My decision to move to Vietnam after living in Thailand was not an easy one. I spent a lot of time mulling over the various pros and cons of the move and I went to visit Vietnam twice for somewhat extended periods of time before taking the plunge and going ahead and moving all my stuff and doggo over.
They say as you get older that time goes by a lot more quickly and when I think about the fact that I have been casually living here for long enough to go to college and start another career amount of time, it seems so crazy that all of that has happened in the blink of an eye.
The major reason why I ever decided to leave Thailand is because they are absolute ASSHOLES about long-term visas over there. I was obeying the law, at one point in time I owned 5 businesses and employed dozens of Thai nationals at good wages and included benefits, I ALWAYS told the truth (ok, nearly the truth) on all my documents, I paid money under the table to officials when it became clear that was the norm, I went to the stupid required "culture classes" that was an obvious ripoff for people living there, and in the end, every single time I would turn up at immigration to renew my visa they made it as difficult as possible and treated my like a criminal before eventually capitulating and giving me my visa while treating me like trash.
I am not going to live like that so after the 3rd year in a row of basically fighting to keep my visa, I decided "screw you Thailand, I'm getting out of here."
I didn't know much about Vietnam and I had never been there before deciding to make this move (aside from checking out 2 cities, deciding on Da Nang, and getting a condo for me and my floofter)
When we first moved here things were great because I, for the first time in many years, no longer had to worry about visas. Vietnam has long been a country that while they have no official long-term visas, is a very easy country to stay in for as long as you want to. Just don't break the law and do anything stupid, comply with the sometimes silly seeming restriction on the visas, and they will always let you stay indefinitely.
It is also extremely affordable to live in this country and I have no idea how they manage to pull that off. I live in a seaview (don't get excited, you have to go up to the roof) condo for $400 a month and there is a gym and a rooftop pool as well as 24hour security. It's pretty swell.
Now as far as activities and lifestyle are concerned, Da Nang has a lot of things to do but most people, including me initially, gravitate towards getting drunk and just being a lowlife with no real objectives other than going to the pub the next day. It's really easy to fall into that trap here because it costs next to nothing to do that.
You have the opportunity to do beach stuff if you want, and sadly I only recently started to do this myself and it is a huge improvement over what I was previously doing.
Food is easy and cheap and there are tons of options, basically anything you can imagine is available, and cooking at home is pretty inexpensive as well if you know where to shop. Unlike in other countries, I don't think that staying out of the pubs 6 days a week has really affected my wallet all the much. It does positively affect my head and health, sure, but I haven't noticed much in the way of monetary savings because of it. The health and weight loss is good though.
I don't really feel a part of this country though, that is one of the downsides. Part of the reason for that is because I haven't even so much as tried to learn any of the language. Some might view this as lazy but I want you to try to understand that I speak Thai better than 90% of the non-Thai people on earth.... and it has benefited me almost not at all. It certainly doesn't benefit me outside of Thailand in any capacity.
So I have been lazy as far as that is concerned because it took me damn near a decade to be able to speak Thai and a lot of effort as well... and for what? Some one-country language that I may not even be able to use ever again? I'm not going to do that twice, sorry/not sorry.
Life is pretty easy here in Vietnam and one of the main things that I benefit from over here is the lack of worry about finances because you can easily live quite nicely for less than $1000 a month here, and also (and this is a big one) I never have to worry about visas. That last bit is a major part of the reason why I haven't so much as even investigated moving back to Thailand.
When I look back on the past 5 years there are a couple of things that I wish I had done differently for sure, I think everyone can say that about their own lives. But as far as me ragretting moving here in a general sense? That never even occurs to me. This was a wise decision that keeps getting better the more I explore. now that I am not drinking very much anymore I think it is about time I bought a motorbike and started to explore the nature areas around the city.
