Six Months – The View from the Chicken Farm

I know I will regret writing this – maybe before Stickman even gets to post it up! – but I wrote a piece on here a while back where I discussed some of the cons that are perpetrated here in Thailand and in particular mentioned one lady who had taken me for the ride of rides, it was called ‘Three Months’.
I’m a gentleman and don’t lie and hence want and maybe have to write an updated, partly corrective and partly reflective piece now. To do this I am grateful in part for the work of an unknown author who penned ‘
Why I would never marry a Thai’ back in 2005, easily the best article I’ve seen posted on this forum and lauded as such at the
time.

The author suggests that there are five key reasons for their distrust of a Thai spouse. They listed Honesty-Integrity; Intellectualism-Style v. Substance; Value of a Husband; Accommodation, Compromise, Gratitude and finally Sex. I’ll take a couple of those as I review the events of the last six months for me now. Firstly, what is honesty? For me – and most Westerners I would imagine apart from Tony Blair – it is about telling the truth. Here in Thailand it seems much more around not telling a lie that can be found out or setting a truth that is based on some facts but is embellished beyond recognition, even to the extent of when a photograph or an email confirms the contrary.

To explain, I nearly married a girl I met on the Internet last year. She was really cute, bright, polite and had a good job here in Thailand in the medical profession (I know Stickman is cautious about professions and stuff so I am trying to make this as generic as possible). We trolled off to the Ampher at Bang Rak after I sorted out the necessary paperwork from the authorities (NB if you do marry here, don’t waste money on the agents and such, the details are all online and it takes about two days straight… the Thai officials are actually really efficient and helpful up at Lak Si). There was a hitch though and we couldn’t sign up – a problem on her side with paperwork and change of names.

RULE ONE: Get a pre-nuptial agreement. Now I know what happens and how easy it is for Thais to A) claim stake to 50% of all your assets and B) to declare a ‘no fault’ divorce. I was lucky but could have lost a mint otherwise, tens of millions of Thai baht. Dickhead!

Problems started cropping up when I found her picture on the internet alongside a guy who claimed to be her husband. I pushed hard on this for details but was given a raft of stories and on reflection the most plausible set of lies I’ve ever heard. This lady was a true professional and I have never seen or met anyone so able to concoct a story or weave a tale. If I am honest it is the horniest thing – sure looks help but it's brains really for me – and this girl took me for a good ’un. She was and is a brilliant, brilliant liar. Turns out she’s been on the Internet for (at least) seven years and has had untold hundreds of suitors. I can’t give the name but an Internet search throws up more and more history, even the possibility of a kid when she was 15 now seems to be found online if you look hard enough!

All the usual old stuff then, nothing new. Here’s the rub from my side. I went home after three months and thought I’d escaped. But no, this lady had my email address and a rather strong set of dialogues followed – accusations of rape and all sorts. I got the Thai and UK embassies involved and things eventually calmed down. There then followed what can only be described as an online mother of all battles between me and the ‘husband’ – who despite all her philandering was still smitten and is to this day – over the right to be conned further by this lass!

Silly I know but when in lust. Anyway, long story shortened ends up with me coming back to Thailand – I was due back anyway en route to Australia and I had the slight upper hand over the ‘husband’. He had no paperwork, just the usual sacrificial lamb sin sot ceremony in deepest darkest Buriram (he’s sent the pictures) and of course has shelled out about a million baht for the chastity of this fair maiden. She was, according to her, pregnant, as he is an older guy and serves his coffee ‘white without’ so to speak. I was a likely candidate. Or so I thought anyway.

I’ve been with the lady on and off now for a month more and we’ve been based in Sin City. Usual stuff – fabulous food, fabulous fun, fabulous sex. I’d almost made up my mind to do the deed properly this time and take her back to the UK. We even did a couple of days down south at a hospital there… she’d claimed to be a nurse and to her credit actually turns out to be one although not perhaps as loftily qualified or well-paid as she suggested when we first met up. She’d brighten up my life back home though well enough, if only I could trust her.

RULE TWO: Be careful in the remote Thai hospitals… this lady has some qualifications but the checking procedure for her temporary employment as a haemodialysis nurse was whether she would turn up or not. A uniform and a smile goes a long way here in Thailand after all.

So can I trust her, or can you trust any of the Thai girls you find on the InterWeb? I think not. I’m a miserable bugger at the best of times and retentive with a capital ‘A’. I blew up when I found the secreted messages to the ex-husband on the mobile but it was actually my own stupidity that did the worst. I’d not realised that she coded phone numbers – Thai language is the one protection they have here and they use it all the time against us – and secreted them all over the place. The numbers for the missing ‘names’ were there in front of my face all the time.

So the fact is that she has not one but three falang – at least! – who think they are her husband or at least are engaged to her and supporting her whilst she works hard in various hospitals up and down the country. I’ve even now got pictures of her in a nurse uniform with the surname of one of these guys on the lapel! I’ve not let go though and tracked all of them down. the last one was a diver from South Africa. He’s spent less money but more time on her than most. Assume he’ll see sense now and disappear too but maybe she’ll work her magic… he was not convinced when I called him.

Anyway, now to the moral of this ramble. I started with that list that included honesty and the role of a husband. Here’s what gets me. Three different guys have assumed that she was their wife / intended to be wife… yet have effectively left her on her own in Thailand. She disappears from contact via email and phone for days and weeks on end yet they don’t seem to either cotton on or guess that something is amiss. Is she wrong for doing what she does or are we stupid for allowing then to do this. After all, the idea of a long time plan for a Thai seems to be what to have for supper.

I’m lucky. I work intermittently so have spent three and then two months here with her and have had sole possession-ish for that time. I’ve made sure I keep her mobile under control and locked down emails accounts, so I know she’s been reasonably straight… and the husbands confirm that they have heard little or nothing from her. She professes undying love for me face-to-face and would even sign a pre-nuptial now just so that I take her to the UK, where she’s been once before (who knows who paid for that one of course). But that is not a basis for trust so what does one do?

RULE THREE: If you are going to commit to a Thai wife, make sure you can do it on their terms and in person the whole time. I guess the view here is that we tolleh just as much as them if not more so, so if we are not on site so to speak, then the door is always going to be open.

Stickman suggested I exit stage left last time I was here and I should have done that. The ticket to Oz has to be used in a week from now and the nonsense that is Songkran here in Pattaya makes me inclined to go tonight, it is that stupid. My mind was made up though when I used some of those less well know aspects of Hotmail to search a bit further about her. Her back-up email account is run would you believe by an Arab with a taste shall we say for rather unusual porn and actions. Still, I got there in the end… it's only taken six months J. I’ve thought long and hard about whether to post my name on here or not, but think I should do… if only to know if there are others out there who are in a similar boat and maybe even linked to the same medical nutcase.

Do let me, and her Kiwi, Danish and South African sami know won’t you! Chok dee.