These stories happen quite frequently in the expat circles and various message boards that exist online and just as one might expect, most of the time they end up being some sort of "Chinese Whispers" bullshit that never comes to fruition nor is it even talked about by the government. This time is different though because the visa agents, who are probably in much better "know" than the average shit-stirrer on Facebook, have been subtly been changing the services that they offer.
Up to now they all specialized in handing visa runs every 30 days, which were a real pain but I suppose they made them as painless as possible. I've never actually ever done one of these because I do not like the idea of sitting on a bus for 12 hours, even if the seats are big and relatively comfortable. I've always just gone to the airport, did a 1-hour and 20 minute flight to Thailand, went through immigration, and then got on a plane and came straight back. I've lost count of how many times I have done this exact process but I am sure it is a lot of them.
The word on the street at the moment and one of the agents that I know but don't particularly like because I think he is a snake, has told me in a message that it is expected that the Vietnamese Parliament (if they are even called that) is going to announce the bringing back of the 90-day tourist visa for most nations on the 22nd of May, 2023.
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This will make a lot of people very happy if this ends up being the case. I am trying to not get my hopes up because if it all turned out to be a rumor it would be better in my mind to have never heard the rumor and just presume that things are going to continue on the way they have been going than to be given hope only to have it dashed away from me.
I have a visa run coming up in 3 days and hopefully it will end up being one of the last ones that I have to do in such a short time period. It would be absolutely delightful if I only had to do this once every 3 months, instead of every month.
The government here isn't very open about what they are doing in a legislative type sense. This isn't like America where the politicians or other elected officials are on live TV trying to grandstand in order to score points with the general public. They meet behind closed doors and they only do this every now and then. I'm not going to lie and say that I know a lot about what they do but then again, neither does anyone else. All I do know is that the population is generally kept in the dark about what is going on in legislation until it comes very close to time for a decision to be made. In the past when the rumors about anything political had any credibility to them, it was because the decision has already been agreed to by the members of the lawmaking group but they just hadn't gotten together yet to make it official.
This is why May 22nd is such a big deal this year. That will be like Christmas for all of us if they bring back the old visa rules and it wouldn't just be digital nomads like me that celebrate, all the businesses and property owners that exist in the part of town that I live in will be very excited as well. Since this part of town is nearly 100% expat in population, they depend entirely upon us being here to make a living.
I hope that everyone can be very happy by the end of this month. I know that there will be huge parties if this ends up being the case.