ghengis

This story happens to be true.

The lady was sponsored for Visitor Visas by her best friend (another Thai lady) who has lived in the UK for 15 years and runs her own business. She stayed with this friend for the Visitor Visas.

In a few weeks time, my wife and I will stay with one of my wife's school friends in the North of England. This friend came to the UK on 2 Visitor Visas and now has just arrived in the UK after getting married to an older Englishman. She is 45 and her husband is 75 and rich.

She was divorced in Thailand with no job and only a little money. She met the man when she was visiting England. He obviously liked her, but she was not that interested in him. Her friend in the UK persuaded her to get married to this man, but she is here is a relationship with no feelings on her part.

What should she do? She could pretend to love her husband. He has already suffered one heart attack and probably won’t last another 5 years. He is worth about a million pounds sterling. Or she could go back and be poor again in Thailand.

Matty

Now that you are married and have been living with your wife for some time you would have no problem getting a Marriage Settlement Visa. The previous refusal of a Fiancee Visa should not cause a problem since this for a different type of visa (not Marriage Visa).

The only problems you have are:

• Proving you have a regular income to support your wife
  
• Evidence of a place to live in the UK - e.g. Rent Agreement, Mortgage Statement etc.
  

So you need to get a job and place for you both to live in the UK. Once you have ALL the evidence then it is likely you would qualify for a 'short interview' for a Settlement Visa rather than the full 40 min one. If you apply without 3 months wage slips and evidence of where you will live then you will probably fail to get the visa.

Forget Visa agents. For UK Visa advice see website and forum www.thailand-uk.com

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Pure consciousness is something beyond the mind. It exists by itself and can experience itself without the need for thought. It is like the sound of one hand clapping.

The presence of pure consciousness in an enlightened person is a state of duality - two experiences of consciousness in one, with the pure consciousness witnessing the waking (thinking), dreaming and sleeping states.

An example of Registration of Marriage in Thailand from Thailand-UK .....

We began by visiting the British Embassy website in Bangkok www.britishemb.or.th which has a comprehensive guide to start you off on the right track. On the home page, under Consular section, click on the “Marriage in Thailand” hyperlink and this takes you to a well presented and printable guidance section of the procedure. It also includes the Embassy location map and timings etc, together with a sample of the “Affirmation of Freedom to Marry” letter that you require to make out to begin the application. I copied this example onto my computer and altered it to represent myself, then printed it out and hey presto, you have your Affirmation letter all ready to present to the Embassy. Do not sign it at this time, the Embassy requires that you complete your signature in front of the official in the Consular section office.

Affirmation applications are accepted between 1300 and 1530hrs Monday thru to Thursday. We walked across the road to the Embassy at 1245 on Tuesday afternoon and there was already a queue at least 50 metres long. However, do not be put off by this, as the majority were visiting the visa section, not the Consular section. So it is through the entrance, across the yard and left up the stairs to the Consular section. There is a ticket system in place, so you retrieve your number and wait for the desk to call you. When called you present your passport, Affirmation of freedom to marry and any previous marriage annulment (decree Absolute)…… this must be the original.

The official will check the information on your affirmation, then hand it back and ask you to sign. You then pay 2,250 baht and will receive a documentation slip and till receipt of your payment. Your passport, annulment documents and Affirmation application are all retained by the Embassy. The official will then inform you to report back the following morning to retrieve the documents, between 0900 and 1100, to the same section.

We wandered across the road to the Embassy again the next morning at 0850, no sign of anyone!!!, however when we arrived at the consular section we were Number 38 in the queue!!!!! The place was full, doors open early. To be honest though most people were just picking up similar documentation and we were done by 0930.

Next step is translation and again good tips and advice came into being. Walk back across the road, but instead of going into the hotel, we turn right and walk to the Phloen Chit Road, approximately 200 metres. At the crossroad take the footbridge over the Phloen Chit and on the top walkway you have 3 choices, left one enters the Skytrain Station Phloen Chit, right is handy to know as it comes out next to a main branch of the Ayyuthaya Bank, ideal for ATM, Visa, Exchange etc. If you go straight across, you come down the other side of Phloen Chit and you are immediately greeted by a wall of Translation shops, literally one after the other for about 100 metres. A friend advised me to use “Express Translation Services,” which is practically immediately to your left as you hit the pavement from the stairway. (An extremely large yellow sign to your left greets you half way down the stairs). It is run by father (Sunthorn) and daughter (Ann). Ann speaks English to near perfection and was absolutely brill. She requires your Affirmation from the Embassy, a copy of your passport and visa, together with a copy of the TM card that is stapled in your passport from entry into Thailand. They complete the translation and have a courier service, so they will do everything for you at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you do not have to visit if you wish to take up this service. The total charge for this is 1500 baht and will take 2 days. You can however pay 2500 baht (an extra 1000) and get same day service, the extra fee is inclusive of the additional fee at MofFA for same day service, plus the courier waiting time. If you take into account taxi fares each way etc, well it is well worth the extra as far as I am concerned. We paid the 2500 baht and picked up the registered affirmation translation at 1530 the same day from Ann.

We had planned to return home to Banglamung and register our marriage at the local Amphur there. But as we had completed everything a day ahead of ourselves and had booked into the hotel until Friday morning, we therefore decided to visit the nearest Amphur the following morning to finalise the wedding registration.

Ann advised us that the best local Amphur to visit was Khet Phra Khanong Registration Office at Sukhumvit Soi 54. The reason for suggesting this was that they are very familiar there with Farang/Thai marriages there and there would be no problems. Again, from our current location, very easy to reach. Skytrain from Phloen Chit Station to the end of the line….On Nut. (Do NOT get off at Phra Khanong station, go through to On Nut).

On arrival and as you approach the common exit from the station you will see a sign indicating various locations, one of them being the Government District Office….Exit 4. Down the steps and approximately 500 metres straight ahead you will come to the Amphur. Plenty of security around and they will guide you to the Marriage Registration section. We arrived there at 8 a.m. and we were the first in the office. Very helpful, requested to produce passport, affirmation translation, copy of passport and visa, Sanan’s ID card plus copy, Tambien Bhan (Home registration book) plus copy and 500 baht. The officer recommended that a tip would ensure speedy service!!! So another 500 baht crossed the desk and it was all done within 15 minutes. The officer shook our hands and the ladies in the office all clapped, a very nice gesture.

One point worth mentioning is that they keep the original Embassy Affirmation document together with the attached certified Translation, so get a copy of these before you go in.

On leaving the Amphur with your marriage certificate and Government stamped license, there is a photocopy and plasticizing shop directly across the road as you exit the Amphur, so your documents can be protected for all time. We also then took these documents back to Ann and for 900 baht she translated everything into a professional English version, with a certified translation stamp for future reference. Everything completed by 0930 Thursday morning and we went off and had a champagne breakfast.

We hope this information can be of some use and once again we offer our sincerest thanks to everyone who assisted us. It was so pleasant to see everything just go so smoothly with well prepared plans.

I think this question about the existence of self is an example of "knowledge is different in different states of consciousness". The answer is both Yes and No depending on the state of consciousness the one being questioned. If enlightened then the answer is no, but for those in ignorance the answer is yes.

Hence Buddha's reluctance to speak one way or the other.

'Ananda, if I, being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self, were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those priests & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism (i.e., the view that there is an eternal soul). And if I... were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those priests & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism (i.e., that death is the annihilation of experience). If I... were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?

In India there is the concept of Maya (illusion) is used to explain this dichotomy. For an enlightened person, he/she was always in this state, so the "truth" of the state of ignorance must have been an illusion.

However, for the unlighlighed the illusion is reality. In this case 'self' does exist, but untimely it is surplus to requirements once enlighenment is achieved. Live a Butterfly discarding the chrysalis in the transformation from a caterpillar.

The “five precepts” are the basic training rules observed by all practicing Buddhist lay men and women. They are as follows:

1. I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures.

2. I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.

3. I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.

4. I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech.

5. I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness.

I think No 1 means that you should be a vegetarian. Thais are not too good at No 3. Number 5 suggests Booze and Fags are to be avoided. Thais may call themselves Buddhists, but just how many shape up to the 5 precepts.

The financial benefits of living in Thailand are :

• House Prices are Cheaper - allowing a large capital sum to be released when moving to Thailand
  
• Cost of Living is Less
  

Income more, expenses less. Result "Happiness" according to Dickens "Mr. Micawber".

There is a temptation to retire earlied than planned in Thailand. Maybe this temptation should be resisted, since you could come unstuck if you or the Thai government later decide that you cannot live in Thailand.

If you plan to be able to retire in your home country, then if you move to Thailand you could live in relative luxury and always have the option of returning to the old country.

The rule with Thai women is "There are no rules".

The is a short history of Thailand at Simply Thai

Bar girls are the same as 'normal girls'. You just have to find out if they have a good heart or not. I expect the chances of finding a bar girl with a good heart is less than for normal girls, but on the other hand it is easy to meet a lot of bar girls.

Statistically, it appears that over 50% of people who marry Thai ladies in the UK are married to ex-bar girls, and most of them are happily married.

Jack

• Farang man falls in love with beautiful Thai lady.
  
• Thai lady has other boyfriends.
  
• Farang breaks up with lady.
  
• Farang finds another Thai lady.
  

This is a very common scenario in Thai-farang relationships, especially with women who worked in bars/massage parlours. Unfortunately this relationship is doomed, so move on.

If this lady really wanted to be with you, then she would not be screwing around with numerous other men. She may be the woman of your dreams, but the dream will turn into a nightmare unless you wake up to reality.

For Buddhists endowed with wisdom, to conceive of karma over numerous lifetimes is a crude and ineffective way of moving towards the goal (whether it's nirvana or simply a better, more useful life). To the Buddhist mind, it's obvious you can't do anything about your past 'lives' (actually one seamless round, with the illusion of separate lives), so it's fruitless to contemplate them as a way of improving your present or your future. Rather than striving to understand your potential past lives/karma, or to relate them to your present situation, the efficient Buddhist examines the more obvious moment-to-moment linkage in his or her present life. The one thing that links your present to your past -- whether over lifetimes, months, days or hours -- is your mental state in any given moment.

I think this is evading the question of "What is the 'Me' that carries karma from live to live?"

Is truth the same for people at different levels of consciousness. The 'truth of an enlightened persion is that the small self (soul) no longer exists because he/she has now realised the eternal Self.

To someone like Buddha, who reached the state of Nirvana, Atta (self) does not exist. However, to those not at that level some entity, whether your call it the soul or some other name, does survive death and determines the level of consciousness in the next rebirth. A train ticket is not much use once you have reached your destination, but is required along the journey.

Morality is fine, provided you can afford it.

A friend of ours in the UK used to work as a bar girl in Hua Hin. She comes from a poor family in Issan. She got pregnant aged 15 and was left looking after the baby by herself. Aged 18 she went to work in a bar and left her baby with her mother. About a year later she met an english bloke, stopped being a bar girl and became a cashier at the same bar. She married the english man and after a year was in the UK on a Settlement Visa.

When I was last in Phuket I went every day for a traditional Thai massage with the wife. She spoke in Thai to the ladies who massaged us. Many had similar stories to the bar girl from Hua Hin. Most came from Issan. Many had failed marriages with children looked after by their mothers, and they were all just surviving financially.

When one of these poor ladies marries a farang their lives are transformed from subsistence to security. Many of these women have suffered at the hands of Thai men who are not faithful and don't take care of their responsibilities. Many of these women swear they will never marry a Thai man.

A farang man is often seen as someone who will take care of them and (unlike many Thai men) will be a good husband/father. In return these women are very happy to take good care of their farang husbands.

I don't live in Thailand, but I am considering it as a place to retire. I have seen a couple of polls on the cost of living in Thailand and Stickman has written about this on his website.

40,000b/month seems to a consensus figure of what people actually spend, with 20,000 being a lowest people claim to live on and very few people paying more than 60,000 per month unless they are on some fat expat deal where the company pays for everything.

Maybe it is possible to live on 30,000/month, but if you factor in health insurance, trips back home, buying a new car every few years I am sure this would bump up the figures.

If I retire in Thailand at 58, I could expect to live another 30 years. Allowing for 2.5% inflation means that 40,000b would deflate to about 20,000 in that time. Also exchange rates have fluctuated wildly since 1997 - you might find that your income is 40% less because the baht appreciates, so your adequate 40,000b may turn into something more like 12,000b in todays money in 30 years time – i.e. you would be old and broke and unable to pay medical bills at the very time you are likely to need them most.

With all this in mind I would say is possible to retire on 8,000,000, but risky in the long term unless augmented with a nice state pension. On top of the 8 million investment fund you would need another 3-4 million to pay for a condo, car and other set-up costs.

From Understanding Anatta

Buddha teaches, in fact, that people are reborn with patisandhi, “relinking consciousness,” a rebirth consciousness which does not transmigrate from the previous existence, but which comes into existence by means of conditions included in the previous existences, conditions such as kamma.

Thus a reborn person is not the same as the one who has died, nor is the reborn person entirely different from the one who has died. Most importantly no metaphysical entity no soul, and no kind of spiritual self continues from one existence to another in Buddha’s teaching.

This begs the question 'who is reborn?' Who's karma am I born with? If it is mine, then what is the 'me' that the karma is associated with it it is not the Soul (Atta)?

Polly sounds like a woman to me. I think she is entitled to her opinion like everyone else, so long as it doesn’t get offensive.

Many Thai and farang women dislike (or even hate) bar girls. Thai women dislike them because they come from the lowest class of Thai society and it irritates them when they someone blatantly ignore the social norms of politeness and become rich in the process.

Many farang women dislike bar girls because, unlike in the west, men in Thailand are surrounded by attractive ladies who want to be their 'girlfriends'. This takes away much of the power women have over men in the west and leaves them feeling 2nd class.

Bar girls (or prostitutes) are real people with feelings. Many of them have to take care of young children and other family members and having little education or career prospects are doing the best they can. Treating all these people like black-hearted villains is a little unfair.

After being congratulated on 50 years of marriage a man what asked "what is the secret of your successful marriage". He replied "frequent times apart and oncoming deafness".

I met her in a beer bar in soi pattayland, and at the time she was still recovering from TB

I was in North Thailand last winter. We went to the border town of Mae Sai. Traditionally the tour guides took people over the bridge to Burma, but they now do not because they consider the situation to be too dangerous in Burma.

Twice divorced Brian Clegg (aged 75) insisted: I'm not a dirty old man. Everyone likes a 23 year old girl dont they? Lifes a book but the last chapter should be the best because its the climax!

So Brian Clegg's Thai marriage to a lady 52 years younger only lasted one week. I think anyone who marries someone they have only known for a few days is asking for trouble, especially if they know nothing about the background of their spouse.

Come to think of it I applied for a Fiancee Settlement Visa for my girlfriend after only being with her for 5 days - and yes we were successful in getting the visa. The relationship has worked out well - but we are close in age (7 years), both have University Degrees and have many other interests in common.

A few of my friends in the UK failed to get a Fiancée Visa at the first attempt. You can appeal this, but if you get married you can immediately re-apply for a Marriage Settlement Visa - different circumstances etc. Most people who get married and then re-apply get their Settlement Visas, including my friends.

The problem with moving to Thailand is that you need proof of income in the UK - last 3 wage slips, 6 months of bank statements etc. If you don't have accommodation or sufficient income then you will fail in any future Settlement Visa application, so moving to Thailand may be counter-productive if your long term objective is live with your future wife in the UK.

The way to get a Settlement Visa is to provide a good set of evidence to be presented at the visa application. Check out the Thailand-UK website and forum for more details.

Moaning about ECOs in Bangkok Embassy is not going to get you anywhere. They have a difficult job to do. Get married in Thailand and then get on with your life. It will turn out OK - you could both be in the UK before the end of the year.

I was married in England for 13 years. After 2 years things were rocky, and I should have called it quits then. Big mistake - 2 kids, a mortgage and 11 years later got a divorce.

It is difficult trying to get your life together again after being divorced in your 40s.

Having tried the largest introduction agency in the UK, I would say that this was a complete waste of money as most of the women I met were either too ugly or screwed up from previous marriages. You end up thinking that the older you get the more probable you will be left 'on the shelf'.

Meeting a Thai lady was a different experience altogether - many are much more attractive and a lot less screwed up than the women I met in the UK.

There are many beautiful Thai women who want to marry a farang, and some of these women have all the good traditional Thai qualities of a caring and faithful wife.

That is the fascination of Thai women.

Women who take money for sex are ... also called wives.

The difference between protitutes and wives is that in one case the transaction is agreed beforehand. Most men have to pay one way or another for sex. Some would say that a wife is the more expensive option.

I am a vegetarian myself. I have noticed that Thai monks are usually impressed when they meet someone who is vegetarian as they consider it to be good thing.

According to a recent survey about 25% of Thai monks smoke. So maybe they find it just too hard to change their diet and smoking habits when they become monks.