GinBoy2

They are really nice people. I work for United and if I fly down for free, my wife will call ahead and they will have everything ready for me. The lady's name is Tim, and she'll have everything boxed up ready for me to head back to DIA

Yeah they have kapow. My wife grows it here, but as I'm sure you aware the growing season is short. They ship it in from California. Thai Basil, you can get that in Safeway Oh if you want spicy, that Philippino store I mentioned before, they stock Vietnamese chillies. I never thought I would hear this from my wife, but she calls them 'evil chillies' since they are so spicy

Without wanting to delve into the mind of Bob, or whatever AI bot he is, made me think a little. Me and Mrs G were discussing a couple of evenings ago maybe returning to Thailand. Then we got in to the hassles for me. In the US Mrs G is a Permanent Resident, soon to be citizen. No 90 day checks, no money in the bank, apart from the fact she can't vote she looks just like me. I just don't think I'm ready for all that hassle again. Just bring in something looking like when Thai spouses go to the West and maybe I'll think again.

Actually non existent. There is a Philippino store on E North St where you can get some stuff, at a price I might add! What we do is make a trip to Denver every couple of months where you can get everything. Lao Market on Federal Blvd in Westminster and GW in Aurora are our go to places. Couple of ice chests and load up the car. You can do it there and back in a day. We normally do an overnighter since my daughter and our son both live in Denver Let me put it this way. Unless we eat out my wife never eats farang food, which probably tells you everything!

Good choice. We live over in Chapel Valley If you have a Thai partner in tow we can hook her up with the local Thai ladies

Can't help you on the banking questions, but where are you headed?

You really haven't lived in Thailand log enough. How many versions of Pheu Thai have there been? This one where you roll your eyes and accept you are in Thailand

To add to absurdity of my previous post Literally my son and his friends spoke Lao up to the school gates then switched to Thai. Then bizarrely, my son and a few friends who also spoke English, mostly lukungs, would congregate and talk away from the language police

Well it's one of the weird quirks of the Thai system. My son was born in Singapore, we spoke English, Lao and Thai at home, in equal I might add. When we moved to Thailand he went to a what I think was a top notch international school in Khon Kaen. Of course as soon as he entered the school gates he couldn't utter a word in Lao without getting his knuckles rapped Strangely it was fine for him to talk in English, which of course was his first language

Wow, looks good. I don't eat very much I think that would be my calorie intake for two days!

I think that is true, and ironically Vietnam has also strengthened the relationship with the US. The common theme of course is that both the Philippines and Vietnam oppose China in the South China Sea Whereas Thailand is viewed almost as a vassal State of the CCP

As much as I'd like to the believe that, ain't happening Any of us been around long enough see parties dissolved reformed under new name, It's the Thai way. My wife read the news, rolled her eyes and said "Here we go again" Expect to to see them back in a few weeks with a new name

It's really sad how Russia has turned out.. I visited Russia several times after the collapse of the USSR and St Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. I thought at the time Russia was going to become a vibrant part of a democratic Europe. Well couldn't have been more wrong with that could I? Turn's out it became a mafia State, and in some ways I think it's worse than the old communist USSR, since is a one 'man' State, subject to his volatile state of mind. I'll add China. I lived in China at the end of the 90's early 2000's just as they were joining the WTO. I thought back then, as may did, China would end up looking like Hong Kong. Of course fast forward and Hong Kong now looks like any other mainland Chinese city Xi and Putin are made from the same cloth Troubled times my friends

Actually most Issan Lao write in transliteration. I've read my wife and her friend's fb pages. All Thai script transliterated Isaan Lao. I can figure it out by sounding it out, but I'm certainly not reading it. Thats the reality of Isaan, they had Thai imposed on them but underlying it, it's still Lao We went to Vientiene (boring place btw) years ago we were both fine with our Isaan Lao. Couldn't read a word of anything, but verbal was fine

For the US at least, Thailand has lost any strategic importance. Thailand is one of those 'roll your eyes' and go, whatever countries The US has bigger fish to fry, Russia in Ukraine, China threat to Taiwan, and lets not even start on the Middle East. So I suspect Thailand is consigned to some lowly bureaucrat working in a broom cupboard somewhere in the State Dept!

Try Google translate with written Isaan Lao in Thai script It's a transliteration and Google will spit out gobbledygook

'I 'think', at least according to my wife and son I speak better Thai than most from Isaan My spoken Isaan Lao isn't bad, but obviously I do have a problem with writing, since there is no dictionary for that

I didn't even realize the UK had birthright citizenship. So I looked it up. Apart from the Americas which is pretty much universally without restrictions, a surprising number of countries do have it with restrictions Look at the UK and Thailand, it's actually quite similar https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-birthright-citizenship

Well yikes reminds me of my wife's cousin She had tried, France, Italy, UK, Germany then finally got the Swedish to give her a visa to be with the 'current' bf. It goes back to my earlier post, Thai women did this to themselves, and the CO just deal with it so many times pretty sure they are numb to it My wife isn't really close to her cousin, live in different worlds, but of course each of those guys were crushed, but for her cousin, it was just business as usual and on to the next mark, aka bf!

Isn't this another one of those Thai media 'rinse and repeat' stories? Pretty sure I've read it multiple times over the years, they just change the date!

Can't hurt. Maybe the OP wants to work with, kids or vulnerable folks, who knows. Most Thai's with immigrant visas to Western countries have to get theirs it's not hard and I think takes about 2 weeks, and not a lot of money. You have to go to BKK and you will end up with a certificate like this, although this a few years back and might have changed But whats the harm, maybe a few hours of you life and maybe you never have to use it. Whats to lose?

This is one of those horrible conundrums. I'm American, and as hard a pill for a Canadian to swallow we ain't much different. I tried to get a tourist visa for my then gf, after my daughter had a baby. Professional woman, we owned a house, of course she was denied. Years later when we decided to legally marry and move back to the US with her as an immigrant, nothing had fundamentally changed, but it sailed though. Trouble is collectively Thai woman have created the problem. Even in my Thai wife's little circle of friends here in South Dakota, only her and one other lady arrived as legal immigrants. All the rest overstayed on tourist visas, then ended up getting married and applying for adjustment of status. I understand your frustration, I was mad as Hell when my wife got denied a tourist visa. But looking back at it now, I kinda see the dilemma of a CO trying to assess an application, knowing the track record of Thai women, especially young women

I don't think the Russians, North Koreans or Chinese really have any interest in a bunch of aging Westerners. What I do think however is that the owners of this forum, past and present have had an interest in driving clicks for revenue purposes, and fake profiles, AI generated bots are certainly on the rise

So, I just got asked in an IM why I specified my son. I have three kids, two daughters, one son. Any of you with kids know a father/daughter relationship is very different to father/son. I'd sweet talk the girls and they would melt. My son would be a hard nosed little sh***it and make it done

If that was aimed at me, get over yourself. There are very few hero's in this world, but the ability to admit mistakes regret and learn from them does make you a better person but most certainly not a hero.. If you have no regrets in your life you are either one of the rarest humans on the planet, or just totally a delusional narcissist