Which I think shows what we all know, ie that UK and USA govt's are by far the worst offenders in terms of doing their job, ie looking after the safety of their citizens. Australia is marginally below Vietnam in case numbers per capita, but there are many other factors including, in VN's case, the majority of the population living with several families in the same house (in the highlands it's often in the same room!) so the 'inability to socially isolate' factor is enormous. And VN's economy is a fraction of Australia's so, while Australia's gov't was following the orange retard's lead and decrying the need to safeguard against Covid hence not buying vaccines, Vietnam could only appeal to "friendly" countries to donate the vaccines that VN couldn't afford (Australia could, but didn't think they needed them - duh!). As it turned out, it was the UK, US and Australian chambers of commerce, ie "big business interests", that helped get much needed vaccines into VN by reminding US, UK and Aust gov'ts that their supply of cheap goods from VN was at risk of drying up if all the cheap labour was dead or dying! Even then, despite pledging millions of vaccines and dollars to VN, the Aust gov't wouldn't support its own citizens in VN, saying only that "VN's vaccine rollout program is a matter for the VN gov't". Finally, after hordes of desperate Oz expats (including yours truly) had been hammering away on the Oz embassy facebook page for weeks, it was the Aust Chamber of Commerce president who stepped in and did the govt's job for them by reminding the VN gov't how much Australia was donating - and that the money came from Oz citizens, many of whom are living in VN but still paying taxes in Oz (we'll take a bow for that one, too!).  It was an absolute shambles and I was not a proud citizen while that was all going on in full view of the facebook public!  And have I mentioned VN's almost complete lack of health care facilities compared to any developed country? They've redeployed thousands of soldiers in Saigon alone to cremate the Covid dead and 'dispose' of their remains. And there are many more reasons why self-entitled anti-vax protestors in so-called educated countries should not be given the time of day, to put it mildly, but I'll stop now before the steam peels paint off our ceiling!

I shouldn't make a joke about Covid because it's devastated so many families around the world, but I used "capers" in the heading for this post to try and lighten things up a little so I can tell the story of how they're treating Covid in downtown Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam's Covid epicentre.
We live in the coastal resort town of Vung Tau, about 2 hours by road or hydrofoil from Saigon (no longer the city's official name but still widely used by Vietnamese, especially in the south). The highway Vung Tau-Saigon has been closed for the past 6 months to stop people bringing the virus into our town and infecting us all - but it was finally re-opened a couple of days ago, despite infection rates still being much higher than last year (like other places in the world influenced by 'Big Business' - in VN's case that's foreign investors wanting everything done their way "or we'll take our money elsewhere" - we're being told that after locking ourselves away for more than a year (literally - only allowed to open the front door to collect the day's meals that have been left outside!), we're now suddenly having to learn to "live with Covid"! Amazing...
But the best bit is in Saigon. If you leave home, best take plenty of money and spare clothes because you will be rapid antigen tested before entry to any gov't agency, business, shopping centre or other venue where large crowds gather, and anyone who shows positive is immediately carted off by ambulance to one of the "field hospitals" (tent cities) with siren blaring - and never seen again until they test negative (follow-up tests every 7 days!). So you might "pop down to the shops" but not be seen or heard from again for weeks - or ever!
I can't help wondering how such treatment would go down in western countries where the snowflakes complain about 'infringement of civil liberties', 'loss of freedom', etc even when just being told to wear a facemask!!! 

Doesn't it usually snow before Christmas in UK these days? I ask because our weather in Vietnam has slipped back a good month in the past 20 years: we get only minor temperature variance year-round (and no more than 3degC in any 24-hour period), but we used to get monsoonal rain in southern VN April-October - and now it's May-November! I'll be taking the rear mudguard extension off my mountain bike next week because we won't see a single drop of rain for the next 6 months.

We always knew it by its full name, Chung Keng - although others might have given it a different name later on. The lad on the receiving end of Irene's ministrations (for want of a better word!) was enjoying every minute of it - not least because it was free whilst at the table but would have cost a heap if they went back to her place (as several 28 Bde officers apparently did!). I think I also mentioned on the old MB some years ago that Irene asked me to take her into the camp once and as we walked around the place she spoke to a lot of people she knew. She was great fun and very classy - I'd love to know what happened to her after we all left.............

Good initiation, Lee!
I remember my first trip outside the camp was with Steve Mason and some other reprobates down to the Chung Keng bar in Malacca. We sat outside and I was opposite a squaddie whose name I won't mention here and a very beautiful and popular young lady named Irene. After just a few minutes, the squaddie opposite me kept nodding for me to look below the table. I dutifully dropped a cig packet on the floor, bent down below the table to pick it up - and couldn't believe my eyes! That memorable view was my initiation into the debauched lifestyle that I freely embraced from that day onwards!!!

Thanks Terry - but we've already won the only football match I care about each season!!! (Man Utd 0 LFC 5) 

Just browsing around and noticed the last six entries in "Out of Comms" seem to be wearing light-coloured "SAS" berets. Or did the blue colour of our berets get changed after I left?

Just reading Lee's instructions for changing profiles again and noticed "birth date" in the list of things that can be changed - so I tried it again because we'd previously discussed and found it to be not updateable (if that's a word!). And I'm here to tell ya that it's STILL not updateable!!!
I'm gonna dig around the avatars in the hopefully near future to see if I can find something new because Covid has made a complete mess of the Vung Tau Hash House Harriers as local social distancing rules have been relaxed to allow people to exercise once again (after five months of not being allowed outside), but don't permit more than 2 people to exercise together, and many stalwarts have left for greener pastures, so we're not likely to start again anytime soon - and to be honest, I'm more into helping Sunny with her homework now than running around the local mountains and then trying to drink the bar dry! So I'll hopefully find an avatar that looks as old as me but has a far more mature outlook on life!