Thai GF Coming to UK

[Budinga]

Thanx alot for the info. Well she is only gonna come to the uk for 2 weeks to meet the familly and everything. She dosent have internet access so no emails but we text almost every single day. As for hotel recipts well to be ohnest im the kind of person who loses them after about 10 min. Just 1 quick qestion do i have to book the ticket before we apply for the visa would it be harder if i didnt. I know the dates she will be comming, i just want to be sure the dates i will be off work. Also i was thinking of going straght to the uk embassy and applying is this a bad idea. Also any idea of roughly how much it will cost me?

[louialive]

Hi everyone
I did promise in my last post that I would keep you updated. But if I am honest I had forgotten about the site

Everything went fantastic with her time here in the UK in 2009. She went back to Thailand January 2010. I was devestated when she had to go back.

We talked about the future before she went back and I proposed to her and she accepted phew!!

The plan was she would go back sort out what she needed for us to get married in amphur then I would go in March sort my paperwork out and then we would get married and bring her back the sametime as me subject to getting the visa.

She went to the test centre to have her TB xray beginning of February 2010. The Xray showed up scars from when she had TB 12 years ago. She then had to supply sputum test over three days and wait for 2months to see if anyithng developed. I went to Thailand beginning of March for 2 weeks. On the first night we went to our restaurant in BKK (we call it ours as it is the first one we went to when I met her first time and we go there everytime now) during the evening I went on one knee and proposed again and gave her engagement ring. She was well impressed that I remembered her ring size. She said YES again by the way.

We spent two days sorting out my paperwork affirmation etc and then got married 11th March 2010.

The amphur marriage is a pretty dull affair about as un romantic as you could make it. But I made sure we had some photos of the moment, we paid for a nice folder for the certificate and had photos taken with the guy in charge and some photos of us holding the folder showing the certificate.They also had a carriage in the amphur so they took some photos of us on this. These photos are also useful for the visa application.

After this we spent 4 days in Koh Chan I then came back to the UK and my wife prepared all the paperwork and folder for the Settlement Visa.

We did the visa paperwork ourselves, it was very easy providing you have everything prepared. The visa application went in about 3 weeks before the troubles but we had the visa afer 9 weeks. Turnned out the embassy had been trying to ring my wife before this but they had her mobile number down wrong. She contacted them after they decided to email her.

So in May 2010 I flew to BKK stayed there for 3 days and then flew back with my wife.

When we got to passport control we both went to the EU line together no problem there and shorter queue than the other liens. They checked bio metrics etc for my wife and then sent us to a Medical section for them to look at the TB test certificate. There was no doctor there as one had finnished and the next one had not come in yet. The reception people took photo copies of the information and due to the fact there was a report on the details about her previous TB they said that she would probably need to go to a hospital local to us to see a specialist. She has since been to hospital and given the all clear.

It is fantastic being together again and I am really excited about the future and all it holds.

I will keep you updated about our progress.

Louialive

[Khun Don]

Thanks for getting back-it is always nice to read a happy ending!

Best wishes to you both.

[Budinga]

congrats, nice to see a great outcome. I too had a great outcome it was very easy indeed we applyed for the visa and got it in 3 days, she come over for a few weeks and we had a great time, since i have been back to Thailand too. Shes thinking of comming over next year again, as i am going in November, so i will be taking all the necesary paperwork when i go this time.

[AzureAussie]

Thanks for the update, nice to read here about a different stage in the journey. Good luck with the future.

[RamblingSam]

One big cultural shock will be not being able to buy/eat Durians!
Thai society is quite different to ours, with very stong family and relative bonds, so gettin ger a similar network will be appreciated by her!

[paul_au]

Congratulations, I wish you & your wife a long and happy marriage.

[Lime]

Birthday cake and a present surely would be appreciated.

Also if you have a local Thai Temple nearby just go there and make merrit; also a good chance for you two to get in contact with Thai people or even other Thai-English couples.

I don't think she needs those Thais and temples at this stage. She is going to England to get to know England, its people and culture. She will be able to find Thais at later time. Just help her to get to know England as much as possible.

When I first moved to Australia, I didn't know any Thais in the first five years as I wanted to feel comfortable and settled first. There are a lot of Thais who come here and are desperate to find Thais but they forget that they are in Australia so what they know Thais and some are not settled :(

Good luck.
Lime

[Marie]

I don't think she needs those Thais and temples at this stage. She is going to England to get to know England, its people and culture. She will be able to find Thais at later time. Just help her to get to know England as much as possible.

I beg to disagree. Well, I know people differ from one another. But generally, I think persons who have been uprooted from their country, families and friends find comfort in meeting countrymen during the initial stages of their stay in a foreign land-- if only to exchange notes about culture shocks or to find solutions to some common problems confronting them as foreigners (thus eliminating some needs to reinvent the wheel). The problems could be as trivial as to where to buy this or that or as serious as how to manage certain racial discrimination issues.

Sometimes just to be able to speak the native language or swap homegrown jokes with another person already bring cheer to a homesick individual!

Hence, there are benefits both in the mental and emotional levels.

As to knowing that country in question, I believe meeting with compatriots will even hasten it as it shortens the learning curve.

[AzureAussie]

Lime and Marie both make good points on an issue I interpret as in the area of potential "culture shock". (It is a common phenomena and there is plenty of systematic writing on it.) Making a new culture your lifetime home is a profound thing and can challenge our identity at a fundamental level. The crisis of that challenge to our identity is severe for some people and mild for others but there usually is a crisis point, even if it's only obvious in hindsight. Lime's approach is a legitimate way to negotiate the process of mastering the new culture as it removed the likelihood of retreating into her cultural comfort zones and perhaps becoming stuck there and never achieving mastery of her new situation. Marie's approach is equally legitimate as many people need a slower learning curve or a gentler change gradient that matches their internal resources and comfort levels. Cultural mastery can be achieved either path. Never without massive effort though.