A Thai Woman’s Application for an Aussie Visa

I actually got my wife to write this one. I thought that a reader's story from the Thai female perspective might be a nice change of pace (I know you've done it before with one of your partners).

I’d like to start my story with a short introduction of who I am and why I wanted to go to Australia.

I’m a normal Thai woman. I went to a well-known university of Thailand and decided to go backpacking after my graduation. I went to Chiang Mai after I came back from China and Laos and that’s where I met my Aussie boyfriend.

We happened to stay at the same guesthouse and drink at the same bar.

After a few months of a good friendship, we started to have a romantic relationship and got engaged a few months later.

His family and friends came to our engagement party in Phang Nga. We moved back here after I quit my job as a medical technologist in Petchaburi and started my own tutoring business and online marketing business. I became friends with his friends and that’s the reason why I wanted to go to Australia because our friends are getting married and we would like to be there to celebrate with them.

I decided to apply for the Australian visa 2 months in advance before the wedding, translated all the documents in to English, wrote a letter tell them the reason why I want to go to Australia and went to VFS in Phuket to send my application to Australian embassy.

After 2 weeks of waiting, I got a letter from the Australian embassy that said they had disapproved my application because I have a bad bank statement which is quite understandable because I’ve just transferred 200,000 baht into my bank account 1 month before I sent out the application. Before that I worked in a private laboratory and got paid in cash so I didn’t have any evidence of how much money I made back then and when I started my tutoring business I got paid in cash as well. I called up the embassy to ask them if it’s possible for me to send more document to support my application since I have 700,000 baht in my 4 months old online marketing business account. They said the company is too new and that they don’t think it will help with my application. They said I can try and send them new application but I‘ll have to pay the application fee again which is around 3,000 baht and they don’t think it’ll work. They said “You can try and apply again when your company is at least 1 year old.”

But the thing is I don’t want to just go to Australia and do sightseeing which I can do any times when my paperwork is good but I want to go there THIS time for my friend’s WEDDING which only happens once in a lifetime!

I try to understand their system that they just want to make sure they don’t let some people who want to go to Australia and illegally work there. But in another point I think they shouldn’t just make their decision based on bank statement. I told them that I’d like to go there only for 1 week for my friend’s wedding and we already have accommodation to stay for free there since my boyfriend’s family is there and why would I want a shit load of money to be there?

I’m planning to apply for the Australian visa again soon and since my company’s already 1 year old and been making money and I also got married with my Aussie boyfriend so hopefully this time I’ll get the visa.

Husbands comment: My wife and I had trouble in order to be able to make a quick trip to Perth earlier this year to a wedding. We presented a Thai bank account with (more) than adequate funds, as well as other documentation (such as business ownership) tying my wife to her homeland. In the future, I think we will use a service such as Hunt Migration,
so that we don't have to go through the effort all by ourselves. Our friend in Chiang Mai who is departing for Australia today with his Thai girlfriend (no marriage), has had luck obtaining a visa by talking to an immigration agent in Brisbane.

Stickman says:

Having seen the problems Thais can have applying for visas to visit the West, foreigners coming to Thailand have it so easy!