Stickman Readers' Submissions September 5th, 2007

I Married A Bar Girl

Firstly I will say that I love reading the Stickman submissions and it’s provided me with hours of entertainment reading the trial and tribulations of the punters in Thailand. I have been reading most submissions since about 2 years ago and my only regret is I didn’t have any of this great learning material when I first started my travels to the land of smiles back in 1998.

He Clinic Bangkok

The one thing that I read constantly is the pitfalls of marrying a bargirl and the general consensus is you would be crazy to even contemplate the idea. Well this is the reason that I have decided to have a go at writing a submission of my own and send in a different story to the norm. My story is different because I did marry a bargirl from Pattaya and I am the happiest man that I have ever been in my life and our relationship is the envy of many for how close and loving we are together. I can honestly say I have never experienced any problems with my wife from the moment we started our relationship and certainly nothing like the horror stories I read so often about here.

I have now known my wife for 5 1/2 years and we are approaching 4 years of marriage and have a child from her previous Thai relationship who is the absolute apple of my eye and an 8 month old beautiful luk kreung baby together. We live happily in Australia and my wife settled in with no problems at all from the moment she arrived. I am very much your average punter with average looks, little money and really nothing special but meeting my farm girl from Udon in a Pattaya bar was the greatest thing that has happened in my life by far. I don’t want to sound boastful as I know the luck involved but just want to give an honest account of my story and how it worked.

My story

CBD bangkok

In May 2002 I traveled to Thailand for the 8th time having spent about 45 weeks on holidays there in the previous 4 years. It would be fair to say while no way an expert I had certainly moved on from the stage of no idea to some idea when it came to Thailand.

35 years old with two failed long term farang relationships behind me and having discovered Thailand there was no way going back to farangs again – the mission was to find a Thai girl. I had experienced my share of eye openers in the previous couple of years with Thai ladies employed in the bar industry but I was not put off by it. I wanted to go back and try and find another bar industry employee for a relationship. I had a Nana gogo dancer who came to Oz for 2 months, a lady with the name Porn from Pattaya and a Bangkok disco girl. All lookers and hookers taught me some valuable lessons in the past couple of years but I thought I was now prepared better than ever to find a good bar girl.

I had tried the internet girls and the so called good girls in the past and while there was some success in the sack I just seemed to get on better with the girls that worked in the bars that I liked so much to visit. Not for everyone but for me I personally just liked bar girls. They were so much fun and I preferred being in the bars on my well earned holidays than going bowling or to the movies with so called good girls. From my experience most of the internet girls were undercover hookers anyhow.

I was now prepared with what I wanted to look for in a bar girl and the bullshit radar detector was fined tuned after failing on me regularly in the past. My one advantage I believed I had was despite not offering much in the looks and financial departments to the competition in the bar game, I had spent many hours learning the Thai language so this was my special weapon when going into battle. No way an expert but better than most when it came to Thai language. I have been able to read and write basic Thai and have about 2000 words in my kitty. If you have the time and you really want a Thai girlfriend then my advice is learn the language. It really is worth all the effort you put in. Jing Jing.

wonderland clinic

I met my wife to be, who I will call Noi because that’s her name, intoxicated in a bar in soi 9 Pattaya at 5 AM in the morning. I stayed with her for the remaining 3 weeks of my holiday and had a great time but did not stay in touch when I returned to Australia as I was over that sponsorship deal that I had been involved in before with Thai girls. I returned in November and after a few interviews with Thai girls that went nowhere I again caught up with Noi in Pattaya running into her in the street. She again stayed with me for three weeks but this time she had got me as the six weeks, spread over 2 trips, staying with her on holidays had only been fun and there had not been one argument so for me that qualified for the next step. Bring her to Australia for 2 – 3 months and see what happens.

It really is very easy to get a visa for a bargirl if you play the game so that was no problem and I brought Noi to Australia 3 months after returning. The big thing for me was the verbal contract that we had agreed to prior to me leaving and that was me to pay sponsorship and in return she would leave Pattaya and return to the sewing factory in Bangkok she had worked at before. She kept her end of the bargain 100% and I kept mine.

For the 3 months waiting to come to Australia I sent her what she earned in the sewing factory which was about 7000 baht a month for a 6 day week – 11 hours per day. Everything was proved beyond doubt, not beyond reasonable doubt from her end.

Noi planned everything for the trip in Bangkok and traveled to Australia alone where I greeted her at the airport. Despite having limited English she really settled in from the moment she arrived and was the same girl that I had known in Thailand – no bullshit involved. I paid for a 2 month ticket for her to come with the option of a 3rd month if I paid more money. Having not exercised that option in the past with the gogo dancer I exercised that option within one week of Noi arriving.

Noi is only 5 years younger than me and she has limited English. Two things that had been on my checklist amongst others and I think they are two of the keys to our success. From the moment she arrived in Australia she was loved by family and friends and I was envied by my mates at how well she took care of me and I laugh when I read people saying that Thai girls can’t survive in Farangland because Noi proved this to be a complete fallacy. After all she can get 90% of the Thai food here in Australia so why wouldn’t she be happy and to quote her “I love Australia maak maak”.

After 3 months she returned to Thailand to work in the sewing factory and I continued the same sponsorship deal as before until I could get enough money to return in December. Again a pain-free 5 week fantastic holiday in Thailand, the marriage visa deal was now all planned to take place as I had now known her for 12 months and everything from money to trust to compatibility had all boxes ticked well and truly. Despite being on the lookout for any signs of not being genuine and not prepared to turn a blind eye there were honestly never any danger signs raised.

Marriage Visa

Again, obtaining the prospective marriage visa was not to difficult although more work was involved than a holiday visa and it was obtained about 6 weeks after applying. Noi traveled to Australia alone again in June 2003 and we were both very happy to be back together. After doing an English course for 3 months after first arriving my wife just wanted to work so we could save money together. I got her a job from the internet working as a general hand in a factory, much to her delight. There were 30 casual people put on at the factory and they only wanted to keep 2 on and Noi was one of them which was a real feather in her cap as she had the worst English out of the lot but the best work ethic.

While we waited to get married which has to be done within 9 months of her arriving we both worked and sent 9,000 baht a month to the family to take care of her son and mother. We married in Australia in December 2003 in front of family and friends and my wife described it as the greatest day in her life. I agreed that it was the equal to my football team winning the championship for sure.

We married in Thailand when we returned in May 2004. I have no problem with sin sot as that’s part of their culture and that’s what you’re marrying into. After all, she understands my culture of drinking and lazy so fair’s fair. My wife decided 30,000 baht was the amount WE would pay and the family was delighted to receive it with no complaints and it was a great rural Thailand wedding. All up it cost about 45,000 baht including sin sot, all together lot cheaper than our Oz wedding which was about 150,000 baht

The only downside to the wedding was I ordered all the grog and it turned up the day before the wedding but the village couldn’t wait and finished it the same day so they had to go thirsty on the wedding day. Som naam nuh.

2007

Many things have changed in our life for the better with her son from Thailand now approaching his 2 years in Australia and to see a boy with no English from a village progress and adapt the way he has is an amazing experience that I dearly cherish. I could have not wished for a better boy and we have a wonderful father / son relationship.

My wife worked until Christmas this year then gave birth to a beautiful baby girl 10 days later and if I think things couldn’t have got better how wrong I was because now we have the complete family and the happiness is just mind blowing!

After our son came to Australia we sent 3,000 baht a month to her mother until she passed on earlier this year (God bless her) when all sponsorship was ceased.

My wife Noi has not changed. She is the greatest person I have ever met in my life and to see how she treats and takes care of me is to be believed. She does not have an enemy in the world and nobody apart from my jealous mates would know what she did in the past. She is judged on the beautiful person she is. There is no question of her loyalty and love and how we get on and arguments are rare, a far cry from my previous experiences with those farang creatures.

I thank Buddha everyday for the bar industry. It gave me the greatest win of all and just gets better everyday with my wife. I have no regrets at all and am proud I could find such a great person in the bars of Thailand.

Stickman's thoughts:

It is great to hear such a happy story. Long may it continue!

nana plaza