Transcript of the above video:

We are going to go ahead and do this video comparing three different countries. I have done a number of videos comparing other countries in the region but Laos and Vietnam I am going to go ahead and kind of bundle them together for this video, quite honestly because I kind of look at the bordering countries as; we have always sort of strived to make this channel about Thailand or US Immigration. I try to keep it there. Now we have done some videos about issues in the region the past 24 months frankly because this situation has impacted everything. Border closings, the inability to do Visa Runs, this has an impact on Expats here in Thailand. So I have tried to keep it Thailand specific but every now and again I have done stuff about regional countries. 

Now the purpose of this video and the purpose of other videos like this that we have done, is this kind of comparison between Thai Immigration Policy entry requirements and other places in the region including Laos and Vietnam. I came upon this and I started thinking about this in a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Unpopular Thailand Pass entry rules may end. Quoting directly: "Vietnam and Laos are both reviewing their tourist entry procedures but joining a tour group is the main loophole at present for those wishing to visit." Yeah apparently, I did some brief research on this, not too in depth so take it for what it is worth, but yeah it looks like there are some protocols and you can call it its own instead of bureaucracy if you will, associated with you have got to be in sort of a tour group it seems. Again this is all changing in a pretty rapid clip so what is the case today may not be necessarily tomorrow. Quoting further: "Thailand’s Land borders with all neighboring countries remain closed for foreign tourists for now although there are reports of some crossings at Cambodian and Laos entry points." Yeah we have heard some rumours of that. I haven't been able to get any concrete information on that. We have done videos previously in the past couple of months where they were talking about borders being somewhat open for certain aspects of cross-border trade.

There are certain service providers, labour etc., that come across the border and they were talking about some limited re-openings for that purpose. Again I haven't seen anything concrete regarding land border crossings but that being said yeah comparatively I think Laos and Vietnam are not quite opening to the same extent that we have discussed things like the Philippines, Cambodia apparently Malaysia, but at least for now, it looks like they are kind of changing tack if you will, changing direction and as I have said in other videos, I really hope policymakers take this to heart because if Thailand is behind on this we could end up in a situation where we are vastly uncompetitive in terms of the tourism sector because of the vast majority of folks not wanting to come into Thailand. They will just say, "well okay, I will forego Thailand and I will go to Cambodia or I will go to Malaysia or something." I am really hoping that doesn't happen but I do think that the entry protocols are such that it is just too much for the vast majority of tourists. If we want to turn this thing around, I think we need to do something about that sooner rather than later.