Sunday 3 February 2013

Public Holidays in Malaysia

Malaysia is ranked number 7th in the top 10 countries in the world for the number of public holidays in any given year.  The dates of these will of course be important to workers but will likely also be of interest to visitors and expat residents alike.

Clearly on public holidays most government and utility offices will be closed and travelling around by car, bus and taxi can take longer, much longer depending on where you are going and the time of day.  As an example, travelling into Georgetown from North of the island can take a very long time indeed in the evenings at Christmas and Chinese New Year.  Travelling to and from the mainland can alo take time, particularly getting to and crossing the Penang Bridge as there can be a lot of people on the roads visiting or returning to their homes on the mainland and in Penang.  Public holidays can also be of interest because of the festivities and entertainment that are associated with them (e.g. Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year and Deepvali etc.).

Given the number of public holidays here it's very easy to forget the dates especially if, like most MM2H visas holders, your are retired (and as such mostly not having a focus on a job and working days), and it can be a pain to turn up at the offices of TM or such like only to find they're shut.  There are numerous sites which provide details of the public holidays in Malaysia but I find the site here the most useful and comprehensive.

2 comments:

  1. It seems that every other day here is some kind of holiday. Also it seems like the kids are off school more than they are in school, with the number of school vacations. The sure fire way to find out if a certain day is a holiday is to make plans to go to a government office or to a restaurant with a dinner special that does not apply on public holidays. That day will undoubtedly be a holiday.

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  2. Haha. Very true. While I'm quite happy to travel into town I don't like having a wasted journey and got caught out a few times when I first arrived here with offices like TM and MPPP being closed. I always check now. But there's too many to put them in my calendar for sure.

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