Hi everyone

I am planning to move to kl end of this year, currently I live in UK
I would like to know from expats how bad is the crime in malaysia hearing from news and videos available online it looks pretty bad. In your experience is it that bad ?

From just where exactly does this information come and what does "bad" mean exactly?

Lived here for four years on and off and never experienced any crime personally, nor seen any.

I know a young lady that had her bag snatched by two boys on a motor cycle (this type of crime isn't restricted to Malaysia), but that is about it.

This may be subjective, but by comparison with Thailand, Malaysia seems to be a positive beacon of respectability. I'm not saying crime doesn't happen, it does, but it seems to be very small scale and opportunistic.

I suspect you would be in more danger wandering the backstreets of London, New York or Paris than the backstreets of Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

Haven't experienced any crime so far, touch wood. Was fearful when I arrived as everyone was telling my wife "be careful with you handbag" etc. But have been fine so far.

I've noticed a lot of the crime that we were being warned of can be avoided with common sense. Hiding your valuables from view in your car, keeping handbag close and out of view, concealing expensive jewellery at night, not being out alone in dodgy areas, not going to ATMs at very isolated locations late at night etc etc.

Welcome to the forum Danish

Ditto all above really. Just be sensible and take precautions as you would in any major city.

thanks for all your informative messages.
its reassuring to hear from people who live there

Are you moving for work? Though cannot imagine anyone wanting to retire there hehe.

[QUOTE]
Are you moving for work? Though cannot imagine anyone wanting to retire there hehe.




I want to move as MMH2, I have some properties in UK which the rent will cover me to have good life in Malaysia. but in UK it is not much. i wanted to move to Singapore but its more expansive and the imagination rules are tighter.

Did you get that exreg? Must be tough for you in SIN

Yes indeed. Some board members here have very direct experience of that.

Watch out for North Malaysia. Living in Thailand, people tell me not to even take the train down due to violent culture and religious clashes in the South Thailand/North Malaysia area.

The conflict is actually in Southern Thailand and not in Northern Malaysia at all, not that either on are anyone's list of places in which to retire.

Sorry what I meant was that migration rules are tougher in Singapore.

Apart from the 30 or so Burmese people that were hacked to death in the last year Penang it is pretty safe.

Yes I think we all understand. Just having a chuckle at the autocorrect error, and we do have rather a lot of sarky posters on here

Have you visited KL before? If you haven't done so, I would really recommend you visiting and seeing if you like it. It's probably a really obvious thing to say, but you never know until you've seen a place if it feels right.

Yes Singapore is jolly expensive these days and it's difficult with the long term visa there. Haven't checked recently but, as I recall, apart from the high financial requirement, they also require you to have med insurance for the whole time. This is all very well when and if you are healthy, but if you get something and the insurance company then excludes you, you're a bit stuffed with the visa.