Visitor’s Visa
I wake up at 5.30 AM, and spring out of bed. She's got her backside hanging out of the bed and as usual theirs a little trickle of dribble at the side of her mouth. She's motionless. I smile; I love waking up to her innocent beauty, looking at beautiful golden skin. I need a poo.
I clean the porcelain, this is one of those stand and crouch affairs stand, – I don’t, I like to sit down like I do at home, I want a wooden toilet seat – but this will do, so I sit on the thing, and hang my arse over the water at the end. I sit quietly contemplating the day ahead. Everyone told me it would be fine – I've put so much effort into the paperwork for her visa its amazing. The British Embassy ask so much – I have two years accounts prepared and attested, pictures of us together over the past 14 months, a year's itemized phone bills – I have highlighted the £840 one from April – that was a beaut. Mounds of paperwork all encased in one folder ready. I know why they ask for it, and I know her chances are slim – she has no reason to return, and you have to have one.
Last night she told me she had forgotten to get two photographs for the application form – I ask you, day after day I've been writing letters, photocopying pages, my secretary has been typing letters for me, and my family have written letters – everyone I know has been involved, I don’t even have to be here, and all I asked her to do was get two bloody pictures – I was stressed out last night – we had to walk about 2 miles until we found somewhere, and she had her slippers on, and was dressed for bed (T-Shirt, and shorts – not naked – we have air-conditioning, and I like it up all the way) – thank god you only need a head and shoulders shot.
I cant use the hose pipe on my arse like she does, and because of the degree of angle you're sat at, and because the standing rim is not designed to be sat on, your cheeks are so far apart….ok, that's enough of that, lets just say you don’t need reels and reels of paper.
I shower; the cold water clears away the cobwebs of dawn.
She stirs as I open the shower room and shed light into the bedroom.
“What you doing?”
“What you think? I have shower.”
“We can go later.”
“No, we can’t – how many times do I have to tell you, the Embassy is open 7.30 and closed 10.30 – there will be a long queue – too many people”
“Ok, ok jai yen yen” (Calm down.)
She frowns, and stretches, and closes her eyes again.
I put the kettle on.
“C’mon – wake up”
“mmmmm.”
“Seriously honey, you have to wake up now.”
“mmmmmmmm.”
I prepare a coffee, and pull out the folder – a last minute check – all seems to be in order, as it was the last time I checked, just before going to sleep.
“OK, if you not wake up, I get cold water” I shake her a little.
“OK, OK jai yen yen.”
“I’ll give you bloody jai yen yen in a minute – get up.”
She grabs a towel and goes into the bathroom, she leaves the door open, and stares at me whilst having a pee –“niiiiice” I say to her.
She showers, and dries off, and looks in her wardrobe – she's put on over 10 kilos since she finished “dancing” a year ago, and none of her clothes fit her anymore – I am an unlimited source of funds for her, but she never asks me for money for clothes shopping, unbelievable for a woman. My ex used to buy new clothes for every pound she put on, and as she ballooned during the course of our marriage from 147 lbs (66.678157 kilos) to 203 lbs (92.07936 kilos) that's a hell of a lot of clothes, fat cow. Anyway, my little teeruk still wears much of the uniform she had before, well perhaps not all the original clothes, but it looks like she's squeezed into clothes about 4 sizes too small for her!
“What about the suite I had made for you.”
“Yeauuuk.”
“You have nothing else smart – you have to hide that tattoo of yours, and look smart.”
“I can wear jeans?.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why do we have to discuss this again – I want you too look smart, and that's it. I look smart, so you look smart.”
“OK, OK.”
She slips on the outfit I had made for her – I was having a suit made, and she was looking at the pictures in Tattler magazine – she pointed at a beautiful woman in a suit and said she would like that – I asked the tailor if he could make something similar, and he said yes – 6,000 baht – I said ok and two days later, skirt, trousers, and jacket, virtually identical to the magazines.
She moans about the outfit now – she chose the bloody thing, so she can wear it.
7 AM we are outside the apartment looking for a taxi – we start to walk, we are later than I wanted. The journey to the Embassy takes 20 mins without traffic, but could take an hour on a Monday morning. As is usual after leaving an air-conditioned room, the Bangkok heat hits you, and I begin to sweat.
“Babe, why you cannot organize taxi before, your friend have taxi, why you not ask him.” I have to talk like this, because she won't understand otherwise – if I had spoken English to her, I would have said something like. “Where's that fat ugly twat of a taxi driver that overcharges me for every journey I ask him to do? Why didn’t you bloody call him yesterday so I don’t have to walk along this god forsaken road, that stinks of piss and sewerage.” But I didn’t.
We reach the end of the road, about 500 yards and I stop to mop my brow with a hanky, and she frowns at me. (Lots of people frown at me when I take out a handkerchief? Call me old fashioned, but a toilet roll, or a box of tissues aren’t as handy to carry as a clean handkerchief every morning, and it has so many uses, aside from nose blowing – I digress.
I always digress, when you write these things you've got so many things buzzing around in your head. I don’t make these intentionally witty, but Thailand is a kind of funny place, so your own observations tend to be witty – I digress.
Thailand, what a wonderful place – now where was I, oh yes, at the end of the road being frowned at.
We stop a taxi driver, and he won't take us to the embassy, because it’s the other side of town, and its too busy – bloody helpful – does that mean that when the taxi metee is ticking away in the stationary traffic, he would rather drive around looking for a short journey somewhere without traffic? Surely the idea of the meter is for it to be on, and working as often, and as long as possible. Maybe it goes around too slowly in traffic, but Bangkok has, traffic – lots of it, wherever he goes there will be traffic.
The next taxi driver is more amenable and off we go. We arrive outside the embassy, and there's a queue, a bloody massive queue. It's 8 AM and people have been going into the embassy for 30 minutes, but there's still a horde outside. (Unlike many Thai institutions, this is a British business, so it will have opened on time, and all the staff will be there on time, and it will close on time or perhaps a little later to be helpful!)
We join the queue, and I get a nervous laugh from my girlfriend – she had no idea what to expect. We pass through the metal detector – well I kind of skip through and try hard to resist the urge to wave at the audience upon exit “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be Anthony Worrel Thompson” Sorry, that's an English TV show – and I look a bit like a TV celeb chef. I digress. My girlfriend sets off smoke alarms, we get a cold shower of water as she sets off the water sprinklers – OK, I exaggerate, but she didn’t watch me and remove things from her jacket, so she's got a telephone, keys, money, a binder full of papers etc – the security guard looked at her with that, “Bloody hell, how big has the poster got to be before these girls read it.” Yes, on the wall it clearly gives you instructions. “If you set off our alarms, we will be asking you to bend over whilst a man with big hands inserts several fingers inside your rectum, using swarfega as a lubricant rather than KY (Swarfega is a detergent, it removes oil from your hands, mechanics use it, and I expect Dana uses it on his last night, or first night in Bangkok. It has a very nice smell actually, but the abrasive sand in it can be excruciating painful if not used correctly) Anyway, she emptied her pockets and passed through ok. (I would have offered to help her, but you're whisked off around the corner into the queue, and she likes to carry everything, probably.)
The queue inside is long too. There's a man filling out his form on the back of his girlfriend – I guess he doesn’t know the score – he is unlikely to get past stage 1, let alone get the visa application looked at. Another man is stood there with his girl, reads the application form, talks to his girl, then leaves. (I guess he realized that he needs a mound of information with his application.) Another man is arguing with the girls at the counter. Apparently he doesn’t think the British government have any right to inspect his bank accounts, (any more than they have the right to give his girlfriend a visa!) so he didn’t bring any bank statements with him to prove he can support her during her visit. He's now telling them he's flown a long way to help process this application with his girlfriend. The girl behind the counter tells him, as it says on the embassy web site, “Actually sir, there is no requirement for the sponsor to be here at all” I smile; my girlfriend bites her finger nails.
I’m enjoying this experience – I love to read, I love Stick's website and all the regular submissions. The embassy web site is a good read too. I wish many of the people in the queue had read it, and then this queue would have been shorter.
I would love to be in control of the queue.
“Sorry sir, you can’t fill out your application in this queue, you're obviously too stupid to even have a girlfriend. Please leave.”
“Sir, you're wearing shorts and a stupid T-Shirt – you cannot get a visa, in fact we are not sure you should be allowed back into our country at all, let alone with your new girlfriend, who incidentally has just picked her nose. Her Majesty's government does not allow public displays of nose picking, please leave.”
“Sir, judging by the strength of your body odor, we would like to scrub you down with a lubricant we have out the back that our mechanics use, would you please come with me. Don’t worry about your girlfriend's visa, she's not having one.”
Finally we reached the counter, many of the forms and papers are briefly read, and the application is taken away – we are number 52.
You enter a small courtyard, and in front of you to the left, there is a fairly large building with lots of interview rooms, and counters – a bit like being in a bank at home. It says number 27 on the digital board. We are in for a wait. We go outside for a cigarette.
Two girls approach me. “Are you English?”
I’m wearing a blazer, collared shirt and tie, and it’s 34 degrees in the shade, I’m over weight, and balding, and I’m standing with a Thai girl at the British embassy!
“Yes!“
“You can help us.”
No, I want a cigarette now.
“What can I do to help?”
“My boyfriend tell me fill paper up, and I not know what to do about school.”
Your boyfriend stupid Farang?
“School? – Please show me” I said
“I go to school in Liverpool and writing on visa.”
You need it, your English is as crap as my Thai.
“OK, do you have a letter from the school?”.
“I have this”. (She pulled out a brochure from the school).
Your boyfriend stupid.
“Do you have any paper writing from school?”.
“No”.
Your boyfriend very stupid.
“OK, let me write the name of the school on the application form. Has the school confirmed they have a place for you?”
“?” Look of puzzlement.
“Does the school know you come to them”?
“Oh, yes, I book already”.
“Where is paper from school?”
“Only have this”.
You're fucked.
“OK, I write name your school here, and tell me when you start at school.”
“I not know.”
You're fucked, and your boyfriend is very stupid. You have as much chance of getting a visa, as I do getting a 30 metre super yacht in the Mediterranean, sprawling with 18 to 23 year old girls from every Penthouse magazine front cover over the past year.
“OK, here are your papers – good luck.”
My girlfriend is a little annoyed I helped the girls. She also keeps telling me we are over dressed. I tell her, everyone else is under dressed.
A short while later a tall fellow comes over.
I noticed you helping those girls with their application form, I have a bit of a problem, and I hoped you could help.
He's English.
“Of course.”
“I’m dyslexic.”
“Oh, shit”.
“Yeah, the Embassy have asked me to fill out my application form, and though I tried to explain, they said I have too complete it.”
“Oh, shit – let me look” I look, “You've not done anything then.”
“No” “Can you help.”
“Of course.”
It turned out the poor sod had come to Bangkok with his Thai wife on holiday, and overstayed. His visa was ok, but her UK spouse visa had run out.
I helped him complete the form. And he told me to come to his bed and breakfast on the south coast with my girlfriend sometime.
Nice bloke, I hope his application was successful – he was number 73.
Number 47 comes up, so we head inside. I get talking to a rather portly gent. He makes a food product in England and ships it to Thailand– he told me it was a license to print money! He didn’t ask what I do – I buy and sell food products from Thailand too! I’m not telling you what the product was – it’s a license to print money!
Finally, our number. My girlfriend smiles a nervous smile, and disappears around the corner to counter 4.
She's back in 5 minutes – “So?”
“We're too early.” “Have to try again next month.”
Perhaps I should have read ALL the information on the British Embassy website, just like 75% of the people at the embassy that morning should have done.
Stickman says:
Visa stories are always funny and this one is GREAT!
