our total cost for 87 days in Malaysia was wrong on the drums please um I said I would never do that again useless because you just did it yeah it was 12 365 US Dollars which is around 4 250 US dollars per month but without the medical stuff and insurance is only 9 661 US dollars or 3330 US dollars per month so the question is are we going to retire to Malaysia at some point in the future well not full time because uh to be honest the humidity and the Heat at most times of the year was just too much to for us to deal with wasn't it so but knowing we have three months 90 days Visa upon arrival is an extremely attractive opposition yeah so so far Malaysia of all the places we've visited in the world this includes our own country I hasten to add has got the best medical treatment and the and the speediest medical treatment so I think from our future perspective we will be using Malaysia as our key medical location and that would be our guess probably every couple of years going to Malaysia to do our health assessment but also if we get any significant ailments maybe hovering on a flight to Malaysia you guys if you live in Malaysia if you're Malaysian hats off to you you have got amazing medical treatment you should be very very proud of that and we truly felt safe and happy in the so The Game hats off the people they made us feel very welcome and a happy place for us to be around which is pretty special yeah so we've got some bad news for any Malaysians watching we will be back so sorry about that if you've enjoyed this video and if you want to see a bit more about what we did in Malaysia then why not check our Malaysia playlist which is linked on screen now and also if you want to get more of an insight into our travels you may be new here not know that we retired two years ago so everything we're nomadic traveling the world for 10 years you may be interested to join our patreon community we're adding more and more into patreon it seems every week at the moment because those guys are great if your details look in the description below [Applause] thank you

Channel: 2GoRoam

Views: 518,739

Keywords: retire, retirement, retirement travel, retirees, retirement lifestyle, retirement planning, retirement fear, retire young, early retirement, reality of retirement, retirement finances, financial independence, fire independence retire early, plan for early retirement, retire early, slow travel retirement, financial independence retire early, financial freedom, running out of money, f.i.r.e. (financial independence retire early), nomad, 2goroam, cost of living, malaysia, kuala lumpur

Id: ShdLmf0isX8

Length: 20min 44sec (1244 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 18 2023