Why I left Saigon in Sept 2022

When I returned to Vietnam in July 2017 after spending three years in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and one year in Shanghai, China, I had anticipated that I would stay in Saigon for the remaining part of my life. That was my expectation.

Luckily, I never had any issues with getting the needed visas. I ended up with both a 5-year visa exemption and then a 3-year temporary resident visa. Both were honored during COVID when Immigration stopped processing new visas. Then, in my case, they were waiting for my passport to arrive to process a new visa. And they waited...for one year.

I let a long term friend handle processing the new visa and temporary resident card for me since I was doing work for their restaurant. I needed it so they could legally remunerate me for the work I was doing with the restaurant. COVID meant I could not process my project startup as well, so I relied on the restaurant to manage my revenue. A big mistake.

In short, after the year in Sept. 2022, I had to get my passport back from the restaurant and brought it to Immigration. The day I arrived, I had already overstayed by a couple of days. The immigration official who processed me that day had no idea Immigration was waiting for my passport. I ended up filling out a statement on why I had overstayed. They told me I would have to leave Vietnam in a couple of days.

That same evening, the Immigration official called me and was more cheerful. He asked me to return the next morning. The next day, I met him, and I needed to pay for my visa extension. I had already booked my tickets, so they extended it by roughly three weeks, giving me an extra day in case of flight issues. I came back later in the week and grabbed my passport with visa exemption.

To get my next visa, I needed to leave the country for one month, process it in the US, and then return after that. At the time, I wanted to return to teaching, so I needed to renew my teaching credentials in the US, a process I started before I left Vietnam.

To keep the story short, instead of moving back to education, I realized working in IT in the US made more money career-wise. So I started to apply for many positions. Within one year, I was given four offers, and I accepted one of them.

No, I never got remunerated for my work. Long story. Most people know about it already, so there's no need to retell that story.

Why the motorcycle photo?

For those not using a screen reader, I added a picture of my orange Kawasaki Z300 the day before it was sold. I guess, deep down, I knew I would not return to Vietnam for a while.

I ended up spending 26 months away before returning back to Saigon in Nov. 2024 for a short visit. I have another visit coming this year as well.