Expat

Vietnam is the ultimate "I got a guy" culture. It runs on individual relationships. For instance, I got a guy who gets me my electronics. He works at Hacom Computers, but I have his direct contact info on Zalo (which is Vietnamese WhatsApp). When my Mac Mini died, I texted him, he gave me options, I agreed to a price, and it was delivered on a scooter three hours later. Paid by QR code on delivery. Very smooth.

Even my doctor at Vinmec Smart City, which is a new posh hospital, gave me his direct Zalo contact info. So I don't call the switchboard if my pneumonia comes back. I just message him.

You collect "guys" and they all make your life easier. That's how I met Allison. She is my translator guy.

I have a visa guy. A computer guy. A translator. An insurance guy. The Shopee delivery guy downstairs knows me. I will contact my guys and see if they are taking on new people. I will add a section to the website if I can find enough of them.

Credit cards work but not everywhere accepts them. And your bank will almost certainly give you grief over them being used in Asia too much. At least that was my experience with Canadian cards. A card would stop working and I would have to call the bank. And at least one bank won't reactivate until I physically return to Canada.

The ATMs work here with fees. Not extortionate but not free. They do cap you on how much you can take out. I get capped at 3,000,000 VND, which is $150 CAD.

The real answer is Wise. Once you get a bank account (which can be its own little drama - and you need a one-year work permit to get it), you can move money using Wise or similar services. Not free but certainly cheaper than getting money from the ATM. 

I can give you the Hanoi numbers. All prices in USD.

You can get a small studio in a newly built building like Vinhomes Smart City for $400 including the building fee. A two-bedroom in the same building is $575. And this is a new, posh development in the Hanoi suburbs. You can find cheaper, but my feeling is that culture shock is enormous. Living in one of the expat-friendly developments at least for the first year is a good idea.

Electricity if you are running your AC a lot - which you will want to do - is close on $100 a month.

My mobile phone plan is $7 per month for 6GB a day in data and some voice calls.

Internet is $9 and I get a ping of 2 ms and 500 Mbps.

Health insurance for a Bao Viet plan costs me $900 per year, but that can go much lower or higher depending on your coverage levels. And I don't carry Evacuation Insurance, which some people insist on. That goes for $1,500 or more. Medical care in general is good and cheap. I can go to a doctor at a major private hospital and the consult fee is $15 to $30.

My gym is about $25 per month for a very good mainstream gym.

Food is the X factor. If you can eat like a Vietnamese, you can keep it under $8 per day, and that's with eating two restaurant meals. The second you start buying imported Western food, you are basically paying the same prices as home. A brick of imported Australian cheese is $5. A box of cereal is $4. KFC is about $4 a meal. But if you are even sort of careful, you can figure about $20 on the high side.

Transportation can be cheap but it's not a place where I would skimp. The bus system is okay and cheap, but when you first land, you will be relying on Grab, which is the local Uber. Grab starts around $2 per trip, and I rarely see it going over $7. Although the trip from the airport is $20.

If you pay for laundry (like if you don't have a machine), you are looking at $2 a load.

I have one, but I screwed up some paperwork on one of my visa runs, and had to spend ten days in Bangkok waiting on a visa renewal. There are worse punishments in the world.

I pay $85 USD, which includes the $25 USD single entry visa fee. So it's not free. And all you are buying is a guy in the country who can pick up the phone and make a call for you. But it saved my bacon once, so I am very happy to pay the extra.

They are also the ones to call if your e-visa hasn't come through and your flight is leaving the next day. Or if you forgot to get a visa.

So. Most people don't need one. But if you can get the number of a trustworthy one (and some of them aren't), I would have it on my phone.

Grab is the Uber for South East Asia. I strongly recommend you get good at using it. Although its competitors can be cheaper, like Xanh SM which is all electric, or Be which is the cheaper and smaller outfit - but it's a little less outsider friendly.

I suggest putting a credit card into Grab. It auto-charges your card and makes the end of the trip dead easy, which can be useful when you are getting out of the car somewhere crazy busy. The main issue with paying in cash is that the drivers may not be able to change your bigger bills. No one has change for a 500k VND note. Which is what the ATM will give you.

There is a decent bussing system, and it's cheap. The big drawback is the weather. When you land here, unless you are in the dead of winter, it will be hotter than the surface of the sun. You will be struggling to adapt. I would suggest budgeting for Grab for the first six months.

Important side note: double all suggested Google trip lengths. If Google says the school you teach at is 30 minutes away, it will take 60 minutes to get there. Google just likes to mess with you in Asia.

Four options. The first and most common is the 90-day visa loop. It's a tourist visa and you can't work while you are here. You go to the government web site (https://evisa.gov.vn), and pay the fee ($25 USD for single entry, and $50 if you want a multiple entry visa - which is good if you plan on leaving and coming back, like if you want to pop over to Thailand for the weekend). The visa is usually processed in 24 hours, but can also take up to a week. I get mine through a visa agent here so it happens faster.

The catch is that you have to physically leave and come back to the country every 90 days. I fly to Thailand, and it costs me about $300 USD for airfare and hotel. You can catch a bus to the border, where the cost runs from $90 USD to $140 USD. And you have to do it every three months. If you forget or get otherwise delayed, a visa overstay can result in a fine and possible banishment. You literally can't get back in. Hope you didn't like the stuff you left at your apartment. So this plan has real risk.

The second way is the Work Permit leading into the Temporary Residence Card. This is what you get when you teach English (which is really the only job they let foreigners do here). You get a job, they sponsor you, there are some hoops to jump through with criminal record checks etc, and then you get your Temporary Residence Card (TRC). Good for one to three years. No visa runs required.

And the last two are the Investor Visa (invest about $120,000 USD and they will give you a one-year visa that is renewable); or you can marry into the country and get a TT visa. Good for three years. But marriage here is serious business. Just an FYI.

It's the backbone of communication in Vietnam. It's WhatsApp but built from the ground up for the Vietnamese language. It will be where you negotiate your lease (and it has a built-in translator so that is huge), and where your boss will contact you for shifts. Download it when you arrive.

The wrinkle? You need a real Vietnamese phone number. A lot of the SIMs they sell to tourists won't let you get a Zalo account. If you have one of those numbers, you can usually just take your passport down to the carrier office. They will take a copy of your passport and a picture of you. And then you might need to go down again a few months later. I just had to go and reregister my passport with Viettel.