First published June 2025 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle | Reading time 8 minutes | 14 comments

Tom Divers is the founder and creator of Vietnam Coracle. He’s lived, travelled and worked in Vietnam since 2005. Born in London, he travelled from an early age, visiting over 40 countries (he first visited Vietnam in 1999). Now, whenever he has the opportunity to make a trip, he rarely looks beyond Vietnam’s borders and his trusty motorbike, Stavros. Read more about Tom on the About Page, Vietnam Times and ASE Podcast.

Hello! Welcome to this special free edition of my Patreon ‘Behind-the-Scenes’ membership post for June, 2025. This content is usually only available to paying members of Vietnam Coracle’s Patreon community. If you’d like to read more posts like this, please support my website by signing up for Patreon ‘Behind-the-Scenes’ membership and you’ll receive new posts every month, as well as exclusive early access to all my new or updated articles. Thank you, Tom

This June was a big month for me as several months-long processes that are central to my life came to a conclusion. By the end of June, which is my birthday, I had resigned from my teaching job at the language centre I’ve worked at for 19.5 years, started my own company, exited Vietnam for the first time in 9 years, and re-entered on a new visa sponsored by my new company. I’d been working on all these things since March. Many of their constituent parts were entirely new to me: some went well, others didn’t, some were straight-forward, others were complex and confusing. On top of trying to get my head around how company registration, finances and legal issues work for a foreign resident in Vietnam, I also struggled to come to terms with leaving my teaching job, which was a long, drawn-out and emotional process. While none of these things are 100% finished, most of the hard work has (hopefully) been done and only formalities remain.

The registration of my company (VNC Travel) only took a matter of weeks. But, in order to start operating from it, I needed to leave the country, return on a new visa, get a work permit and convert my visa to a TRC (temporary residence card). This accounted for the bulk of paperwork, queuing up a government offices, having documents submitted, rejected, reviewed, rejected, re-submitted, stamped, certified, translated, authenticated and so on. Alongside this, I needed to resign from my teaching position in order to cancel my current work permit and TRC so I could apply for the new ones. Therefore, co-ordination was crucial and, as it turned out, complex.

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Ultimately, my resignation from my school, VUS, took 3 months. Teaching has been a part of my life and identity since I moved to Vietnam in 2005. Although it was not difficult to accept that my teaching position was no longer viable, it was much harder to accept that I wouldn’t see my students anymore; that they would not be a part of my weekly life. I teach – taught – children from 6-12 years-old. The vast majority of them are happy, fun, intelligent little humans and it was a joy to be around them and see them improve week after week. There’s been a knot in my stomach ever since I decided to resign, knowing that I’d have to say goodbye to the kids. Teaching them has been a life-affirming experience. For much of the last few months, it has been a relief to have the company paperwork to distract me from my resignation. But the date loomed. During my last classes, I couldn’t allow myself to think about it too much. After class, when all the students have left the room, there’s always an empty, sad silence – all the energy has gone with the students: there’s nothing left but inanimate objects, one of which is my teaching aide, the ‘Dragon Chicken’, that I’ve used in all my classes for years. And so it was at the end of my last ever class.

I woke up at 3am the morning after my last class at VUS and got into a car to drive to Mộc Bài, the land border crossing to Bavet, in Cambodia. I had 24 hours to leave Vietnam on my exit visa. I hadn’t left Vietnamese territory since November, 2016. Since then, I’d got a new passport, so I had to carry my old one with me everywhere I went because it was the only evidence I had that I’d legally entered the country (there was no entry stamp in my new passport.) I was nervous that this would cause problems at immigration. Once in Cambodia, I now had an exit stamp in my new passport and could apply for a new visa, which would be sponsored by my own company. But the process would take serval hours, so I wandered around Bavet, strolling between its dusty casinos, brothels and markets, and stopping at a Vietnamese café for food and drink. My new visa arrived in my inbox, I printed it out at the border, left Cambodia, walked across the border, and re-entered Vietnam without a hitch, then got in a car and headed back to Saigon. The whole process took 12 hours, but the planning and plotting had begun back in early March. Getting it done was a great relief.

Over the last few months, friends, family, colleagues, food and drink have helped me remain stable and secure at a time when many other important aspects of my life have been in flux and, at times, in the balance. I was lucky to have my parents visit during April/May, and to have friends in Saigon (some living here, others passing through on a visit). Whether they knew it or not, the meals, drinks and conversations we’ve shared in recent months have been invaluable. Now, there’s probably a month or so more of paperwork left, and after that I will start figuring out the structure, shape and rhythm of my new, post-teaching life in Vietnam.

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If you enjoyed this article and you want to read more posts like it, please sign up for my Patreon ‘Behind-the-Scenes’ membership. Alternatively, please support my website by making a donation or consider purchasing one of my Offline Guides & Maps from the shop. Thank you, Tom

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