Transcript of the above video: 

I want to preface this video by saying I am not any great expert in the Immigration Systems of the countries that surround Thailand, in the countries of Southeast Asia. I have had some dealings with Vietnam Immigration, I have had some dealings with Cambodian Immigration and Visas over the years, even Myanmar and Laos for that matter but this is pretty anecdotal evidence, so I want to preface the video by saying I am not the end all be all fount of knowledge on all Southeast Asian Immigration apparatuses or Retirement Visa schemes. 

Now that said, I do think I have some insight and the question posed by this video is "what is the best place in Southeast Asia effectively?" Or is there any place better than Thailand? I hate to answer a question with a question but you need to define what you are looking for, so what are you looking for? Again, if it's budget consciousness, I think Thailand is top of the heap. Also the fact that Thailand actually has a Retirement Visa, which many of the other jurisdictions in Southeast Asia do not have, they have other things that are sort of similar to it, but they don't have an actual Retirement Visa. Also some countries, I am looking at Vietnam on this one, it's kind of hard to get long-term status. I know a lot of people that maintain a lot of physical presence in Vietnam via Tourist Visas; they use a lot of Tourist Visas to stay over there, again anecdotal evidence. Meanwhile I know there are a lot of folks that kind of prefer the Philippines but I think you have to look at all of this stuff in the totality of it all, budget being one, ease of Visa being another; I think Thailand ticks both of those boxes. 

Then you start looking at things like infrastructure, crime rate, cost of living, these things are a little bit more intangible but I think you can clearly see the difference in infrastructure between Cambodia and Thailand for example or even the Philippines and Thailand. Now there are countries like Malaysia and Vietnam that are either at par or very closely coming up; they are getting there fast. Then of course Singapore which, Singapore is kind of like a large, heavily secured mall that happens to encompass an entire Island. There's nothing wrong with that, it just is what it is. It's sort of its own city state down there. I don't really generally like to use them as a comparison because they are so anomalous. So setting them aside but yeah Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand. Indonesia is going to be a totally different kettle of fish when it comes to matters pertaining to Immigration. I have heard a mixed set of things about trying to retire down there. 

I think in the totality, when you look at everything at once, I think at the end of the day when it comes to cost of living, ease of getting a Visa, infrastructure, standard of living, crime rates, at the end of the day Thailand is ticking pretty much all the boxes you want to tick for a jurisdiction to retire to when you are done with your working life.