4 minutes ago, SEtonal said:

A letter of invitation from a visa agency is necessary to enter Vietnam and obtain a visa.

Unless you're a Brit, or from a few other Euro countries, in which case 14 days waiver on entry.

31 minutes ago, SEtonal said:

I am living in Vietnam on a first-time 1-year multiple entry business visa, but I don't have a business nor do I work.  I chose the business visa because I didn't want to do visa runs every 90 days as required with a tourist visa.  

 

The 1-year tourist visa is only available to citizens of the United States and requires 90-day visa runs. For other nationalities interested in a tourist visa, Vietnam offers 1-month and 3-month tourist visas. If you are living in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon a visa run by bus to the Cambodian border and back should take a little over half a day.  

 

I am from the United States, and I just noticed that citizens of the UK do not need a tourist or business visa if they stay in Vietnam for less that 15 days.   That option is not available to citizens of the United States, so check carefully based on your nationality.  

 

To renew a business visa, you need to fly back into a designated Vietnam international airport.  From what I have read online, sometimes there is an immigration crackdown and the business visa will not be available when you arrive at the airport, so you will have to get a tourist visa instead.  I believe you will be credited for the business visa if that happens.  

 

The visa company I used was Vietnam-Visa - recommended to me by YouTubers RetirecheapJC 

 

 

YouTuber ‘RetireCheapJC ‘ .. isn’t that the big shirt creepy guy with the girl next to him in the videos ? 

17 minutes ago, Stevey said:

 

YouTuber ‘RetireCheapJC ‘ .. isn’t that the big shirt creepy guy with the girl next to him in the videos ? 

Stevey...

Your creepy guy stage in life will come... 

Let me see if I understand the OP correctly. The OP is tired of Thai immigration crap.

 

So the solution is to move to a country (Laos) that has no established retirement visa available? The OP is considering Cambodia and VN as alternatives. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see Cambodia or Vietnam as exactly stable for long term expats either.

 

Laos, VN, Cambodia are presently what Thailand was just a few years ago. Things change.

 

If the OP wants to find stability in his retirement years he should be following:  https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1081809-which-countries-give-permanent-residence-to-foreigners/

 

On 2/5/2019 at 10:08 AM, Johnnyngai said:

If you were to become seriously ill,

you will find that their medicine is 30 years behind that of any western country.  

In 2012, I had an allergic reaction to some food (shrimp) in Luang Prabang, was taken to the 'hospital'  was in the Catholic Church run by Nuns............they had one, one shot of epineferin, had little effect, I picked up the bottle and it had expired in 2005, only seven years past expiration.  Good Luck in Laos, there are a few "escapees" living in Luang Prabang and many more in Vientiane - most Americans you meet are more likely to be DEA than not.

16 minutes ago, TunnelRat69 said:

In 2012, I had an allergic reaction to some food (shrimp) in Luang Prabang, was taken to the 'hospital'  was in the Catholic Church run by Nuns............they had one, one shot of epineferin, had little effect, I picked up the bottle and it had expired in 2005, only seven years past expiration.  Good Luck in Laos, there are a few "escapees" living in Luang Prabang and many more in Vientiane - most Americans you meet are more likely to be DEA than not.

Although the medicine was probably fresher than the shrimp 

I can't believe anyone is interested in retiring to Laos.

Have you been there?

Probably the dullest and most impoverished country in SEA.

 

I worked in Luang Prabang around 2013.  The town was beautiful and protected, there was a great choice of food, the Lao beer is 5-star, the scenery outside town is stunning, the relaxation by the Mekong was unsurpassed and - wait for it - even though it's illegal for a foreigner to bed a local Lao woman, the choice and availability of pretty local women was one of the best I've found in Asia (I had great fun in that town!!).