Month: September 2008

I have always been telling my father that it costs a lot of money to live a middle class life in Malaysia but he never believed me. Finally, I managed to explain it to him personally and show him that it is not cheap for me to live a simple life like him, in Malaysia. I just used our life as an example of how expensive things have gotten in Malaysia.

When my dad was about 30, he bought the present home that we have in KL. It is a very typical double-storey linked house that most middle class families have. It is not terribly big nor terribly small. He also owned a little Volkswagen Beetle at the time and he was able to support all of this on his salary by financing the purchases using loans.

So, I did a very quick calculation for him.

If I were to buy a regular double-storey linked house in KL today, it would cost about RM400k. Financing this through a long term loan would mean making monthly installment payments of about RM2,500. Now, if we factor in owning a regular car (certainly not the new Volkswagen Beetle), that would cost an additional RM1,000 or thereabouts, in monthly payments.

By law, the installment payments cannot cost more than 33% of my monthly salary. Therefore, in order to afford a simple life as he did, I would need to be earning RM10,500 each month. This was when it dawned on him that a simple life is not so cheap afterall. Of course, this only assumes a single sided income. If we assume that this is the combined total income, I would still need to bring in more than RM5,000 each month.

And all this does not take into account other expenditures. I told him that university fees are not as cheap as they used to be. While things cost less than RM10,000 for a university degree at a local public university during my sister’s time, it had already increased dramatically during my time. If we were to assume that the trend continues, even a local public university degree is going to cost a small fortune in the future.

I am just glad that I finally got the chance to explain to my dad why I cannot be contented with a regular civil service job like he was. If I were to just take the path of a regular civil servant (or equivalent), I would be living a lower quality of life than he did and he certainly would not want that for me. So, that is why I have to chase after money like I do.

Hopefully, now that he understands, he will stop pestering me to just lead a simple life.

I went down to Singapore last week for a number of reasons, one of which, was to visit the place again, as an adult. I used to visit it when I was a kid, as my dad’s family hails from Johor Bahru. So, I packed my bags, took out some cash and just went down.

My first problem came as I did not know how to get down to Singapore. I knew that I was going by bus and I knew that there were definitely a number of buses that go down each day. However, I did not know where to get the buses from. But I decided that KL Sentral was the place where everything was connected to. So, I started by journey there.

From there, I was told by the information counter that the buses to Singapore left from the old KL train station, and not Sentral. So, I took a short Komuter hop over to the old station and made it just in time for the next Nice++ executive coach. It cost me RM80 for a one way ticket but it was well worth it. Taking the bus was just like taking the plane.

The seats were really comfy business class seats. There was also a lady that went around taking care of us. She served us lunch, tea and a late refreshment. She also gave us pillows and blankets and tucked us in. Each of us were provided with a headset that we could use to watch some TV but there were only 4 channels to choose from. Since I slept most of the way down, I didn’t really mind this.

When I got to Singapore, I took a cab down to the YMCA. I did not research much on youth hostels either but I assumed that the YMCA was a basic standard and I just booked into the dorms, which were pretty decent. Unlike some of the youth hostels I have been to in Europe, house keeping would come around each morning to change our sheets and towels. We were also provided with soap and water in the dorms as well as an ensuite toilet and shower. There was also a pretty decent buffet breakfast included in the price.

One morning, I ended up chatting with Kelly, a nice young lady who had just passed her Bar exam recently. She is a Malaysian who studied at Manchester and was in Singapore visiting some friends. So, we had a nice chat over breakfast until the people at the cafe chased us off.

So, while I was in Singapore, I got to attend to some personal business and take in a few sights. On my first evening there, I met up with three other friends and we ended up spending some time at the Esplanade. I managed to get a few good night photographs there and you can see them in the gallery. For most of this trip, I used my new 50-200mm lens and I have to say that it is quite useful for holiday purposes.

Then, on the second night, I went for the Night Safari, which cost quite a bit. Moreover, due to the nature of it being in the dark, we could hardly make out most of the animals. However, I still think that it was worth the trouble. Again, most of the shots were taken, handheld, without any flash, using my new 50-200mm lens. Most of the photos ended up being fairly blur.

As to my overall impression of Singapore, it is this: If you do not look too carefully, you will just think that you are in KL. When I say carefully, I mean:

• No Protons in sight.
• Different high street brands.
• Cleaner streets.

Otherwise, it feels very much like home. I even took the long northern MRT round the out skirts of the island and back. Looking out the windows, I can even identify the different parts of KL that the areas looked like. It was like deja-vu, only not quite.

Anyway, I’m back now and I will be uploading my photos soon. I will then link to the album here.

I successfully made it home in one piece, although there were several interesting things that happened along the way. I think that this is probably the most eventful flight that I had ever been on. So, I thought that I’d share a few of the things that had happened on that fateful day.

It all started with the coach ride to the airport. When we left Stansted, the coach driver informed us that all reports indicate that the traffic situation was fine and we should arrive at Heathrow by 7pm, which gave me 3 whole hours to get myself checked in, have a light dinner and then fly off home. However, fortune was not as kind and it rained heavily causing the M25 to jam up. Therefore, by the time the coach arrived at Heathrow, it was already well past 8pm.

So, I quickly rushed to the check in counter and had my luggage weighed. I was really unfortunate and got an extremely unhelpful person at the check in counter. He even asked that I weigh my hand luggage and he added all that to the total combined weight. This resulted in an additional 20kg and I had to go to the service counter at the other end of the terminal to check the price. When I was told that my excess luggage would cost almost £900, I balked. That was the price of two whole tickets!

I was hungry, tired, late and now this. So, I decided to dump all my clothes. I sat in the middle of the terminal and started tossing almost everything out except for my suit. I thought that for RM7,000 I could easily afford an entirely new wardrobe of clothes. So, I tossed everything out including the few nice barong shirts that I had. This got my weight reduced by about 7kg but it was still too heavy.

But I met the same unreasonable counter staff again. He told me that I was still over by 10kg but that I would have to pay 15kg of excess. I could not understand this logic and called his supervisor over to discuss this with. After some reasoning, the supervisor decided to raise my baggage allowance and only charge me for an extra 5kg, which came up to about £200. This I gladly paid as I could possibly get it reimbursed by my sponsor later.

After checking into the flight, I decided to go back to the place where I tossed my clothes to collect them and properly dispose of them. But by the time that I got there, the place had already been thoroughly cleared. I guess that passengers tossing their clothes must be a very common thing and the efficient airport staff and already disposed off it on my behalf. So, I went through security and got on my way.

While in the departure hall, an elderly Malay man came over to sit with me. So, I struck up a conversation with him which invariably led to the talk of Malaysian politics, which is quite interesting at the moment. But I noticed several people staring at me with an evil eye when I was chatting with the elderly chap. Then, I finally asked him what he did for a living and he told me that he was the MP for Bukit Gantang, one of our opposition politicians. He promised me that they would seize power by September 16 and I reminded him that it has to be done legally.

Then, as I boarded the plane, I ended up sitting next to a young girl that looked extremely familiar. So, I asked her if she was a Part II engineering student at Cambridge and she said that she was. So, I asked her what she was doing going to Malaysia and she said that she was going home. This kind of shocked me as I didn’t ever realise that she was Malaysian. I can chalk this up as another random Malaysian whom I know, that no one else knows. So, at the very least, I had someone else to talk to during the flight and it wasn’t as dull or boring a 12 hours as I thought it would be.

So, anyway, I’m back!