Transcript of the above video:

For those who have been watching our channel lately, we have been kind of comparing Thailand, policies here, with other countries around the region. Cambodia has come up a fair amount, Malaysia as well as Vietnam.

On Vietnam, I thought it was interesting. We received a comment on our channel that I thought was notable. Again when kind of doing this analysis I personally, just my opinion, I do think Thailand really, when you sort of take everything in its totality, I think Thailand really is the best place not only for retirement but vacationing in the region. Now I do understand people's hesitance to want to deal with things like the Thailand Pass and some of these restrictions which are currently there, but hopefully these are going to be gone during this upcoming summer and will remain gone for hopefully the rest of time as far as I am concerned but hopefully they will not be imposed upon folks all that much longer. So full disclosure, my opinion, I think Thailand is pretty good but we have been discussing this and I thought this comment was interesting. Quoting directly: "American born Vietnamese guy here. If you are not connected to Vietnam, don't bother. You will be expelled. Thailand is better a thousand times." So I thought that was interesting. Obviously I can't really corroborate it via comment but if that is the case, I thought it at least provided some insight for folks. 

I have been hearing conflicting things about various countries where okay yeah it looks like it is really easy to get in, or it looks like it is no hassle and then they start dealing with it practically and it is not as "no hassle" as it at first appears. I have to say I give Thailand credit for being upfront about saying, "hey these are our protocols. It requires this to get into the country", and let's not forget, Thailand was basically open when no place else in Southeast Asia was. Now there were requirements associated with that, various caveats, various restrictions but they were open. Thailand was open. We were open here in Thailand and a lot of countries regionally were not. In fact there was one point I think where nobody was and Thailand was the only place one could get in on any hope of any kind of tourism kind of rationale. 

So all things being equal, I don't want folks to think I am sort of throwing Thailand under the bus when I do these comparisons. I am just trying to provide as much unbiased insight as I can even though I do have my own biases. That said, it is interesting to see from other people again via comments and things, saying what I was kind of thinking to begin with which was, yes there are other great places in Southeast Asia but in my opinion at least, Thailand is probably the best for expats.