Ahh, interesting!kangarunner wrote: ↑August 19th, 2022, 1:28 amNo, that is not what forced me to leave. What forced me to leave was that Immigration decided to no longer issue any more tourist visas starting March 15, 2022. Now, Vietnam is back open for tourism but I've heard you can only get 30 days and then apply for an extension for another 30 days. Making the total 60 days but I'm not sure on that.WilliamSmith wrote: ↑August 18th, 2022, 3:42 pmBy the way @kangarunner , did the Vietnamese government's covid response force you to leave Vietnam early? In South East Asia, Vietnam is my #1 destination of interest at this point, but I heard they were fairly authoritarian on forcing native Vietnamese to take shots, and made a lot of expats leave...
Look don't take my word for it, but I was there for over 2 years (2019 - 2022) and it's one of the most free countries I've ever been to. I didn't feel any authoritarian presence at all from the govt or from the police. By the way, the police are almost non-existent in smaller towns. You will literally never see them. Unlike in America where there's a police officer on every corner.
Yeah, LOL, I also love Vietnam, but the slight caveat I was going to add about it being "free," you already nailed yourself:
kangarunner wrote: ↑August 19th, 2022, 1:28 amAs far as the government in Vietnam, they DO NOT GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU DO as long as you don't break their rules or say anything bad about the government.

But that's fine with me as a traveler, I'm not interested in meddling in their politics or internal affairs, so I also see Vietnam as the most desirable place to be in South East Asia. Awesome history, awesome culture, scenery, places to go, great food, a nice healthy strong sense of nationalistic pride and sense of identity, but they're still friendly.
Totally amazing old-time Cantonese influences and architectural and cultural treasures there too. Well, I'll leave the rest of my starry-eyed gushing about the greatness of Vietnam for some other thread where it is more on-topic, but back on the covid topic: It looks to me like even though it must have been frustrating for kangarunner to have to leave when they stopped issuing visas for awhile, their covid response wasn't actually as bad as some of the ZOG countries or some of the other Asian nations:
https://www.traveloffpath.com/vietnam-o ... uirements/