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I might need to leave Thailand sometime in the second or third quarter of 2020 for at least 6 months or one year.

My personal preferred destination is Vietnam due to welcoming visa policy towards the citizenship I currently hold and where I visited twice and understand a bit about the language.

Things I wonder about:

  • Can a tourist visa holder open a bank account in Vietnam, if so in which of the many banks?
  • Is relying on a Thai bank account to transfer money to Vietnam by western union as the only banking solution, even plausible?
  • Are a condo, a serviced-apartment and an regular apartment three different legal concepts as I understand them to be in Thailand; each one with special laws and probably special taxation (with condo taxation significantly different and often lower than that of serviced apartment or regular apartment)
  • As far as I understand, the condo culture in Vietnam is radically different than in Thailand:
    First, there aren't as many condos in Vietnamese main cities as there are in Thai main cities, where one could find a condo pretty much everywhere --- at least five in every central street (soi) in Bangkok.
    Second, finding a condominium is not as simple as it is in Thailand --- to take two weeks in a hotel and devote 6 days just to walking around it to find a condominium and about one more week to wait to enter to it --- so how does one finds a residence estate in an "old school" way in a main Vietnamese main cities?
  • What residing unit (condominium/serviced apartment/regular apartment) scams to avoid?
  • What is the supermarket branch with lowest prices in general (at least for membership holder) such as Big C in Thailand?
  • What could be a proper replacement for say Shoppee.co.th or lazada.co.th or central.co.th or jib.co.th?
  • What is "the best" type of place to buy a second handed reliable motorcycle in a major city in Vietnam (the "land of motorcycles")?
  • Do foreign driving licenses enough in Vietnam?

How would you answer these questions?

If this question is too broad, I will totally understand closing it.

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  • 1
    Well... I sure think it's too broad. VTC.
    – DavidRecallsMonica
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 15:43
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    Minimum, I think you would need to start questions on the very different topics: motorcycles/license (technically 2 questions), cheapest supermarket, etc.
    – mkennedy
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 17:02

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  • To open a bank account at any bank in Vietnam you need a 1 year tourist or business visa, all banks I have visited follow that same rule, shorter visa periods are not allowed to open a bank account
  • its perfectly ok to transfer direct from Thai banks to VN banks without western union, just do a direct bank transfer in USD, I do this all the time from many different countries.
  • A condo is an apartment you buy and own, a serviced apartment is a rented property where cleaning and other services are included in the rent, not sure what is meant by a regular apartment maybe a rented property without cleaning included.
  • condos and apartments are available everywhere in HCM and Hanoi, you will have no problem finding what you want.
  • I am not aware of any scam regarding apartments but others might be but I have found it to be safe to both buy and rent property in HCM and Hanoi
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