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Malaysia is a nice modern country with a relatively high standard of living. It has a good economy and seems like it would be a good place to work. That said I don't know why anyone would want to retire there. There are much nicer and much cheaper options in the region.
Small world. I was born in San Diego (Naval Hospital), lived in Honolulu, and live in Albany, Oregon. Your wife's friend who vacationed at Chiang Mai is right. It's a very pleasant city with a scenic countryside.
I've never been to the beaches at Phuket, but at a guess, I'd say it must be close to about a 90-minute to 2 hour or so flight from Chiang Mai. From BKK, it's shorter.
Small world, indeed. I live just outside of Portland.
I was about to say that there must be beaches to the west a lot closer to Chiang Mai than Phuket, but I checked, and I see that you'd have to cross the border into Myanmar, which probably isn't a wise idea.
Malaysia is a nice modern country with a relatively high standard of living. It has a good economy and seems like it would be a good place to work. That said I don't know why anyone would want to retire there. There are much nicer and much cheaper options in the region.
So where would you recommend? From what I've read so far, the trade-off seems to be between cost of living and infrastructure/healthcare quality/overall standard of living. For instance, I've heard that Laos and Cambodia are beautiful countries with friendly people (we have friends from both places), but they were completely devastated during the war and by the Khmer Rouge, and are still a decade or two away from full recovery. Vietnam is recovering more quickly, but I don't see it come up often as a retirement desitination. When my wife and I visit SE Asia, we'll probably stay with our friend in Ho Chi Minh City and make that our base of operations for trips elsewhere.
At the other end of the scale, there are fully developed, modern cities like Singapore and Hong Kong, but the cost of living seems to be as high as in the US. Malaysia and Thailand seem to strike a good balance between cost of living and quality of life. But again, I'm open to all suggestions.
Small world, indeed. I live just outside of Portland.
I was about to say that there must be beaches to the west a lot closer to Chiang Mai than Phuket, but I checked, and I see that you'd have to cross the border into Myanmar, which probably isn't a wise idea.
Yeah, there's not too many beaches around Chiang Mai.
Last edited by NightBazaar; 08-13-2010 at 12:13 PM..
I have a blog detailing life on the east coast of the Peninsula, but C-D doesn't allow links, so you would have to google "Teak Malaysia blog" to find it.
I found your blog last night -- very nice! We obviously share an interest in food and cooking. Portland, Oregon (where I live) has a wide variety of cuisines, with lots of great Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean resturants and grocery stores. I don't think we have any Malaysian, Filipino, or Cambodian restaurants, though, and there are only one or two small Indonesian places, a couple of Lao places, and one that serves Singapore-style street food.
I found your blog last night -- very nice! We obviously share an interest in food and cooking. Portland, Oregon (where I live) has a wide variety of cuisines, with lots of great Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean resturants and grocery stores. I don't think we have any Malaysian, Filipino, or Cambodian restaurants, though, and there are only one or two small Indonesian places, a couple of Lao places, and one that serves Singapore-style street food.
Thanks for the compliment.
I would recommend giving Malaysia a look. Every place in Malaysia is cheaper than Singapore; in fact, many Singaporeans come into Malaysia for their vacations and own second homes here. The poster who said that there are nicer and cheaper options hasn't put out a list yet that proves that point.
Certainly the Philippines and Indonesia are also cheap outside of Manila and Jakarta, respectively; but are they safer?? I doubt it. I have friends who live in both countries and they do not rave about those places. The population differences alone will give a good indication.
Indonesia >220 million
Philippines ~80 million
Malaysia ~27 million
The three primary races in Malaysia put out an incredible array of food: Malay, Tamil (North and South Indian), Chinese (various regional specialties), along with Thai and Western. Even now, during the "fasting" month, there are great choices. Malay families spend 25% MORE on food during the fasting month than the other months. Every evening has 'buka puasa' specials at hotels and resorts. Around 4pm, Malay food stalls -closed all day before then- open up to sell an array of take-out foods for the 7:30pm break fast. After that, families will go out to restaurants until late for feasts.
I would choose Laos, Cambodia, or Thailand over Malaysia. Sure Laos and Cambodia probably don't have great healthcare but if you live in a city with an airport you can get to Bangkok, Singapore, or KL quickly if you need to. In Malaysia you will be paying more money to live in a place that is less desirable IMO. I would not choose Vietnam, too crazy and I got sick from the food a couple times. Hong Kong makes the US look dirt cheap, even Manhattan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HonuMan
So where would you recommend? From what I've read so far, the trade-off seems to be between cost of living and infrastructure/healthcare quality/overall standard of living. For instance, I've heard that Laos and Cambodia are beautiful countries with friendly people (we have friends from both places), but they were completely devastated during the war and by the Khmer Rouge, and are still a decade or two away from full recovery. Vietnam is recovering more quickly, but I don't see it come up often as a retirement desitination. When my wife and I visit SE Asia, we'll probably stay with our friend in Ho Chi Minh City and make that our base of operations for trips elsewhere.
At the other end of the scale, there are fully developed, modern cities like Singapore and Hong Kong, but the cost of living seems to be as high as in the US. Malaysia and Thailand seem to strike a good balance between cost of living and quality of life. But again, I'm open to all suggestions.
I would recommend giving Malaysia a look. Every place in Malaysia is cheaper than Singapore; in fact, many Singaporeans come into Malaysia for their vacations and own second homes here. The poster who said that there are nicer and cheaper options hasn't put out a list yet that proves that point.
Thanks, Teak. I've read many positive things and very few negative things about Malaysia, so we definitely plan to visit. I followed the MM2H Forum link from your blog and found a lot of good information there, too.
Although Singapore is very expensive and doesn't encourage retirees unless they're wealthy, the company I work for has an office there. I've let it be known that I'd happily accept a temporary assignment there, if our Asian business grows enough to warrant it, and my boss is supportive of the idea. Gone are the days of lucrative expat packages, replaced by what they call secondments (i.e., your basic expenses are covered), but that still sounds like a good chance to be based in SE Asia and explore the region.
If I understand MM2H correctly, a couple can still live in Malaysia if one person is retired and the other is not. My wife is older than I am and will retire first, with a pension, Social Security, and IRA savings. I'm fortunate to have a job I that can do anywhere there's a reliable high-speed Internet connection, so I'd be getting paid by my US employer. Our first choice would be Hawaii, because that's her home, but the cost of living is considerably higher there, and we're not sure that a Hawaii retirement is feasible.
Quote:
Certainly the Philippines and Indonesia are also cheap outside of Manila and Jakarta, respectively; but are they safer?? I doubt it. I have friends who live in both countries and they do not rave about those places. The population differences alone will give a good indication.
Indonesia >220 million
Philippines ~80 million
Malaysia ~27 million
I've heard similar things. We have a friend who married a Filipina, and they have a vacation home there. Their family was the victim of a nasty kidnaping and extortion scheme, complete with corrupt local authorities, because he was perceived to be a rich American, which he is not. That seems to be a risk when you have monied expats moving to extremely poor countries.
We also have a friend who recently started a two-year teaching job in Surabaya, Indonesia. She's still in the honeymoon phase and loves it, except for the fact that the school dress code requires her to wear long sleeves at all times. We're following her adventures vicariously.
Quote:
The three primary races in Malaysia put out an incredible array of food: Malay, Tamil (North and South Indian), Chinese (various regional specialties), along with Thai and Western. Even now, during the "fasting" month, there are great choices. Malay families spend 25% MORE on food during the fasting month than the other months. Every evening has 'buka puasa' specials at hotels and resorts. Around 4pm, Malay food stalls -closed all day before then- open up to sell an array of take-out foods for the 7:30pm break fast. After that, families will go out to restaurants until late for feasts.
That sounds great. The Travel Channel is currently running a series called Samanatha Brown's Asia, in which she visits eight different countries. Food figures prominently. In the Malaysia episode, she visited the food stalls in Georgetown, and made pulled tea in the Little India district.
I would choose Laos, Cambodia, or Thailand over Malaysia. Sure Laos and Cambodia probably don't have great healthcare but if you live in a city with an airport you can get to Bangkok, Singapore, or KL quickly if you need to. In Malaysia you will be paying more money to live in a place that is less desirable IMO. I would not choose Vietnam, too crazy and I got sick from the food a couple times. Hong Kong makes the US look dirt cheap, even Manhattan.
Thanks, Califantastic. Thailand appeals to us, with the only drawback appearing to be the recent political violence, which I hear is confined to certain areas of Bangkok. (And of course there are plenty of places in the US where I wouldn't venture.) When my wife was in college in Hawaii, her boyfriend was Lao, and she hung out with the Lao students. Flash forward 35 years later to Oregon, when she attended the college graduation party of a Lao-American intern who was working at her company. Imagine her surprise to find that the young lady's father was one of her old college friends, and several other friends and roommates were present. She has only good things to say about the Lao people she knows, but they're ambivalent about their homeland, having lost so much during the war. The same is true of a Cambodian friend we have. It's hard to separate the countries then from now, filtered through the perceptions of those who lived there, fled, and have become very successful in the US. On the other hand, many of our Vietnamese friends say they'd move back there in a heartbeat, if they thought they could make a decent living, and that some of their educated younger relatives are doing qute well there. We'll just have to see for ourselves.
Thanks, Califantastic. Thailand appeals to us, with the only drawback appearing to be the recent political violence, which I hear is confined to certain areas of Bangkok. (And of course there are plenty of places in the US where I wouldn't venture.)
Speaking from my own years of experiences in Thailand, while there can sometimes be political unrest, the problems are internal matter so it's not often that foreigners are caught up by it. The exceptions were when the airport was occupied by activists some time ago, and the recent event that (now over) that occupied an area of shopping businesses and upscale business hotels. I've been in the country during such times (years ago) and was completely unaware of any problems. The only way I found out about it was when I got back to the US and people told me about news broadcasts, in some cases a number of unfounded rumors. My wife was there from February to April (3 months) earlier this year, which was during the recent event, and it had little to no effect anywhere else.
You're thinking is correct, that such events are usually confined to certain areas of Bangkok. which is the seat of government. You're also correct that there are plenty of places in the US that might not be advisable to hang around in. Outside of BKK, even inside BKK, it's people living their lives as usual. In my opinion, it isn't as great a drawback as it may sometimes appear from the standpoint of foreigners.
That said, by all means it might be worth exploring other countries around SE Asia. However, as a place to retire, there are plenty of bargains and has a much wider variety of interests than just about anywhere else in SE Asia, Thailand gets my vote. I have to admit I'm rather partial though.
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Yeah, there's not too many beaches around Chiang Mai.
