State of the world

[MR]

Vietnamese all get free medical care in Vietnam, as Australians do in Australia and Brits do in UK. But travellers don't necessarily - it depends on whether their country of origin has reciprocal arrangements with the country where they need treatment. Sunny gets free medical care in VN but if she ever gets sick on one of her holidays in Australia we'll have to pay for treatment, repatriation, etc - and the same thing in reverse applies to me and all other foreigners here in Vietnam. Which in my case could become a major problem because I can't get reasonable travel insurance since turning 80 - although I must admit that it won't matter if I get terminally ill because there's no point in my being repatriated to Australia when my only family is here in Vietnam! (sister and family are still in Sth Africa but sister's got dementia and can't remember that she's got a brother, so no point my going there anymore...).
Btw, you probably remember me getting sick in Chester on our 2012 holiday - I went to Chester hospital and they gave me some tests and medications and travel insurers told me to go back to Australia immediately or they wouldn't pay anything - I wasn't even able to visit my cousins near Norwich as planned. So we flew directly back to Australia and also didn't visit sister and family in Sth Africa as planned, then went to the local emergency ward in Sydney where they did some tests and told me that Chester had mis-diagnosed the infection and given me the wrong antibiotics, which had just made everything worse instead of better! So free medical treatment ain't always as good as it's cracked up to be!!! 

[Terry W]

But Martin if he was in the UK he would not need to pay for his treatment plus in UK I do believe that couples that live together but are not have the same legal status as married couples. 

[MR]

I guess there's a lot to be said for "Pipe and slippers", but we're working through the benefits of VN's lack of legal/political interference as we speak: a mate's in hospital recovering from a serious heart attack that left him in a coma for 10 days and he's now "psychotic" with complete loss of memory. His partner has been paying the hospital bills from her own savings because the bank won't give her access to his account as they're not married (but have lived together for 3 years in a house our mate bought for them both, because he considers her his de facto wife). I asked Linh if she could help so she's getting the situation sorted by talking to a couple of her friends from dancing class who are luckily in senior management at the bank! Such intervention could never even be considered in our "strictly legal" western world!

[Terry W]

Much as I liked and enjoyed VN on our visit dont think I could live there too set in my "british pipe and slippers way" ! Besides living down here in cosy Cornwall suits me. Take care all

[MR]

How right you are, Terry! We were just talking about the same thing last night after our weekly Hash House Harriers run had finished - we had people from UK, Ireland, Australia, Russia and Thailand and all agreed that we made the right choice by living in Vietnam because they haven't (yet) got around to letting the lawyers run everything with rules about how to use the rules that were made to help you use the rules! In VN you just pay someone "tea money" and the job gets done, whatever it is! Let's hear it for a one-party system - there's no political opposition in VN to muddy the waters with self-motivated gobbledygook: whoever's in charge can just get on with it!!!

[Terry W]

The world seems to have got into a right old mess. Conflicts all over N. Africa, Garza and Israel, Ukraine and Russia, 2 old men vying to be President of USA, 1 a complete wing nut (Trump) the other does not know what time of day it is. UK politicians behaving like a bunch of school children, European countries trying to come to a combined agreement on how to support Ukraine. I could go on for a lot longer. I am perhaps being selfish now but at my age I am coming to the conclusion that I dont give a rats arse sure in my pensions and home. My rant for the day over !!