Guitar God

I understand the reasoning but we're not going there to visit anyone and the application was truthful. The only people I know in Maui are Mick Fleetwood and Woody Harrelson but only casually. I've been there before and liked it and wanted to go there with her for vacation. Surely Thai citizens can get a visa to vist the US without having friends there?

I was listed as contact person in the US and name of person paying for the trip.

I have an address there but don't reside there, I'm inclined to have her leave the contact person blank on the next application.

My gf applied for a B2 tourist visa to go Hawaii for a 2 week vacation and was declined. The only thing they said was to come back with more paperwork and didn't specify what.

I'm looking for suggestions on what she should or shouldn't bring and should or shouldn't say at the next interview.

She has a letter from her manager at her government job saying she has the time off and needs to be back at work.

She brought a copy of her bank book.

She owns land here.

She has a purchase contract for a fairly expensive house she/we just bought here.

She has transcripts from her university where she is finishing a graduate degree.

She is half owner of a Thai business.

All of her relatives and family live here. She has no friends or relatives in the US.

The only hints as to why they weren't convinced she was going to come back were:

He asked what other countries shes been to and she showed him her old passport and he thought she traveled a lot. She went to Aus a few years ago for two weeks and has been to Europe and a few Asian countries on holidays with me in the past few years and a few trips for work to surrounding countries.

She changed her first name a few months ago for good luck as many Thais do.

I don't live in the US and have no plans to move there but for some reason they had doubts whether she would come back.

To me it seems obvious that she has strong ties to Thailand. Any suggestions?

You're only as farty as you feel.

I'm mature but a long ways from identifying myself as an old fart. Nothing wrong with old farts, I have friends who are and embrace it. I'm more of a root beer drinking, jeans and tennis shoes wearing, guitar-playing kid at heart.

I could win so much crap at carnivals, nobody can ever guess my age.

It's going to suck getting carded all the time if I ever get an AARP card...

Congratulations, you're the first person to ever say ( or probably even think) that I'm full of myself. I'm just tired of cynical keyboard warriors like Fiftytwo who just assume I'm some old fart fresh off the plam truck who discovered that you can rent friends in Thailand. My point wasn't to brag but to point out that if I have young female friends outside of Thailand, that it's not unbelievable that Thai women of the same age can like me for more than just money.

In a previous post you claim to have female friends in the EU who are 30 years younger than you.

We don't need to assume you are an old fart, you already admitted it.

(I am also an old fart, and accept my "old fart" status)

Sorry but your posts, essentially claiming, "she loves me for myself", are just not credible.

Congratulations, you're the first person to ever say ( or probably even think) that I'm full of myself. I'm just tired of cynical keyboard warriors like Fiftytwo who just assume I'm some old fart fresh off the plam truck who discovered that you can rent friends in Thailand. My point wasn't to brag but to point out that if I have young female friends outside of Thailand, that it's not unbelievable that Thai women of the same age can like me for more than just money.

When my manager's nephew died in a scooter accident and she took 3 days off and my gf took off work to fill in for her, someone here assumed it was part of a scam and didn't even believe her nephew died. My gf did it to help me, she didn't make anything and would rather been at her office.

I've never seen the level of suspicion and cynicism that I've seen here.

I realize some Thai women have a reputation for lying and ripping off gullible farangs but I think I know her well enough, have done my due diligence and I'm not gullible.

I have three friends who married Thai women, two couples live here, one in the EU. All the men paid for the majority of the house and other major expenses. All are happily married with children and have been together for 6-15 years so far.

Not dissimilar to my situation.

Your mileage may vary and evidently a lot of farang males here does.

Your obviously full of yourself, I say go for it. I will await the future post where she bleeds you dry and tosses your ass out on the street. And you, with your stunned attitude will be asking us what happened. Been here too long, I'm jaded.

Your psychic powers are underwhelming.

You could easily fill the shoes of the late Sylvia Browne who recently died, unexpectedly.

I'm not an old, fat, bald grampa throwing money around in return for false affection.

Give it a rest gramps, you're 55 (with a ponytail 555), fat and bald are just around the corner.

I'm putting down a downpayment on a car, she's financing the rest, the car will be registered in my name. I'm paying for less than half the house, she's getting a mortgage in her name. It seems as even as other relationships.

If I married a European or American woman who made a tenth as much as me, we wouldn't be living in a house based on twice her income there and I nor she would like to live in a 25k house here either. I only want a house as nice as I have in the US and Europe. Nothing fancy and a whole lot cheaper here.

I must be, I've always attracted younger women. I've dated fashion models, actresses, the daughter of the VP of Citycorp who was 14 years younger than me and she insisted on paying whenever we went out. I had a long term gf who was 15 years younger than me and my best friend in Europe is 30 years my junior. I've never bought her anything, we see each other twice a week, trade off paying for dinner or we cook for each other.

I have a 30 yo woman in the US who would drop everything to see me if I told her I was in town,

None of my friends back west ever suspected any of my younger gf's of having ulterior motives but since this one is Thai, everyone here assumes she just another bg or scam artist.

I'm not an old, fat, bald grampa throwing money around in return for false affection.

I'm sorry if a lot of people here have had bad experiences with some Thai women but to paint them all with the same brush seems racist to me.

Some of the warnings I've received were laughable. I'm sure there are some Thai women who are married and scamming farangs but absolutely impossible in my situation.

I've talked with many western men happliy married to (usually) younger Thai women who paid for the house, paid for the car and a few have little or no contact with their in laws.

Rather that call me a sucker, tell me about your situation and what qualifies you as a relationship counselor or psychic?

On another thread someone said they'd never heard a Thai admit they were wrong or apologize. My gf has told me, "I'm sorry, I was wrong " a few times. One poster said "she was like finding a diamond in a pile of broken glass. She's a treasure, keep her". I think she is and I will.

If she's exceptional in that respect I don't know why it's so unbelievable that she's not the same as some other bad girls some people here have ran into.

Thanks for the advice but I'm but I'm not out bride shopping. I met someone who I like and love and we want to be together.

One of our best friends is a thai woman in her 50's, she has a Norwegian boyfriend who comes here often to visit. Although she owns a home here, when he visits he stays in a hotel because she doesn't think it would be proper for him to sleep there since one of her adult children lived there with her.

My gf and her parents have similar values.

Of course she's concerned about security. She'll probably outlive me by 30 years and by the time I'm dead her chances of remarrying will be slim to none. She's smart, beautiful and very popular and could have any man she wanted. She could marry a wealthy man her own age but she chooses to be with me. Along with that come conditions which I accept.

She's willing to sing anything I want to guarantee I have as much rights as I can in Thailand.

If I married an American woman in California and we eventually divorced , post marital assets would be split the same as here, 50/50.

In spite of how much she respects her parents, she thinks they wouldn't accept our relationship but she chooses me over them. Rare in Thailand from what I hear.

I would advise against getting a unit larger than what's needed for the size of the room. I bought too big of an air conditioner once and although it did a great job of cooling the place, it had to run for such a short time that it didn't reduce the humidity as much as a smaller unit would have.

My gf and I both had DTAC, she had coverage problems and switched to True. We did one test in Ubon and my DL/UL speeds were a tad faster but she generaly has better coverage and more reliable connections that I do with DTAC, I'm considering switching.

I have True cable and at 2k a month it's not cheap but I have 200 channels and at least a dozen of the English ones have decent programming.

I guess it depends where you live.

I'm stll waiting for the 100MB internet connection I saw advertised on one of those huge airports on the way to the airport claiming to have the fastest fiber optic internet connection in the country, I'm luck to get 15MB DL speeds.

If you're even scratched by a monkey you need a series of rabies shots. The sooner the better,

Even if the injury didn't break the skin, even if there wasn't a drop of blood or a single puncture wound. Any warm blooded animal can be a symptomless carrier of the disease for months or years. There is no cure for rabies, if infected, once you exhibit symptoms the prognosis is certain death. 4000฿ is a small price to pay.

It must be incredibly difficult because every night I see at least a dozen scooters driving down pitch black roads without any headlights.

I wonder if I've ever seen the same one twice?

What's the status of the CW complex? I drove around the detour on Tuesday and it appeared they were busy taking down all the tires and sandbags but when I drove to DMK on Wednesday the highway in front of the building was still closed. I heard that the government offices were supposed to be reopened on 3 Feb, now it's the 7th. Would should I expect when I return? Where is the definitive source of which offices are reopened? I need to go back to the ministry of foreign affairs and CW is much closer for me than Central Bang Na.

I went to the Amphur we plan to go to on the 14th, Bang Rak. When I showed them my documents they said the copy of my passport needed to be signed so they handed me a pen and I signed it. No mention of needing the copy certified, translated and legalized but my lawyer says it needs to be.

I didn't hire a lawyer specifically for this, I was at his office for an unrelated meeting and asked him to review my papers.

I realize if one Amphur required a legalized copy that I could probably find another one that wouldn't care but we want to specifically go to the Bang Rak office and on the 14th it's going to be an all-day affair and I'd hate to waste an entire day for us and two witnesses.

I've already gone through the certification/translation/legalization process once and that also takes two full days. I'm out of the country now until Saturday and have a full schedule until Thursday next week so although I could spend two days getting a copy, just to be sure, I was hoping that someone had been though this recently and could tell if it was indeed a requirement or not.

I have a certified , translated and legalized copy of the affirmation of freedom to marry document and the Amphur looked over all my documents, including a signed copy of my passport photo and visa page and didn't say I was missing anything but now my lawyer says I also need certified, translated and legalized copy of my passport too.

Nowhere have I ever read that a certified, translated and legalized copy of my passport was required and the Amphur looked over my copies and said nothing.

I'm assuming my lawyer knows what he's talking about but I'm getting conflicting information.

Has anyone gotten married in Bangkok recently and was required to have a certified copy of their passport?

One factor may be birth order. If she's the eldest daughter she's used to talking to her younger brothers and sisters and hearing "yes ma'am". She could tell them the sky's green and they'd nod in agreement.

If you're the CEO of a company and you're used to being surrounded by yes-men and ass-kissers, or at least not have anyone talk back to you, and then you hook up with a headstrong woman who's the CEO of her family, there's going to be some power struggles.

My gf has. Sometimes when she's wrong and she knows it she's said, "sorry, I wrong". Other times not. I still haven't figured out the difference between when she's going to admit it or not though.

Just show us any Thai that says "Sorry I made a mistake" or "Sorry I was wrong" ;-)

Has any Thai ever apologised to anybody? Much less to a falang?

There are practical reasons for driving a more expensive car, my Mercedes has heated and air conditioned seats, split temperature controls so it's warm enough for your Thai passanger and cool enough for farang drivers, carbon hepa air filters so you can't smell the city, nicer stereo and it's so well soundproofed that you barely hear all the racket outside. Driving in stop-and-go traffic is easier with distronic proximity control and adaptive braking. It's not as fas as the BTS or MRT in getting across the city but if you're going somewhere not served by the lines, it's a lot more comfortable.

"...but as he climbed on the tile roof it broke causing him to fall..."

It was defiantly the marijuana which caused the tile roof to break when he stepped on it.

He should have been drunk. It's a scientific fact that when you are drunk, tile roofs don't break when you walk on them.

Good thing he was only on the 1st story or killer marijuana would have claimed yet another victim.

My gf has a masters and is quite intelligent but expects me to be a mind reader and gets upset when I don't anticipate things she said or thought she said. She put my house keys in her coat pocket and hung it up. I had to look for them and was late. It was my fault because I didn't start looking for them before I knew she lost them.

Leavening agent for fertilizer? I was in the industry for a decade and never heard of a leavening agent in a fertilizer, If it ignited sponteneously most likely it was elemental phosphorus. I can't think of any valid reason why someone would ask their friend to bring some on a plane to give to someone in the industry in Cambodia. "Here look, Phosphorus". Yeah, I know".

I'm no dog expert but am quite sure they can teach one dog to sniff out weed,coke and opiates. Since they can, there's no reason they can't train the same dog to indicate for explosives. Since phosphorus is an incendiary and not an explosive, maybe they don't train them for that. BTW, if you've got contraban on you and a sniffer dog comes over to you and lays down, that means he smelled something, that's how they indicate. They don't jump and bark.

Who knows what's goin on in the back room before the bags load? I've had my bags opened many times, mostly by the TSA. They could have dogs back there too. I doubt they would have found a bag of phosporus though.

We've all had the 3 questions about our luggage but I've never been asked those questions on my many dozen times flying out of Thailand, except maybe flying to the US. I get them often in Europe and frequently in the US but never going from bkk to Cambodia.

All in all, sounds fishy to me, or there are more stupid people in the country that I had estimated.

My provincial transportation office was just a 10 minute ride from my house so I went there rather than risk a wasted trip to a Bkk office.

It is indeed two separate licenses so they do require two copies of the paperwork. I should know within a few hours if whether they care or not if my European license doesn't have a translation. They took both my applications and haven't complained so far.

7-11's are fine for refills but I've always gone to one of the phone company shops in the malls. Most larger malls all have Dtac, True and AIS stores.

If she's Thai, I'm sure she'd like anything made of gold.