Ok, laughter and ridicule is expected and deserved but please offer some facts as well:

I have a fiancee in Isaan and have been calling for 18 months now.

We are close to an interview for a US immigrant visa.

I call on random days and at varying times and recently she started not answering the phone and often turns it off when she sees my number. When she does answer she speaks in quiet tones and says she cannot talk to me.

This is now about 80% of the times I call.

She insists it's because people in Isaan are scared of using the phone during rainstorms for fear of lightning strike. Lately there have been a lot of thunderstorms in Isaan...

I have been around long enough to know when someone is lying and I am 95% sure she can't talk to me because she is with her "brother" or "cousin." Maybe even at the beach with another falang...

I am just as close to giving her the heave-ho.

There are millions of girls out there and I don't need to take a risk on a liar and worse.

But, ridicule aside, I thought I'd ask for some honest opinions from people who may disagree with me.

Thanks in advance.

well, my wife is scared of using her phone when it's raining, even when she's inside the house!

Lightning too, but she still answers the phone, she doesn't whisper, she just talks normally and says she'll call me back when the storm's finished, which she does.

So, the whole 'talking quietly' thing doesn't really add up to a lightning storm does it?

Not saying this is why your gf wont speak to you . . . . but the fear of lightning is quite real (I could say 'grounded' in fact) and it is 'the season'

Lived a year+ not too far from the border Sa Kaeo-Cambodia, we're now further south, see huge electrical storms over the ranges that form the border; and yes many have a real fear re lightning strike, everyone inside, electrical appliances 'off'. Stories of people, cattle (and tvs!) killed in lightning strikes.

Couldn't find a figure for Thai lightning deaths - but according to a Phnom Penh Post article last week (figures for Cambodia not Thailand) -

Lightning has claimed 142 lives so far this year, according to the National Committee for Disaster Management. In 2010, a total of 114 people died from lightning strikes.

and an example: August 2008 - two Australians and three Thai students died in a lightning strike at Mukdahan (thread here)

and . . . was taught at school - lightning is too fast to have an 'e' in it!

Gaa!

Thanks Atmos.

I corrected a couple other typos and now it doesn't want to let me to go back in. Must be because I am a wretched newbie.

I will be sure to remember your lightning missive.

I corrected a couple other typos and now it doesn't want to let me to go back in. Must be because I am a wretched newbie.

Nope. Members only have a 30 minute period from the time of original posting to make changes. Thereafter you need to contact a moderator/admin.

I've always wondered where an electrical storm starts. They always seem to be coming towards you, or moving along near you, but never beginning anywhere.

One night it did. I was peacefully asleep when the most almighty thunder-crash you ever heard sounded just outside my window. One experience like that is enough, thank you.

Lightning is bad this time of year but that is no reason to whisper when she talks nor to turn off her phone when she sees it is you calling.

Methinks you might wish to check further on her commitment.

18 months is a long time to be apart. If you have doubts about her loyalty then probably wise not to marry, lightning or no.

Only you have the personal knowledge of your relationship with the girl to be able to decide whether or not she is telling porkies; but I can confirm that it is a widely held belief here that mobiles should not be used during lightning storms.

My wife always switches off the mobiles and disconnects the landlines when the lightning is close by - not for normal storms.

Five or six years ago our landline telephone was zapped twice in a year, so that convinced her that she was in the right!

Elwood

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Your comments are very enlightni... enlightening.

Your technical points about Isaan culture vis a vis lightning are what I'm after as I guess I'm searching for reason to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, 18 months are long. I've visited twice though to help demonstrate commitment and chip away at my ignorance of Isaan life.

The US visa process is long and part of that is my fault for not starting the process until after at least the first visit so I could try to gauge her sincerity in person.

Thanks again everyone for your time and valued help.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Your comments are very enlightni... enlightening.

Your technical points about Isaan culture vis a vis lightning are what I'm after as I guess I'm searching for reason to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, 18 months are long. I've visited twice though to help demonstrate commitment and chip away at my ignorance of Isaan life.

The US visa process is long and part of that is my fault for not starting the process until after at least the first visit so I could try to gauge her sincerity in person.

Thanks again everyone for your time and valued help.

Wouldn't it easier and less complicated to move to Thailand and live with your darling?

Walk away.

Rain, storm, snow or hurricane, if you are sending cash nooooooooooooooooo problem. Perhaps you are in a queue.

Walk away.

Rain, storm, snow or hurricane, if you are sending cash nooooooooooooooooo problem. Perhaps you are in a queue.

This has been known to happen when one persues a Thai wife from an online dating catalogue.

Walk away.

Rain, storm, snow or hurricane, if you are sending cash nooooooooooooooooo problem. Perhaps you are in a queue.

This has been known to happen when one pursues a Thai wife from an online dating catalog.

Absolutely. Unfortunate for some.

Yep lightning storms scare the hell out most Isaan people,a good example was last year when a belter of a storm came over,Ma grabbed two pans and started banging them together making more noise than the storm and Pa went upstairs to pray to his Buddha for help.No lightning touched down but the neighbors got their bedroom wall blown out.So i can understand why your girlfriend turns her phone off while it is storming,just can't understand why she does it when you ring her (hope that was a typo).Anyways i hope it is all resolved soon and you get your piece of mind either way.

Yep lightning storms scare the hell out most Isaan people,a good example was last year when a belter of a storm came over,Ma grabbed two pans and started banging them together making more noise than the storm and Pa went upstairs to pray to his Buddha for help.No lightning touched down but the neighbors got their bedroom wall blown out.So i can understand why your girlfriend turns her phone off while it is storming,just can't understand why she does it when you ring her (hope that was a typo).Anyways i hope it is all resolved soon and you get your piece of mind either way.

Doubt it, always some reason why the phone isn't answered. Believe me.

Yep lightning storms scare the hell out most Isaan people,a good example was last year when a belter of a storm came over,Ma grabbed two pans and started banging them together making more noise than the storm and Pa went upstairs to pray to his Buddha for help.No lightning touched down but the neighbors got their bedroom wall blown out.So i can understand why your girlfriend turns her phone off while it is storming,just can't understand why she does it when you ring her (hope that was a typo).Anyways i hope it is all resolved soon and you get your piece of mind either way.

Doubt it, always some reason why the phone isn't answered. Believe me.

It's not so much the not answering that bothered me,it was more the switching the phone off when she saw her that it was her boyfriend that was calling.....alarm bells !!!!

Walk away.

Rain, storm, snow or hurricane, if you are sending cash nooooooooooooooooo problem. Perhaps you are in a queue.

Agreed, stop the monthly payments and she will soon phone you, lightening or no lightening.

Just tell her to make sure she is wearing her rubber flip flops as an added safety precaution.

No comment on whether the girl is up to something or nut, but will say that where I am at the first sound of thunder, all the phones are off, shortly followed by the TV. They seem to think the lighting will follow the signal through the sky to the phone. Jim

I've fixed the 'lightening' spelling in the OP, I'm amazed that we've come this far without references to the 'lightening' products that seem to be so beloved by our dahklings from the north

if your phoneing now [3pm thai time] its pi--ing down,oh by the way her battery is flat.

Land line phones, tvs, computers .I have lost them all to electrical storms.

Even had a fan catch fire once durng such a storm, lots of thunder all things get unplugged now.

Land line phones, tvs, computers .I have lost them all to electrical storms.

Even had a fan catch fire once durng such a storm, lots of thunder all things get unplugged now.

I have no comments to make on the gf but the fear of lightning strikes is not baseless. After our neighbors place got struck and blew the mobile phone up that was plugged in and charging in their restaurant, fried the computer, router, shattered the wood roof beam in the bungalow it hit plus blew the aircon and hotwater heater off the wall, fried all the circuits in that room and then burned a hole in the mattress it traveled down the phone line to our place where it fried our computer, the printer plugged into that computer, the router, the fax machine and the phone. I became far more cautious about lightning.

Oh and this story sealed the deal for me: Teen mowing lawn struck by lightning through his ipod

Have a couple of posts been deleted on here?

Have a couple of posts been deleted on here?

Lightning.

Well, pointless obscenity is unnecessary, really. No need to respond to that stuff, just use the report button, cheers!

Well, pointless obscenity is unnecessary, really. No need to respond to that stuff, just use the report button, cheers!

Dear oh dear, it took for me to respond to it for you to delete it, why was that? Cheers.

I call on random days and at varying times and recently she started not answering the phone and often turns it off when she sees my number. When she does answer she speaks in quiet tones and says she cannot talk to me.

Sorry to say, but this does not sound like "lightning".

Why couldn't she tell you in clear voice: we have thunderstorm, try later ?

Around these parts of Isaan, Surin Province, most storms roll in late afternoon and early evening. Sometimes we get the odd storm after midnight but, on average, the storms are usually between 1600 to 2000 hours. Try ringing her in the morning - very unusual to have thunderstorms at that time.

She's with me in the mornings, so better try early afternoon.