gobbledonk

The only point I would make is that I dont find (old) Ipoh any 'shabbier' than Georgetown, but the traffic in G-town is much worse than anything I've seen in Ipoh - just my opinion, of course. I may not be the best judge of a given town, though - I dont like Chiang Mai yet many others are entranced by the city. If Ipoh had a 'real' airport, it would have been my first choice.

the troubadour

+ 2 Indeed. Look forward to more updates. InVinoVeritas has reawakened my interest in Malaysia and will give Penang another look.
I'm of the mind to rent as well.

the troubadour

Interesting comment on Ipoh. Not a place I gave any thought to. May require checking out.

kebi

Hi Invinoveritas,
Thanks a lot for your updates of your experiences . Thomas and I are very contented that we could be of help.

JC3

[QUOTE=InVinoVeritas;10984524]Well, by popular request (and because I still have one or two nuggets of information to share) I’m back with another post!

.......it’s worth mentioning that, on the internet, there appears to be zillions of apartments for rent in Penang and hundreds of property agents. However, according to Karl, the vast majority of these apartments are either not available for rent or not in a rentable condition. Assuming this is the case, I think it would have been impossible for me to find somewhere suitable in the time I had available. QUOTE]

I think Karl is spot on.

Many agents continue to list properties online after they are rented or sold, in order to create additional profile for themselves, and as a way to hook new clients. "Sorry, that one gone, how about this one...".

For example, when we bought our property in Penang (direct from the owner) it took several requests to an agent he had engaged and a complaint email to the legal dept at iproperty.com to get the listing removed. So our property was still listed for sale almost nine months after signing the S&P.

To iproperty.com's credit I received a very prompt reply:
Thanks for letting us know and we’ll attend to your complaint immediately. As you will appreciate we cannot prevent spurious listings being posted but we do take these matters very seriously and will follow up with the agent concerned.
Which they did, and the ad disappeared post-haste.

Some agents even put up dummy listings online. These are typically those ads with no photographs of the inside of the property.


JC3

bakedbean

You can eat really cheaply here. In fact, I really wonder sometimes why I cook at home.

We were over at Midlands One Stop this afternoon and decided to,pick up a Thai takeaway. We got 2 sizeable platefuls of food, plenty for 2 people... An egg fried rice with bells and whistles, mixed veggies in a nice sauce, and a rather nice chicken curry in a spicy coconut sauce. Total Price: 13 ringgits. That's about 2 pounds 50p in real money. That's not bad, is it?

teejaydee

That sounds very good, but could you please let me know where Midlands One Stop is?

teejaydee

Hello InVinoVeritas,

I know you posted this some time ago, but I am in a position where I will shortly need to open a local bank account. I was wondering why you opened EUR and GBP accounts in Malaysia? I have offshore accounts in EUR and GBP, and was intending to leave them there. I was intending to transfer money from these accounts (via a currency broker) to the local MYR one as and when required.

Presumably you have identified an advantage in holding EUR and GBP in Malaysia. Would you mind sharing this advantage please?

ozzieeagle

Small chance we may over next month for our first reconnaissance.... Not sure where to head to get a good impression. What I'd like to see is, Cooler region (I doubt that's possible, unless there's elevation somewhere ??? ) Lots of shops and commerce, clean air, bars, restaurants and coffee houses, beach or river or forest/jungle nearby ie: picturesque. Secure area, good transport links.

Where do we go ? Which place has most of the above and what's it missing....the trip may be next year, but I think we could do a spur of the moment 5-6 day trip, getting away from teenagers permitting.

teejaydee

This site has many previous threads that will answer your general questions. You may wish to read these in order to better get to know where best suits you.

ozzieeagle

Not exactly the answer I was expecting, as I have been lurking on this part of the board for the past year.

Where's a thread on a cooler climate area ?


Guess I'll just have to head to Penang, which sound a bit like a Malay version of the Gold coast from this distance. *sigh*

Fenella

Hi Ozzieeagle,
If you don't like the sound of Penang - Malaysia is a big country. Do a search on the Cameron Highlands for example Might be more what you're looking for.

Gunnar45

Ozzieeagle,
Penang has some nice looking beaches.
Problems are that there are lots of jellyfish in the water which also is polluted.
Regarding clean air, you have got the haze from ricefield burning in Indonesia every now and then.
Advantages are a multicultural and international society, good infrastructure and medical facilities.

Cameron Highlands are of course much cooler but also quite wet and foggy.
Not to mention all the ugly plastic sheets covering the farmlands.

bakedbean

Midlands is an older shopping complex on Jalan Burmah, right opposite Adventist hospital. I like these older shopping places...lots of interesting little shops.

bakedbean

Don't know. I'll kick one off in this section for you. As you've posted in the Retirement section, I shall assume you are thinking of retirement reasons.