hello everyone my name's Simon this video is what I've been putting off for
a while - Till it was the right time at it not so much how I met my wife
because that's on previous videos but I mention it how I met my wife dating a
Thai woman who was not in the entertainment jobs and then from dating
planning a marriage getting married moving forwards doing visas to bring us
UK and all the process and then moving on to the UK and she living in the UK to
this date and this is 13 years 14 years so I don't know if I could do all this
in one video but let me try to do a condensed version today I was a bar
manager in Pattaya for two years just managing one of those bars Thai
holiday my wife and her friend came down to Pattaya for a day trip found herself
coming into my bar in the morning for a drink no one else in that I was bent
over a table with a really bad hangover and a headache
I was anyone in the bar with my barmaid toy who was a tomboy and these two girls
walked in they chatted the toy realized that I had a headache
and Mem my wife-to-be there was no paracetamol in the bar she went of to
the shop bought some sara tablets paracetamol came back handed them to me
didn't ask for money that has stuck in my mind always has done, anyway
eventually I bought them drinks got their phone numbers they were from
Bangkok they worked in a factory both of them
my wife mem was the HR manager payroll it was two people doing the same job
which is quite a big Factory and she was in charge of hiring a firing and
salaries and things so they were down for a day trip at time I met her for the first time
four or five months later I left the bar scene moved to Bangkok and had a condo
and I was living in Thailand in Bangkok for two years importing
exporting buying and selling products online and a couple of months after I'd
been there in my condo bit lonely I picked the phone up rang Mem luckily a
friend of hers who spoke English because Mem didn't at the time and I arranged the
date she worked in an area called Paramsom mahachai Omn Noi south of
Bangkok an hour in the traffic to get there now what I haven't mentioned probably on
my videos before my wife I was 38 39 I believe when I left the bar scene she
was 24 23 24 she was half Thai Chinese her mother
was Thai Chinese and the grandmother was Chinese
so she my wife mem had had a boyfriend again Thai Chinese but mainly Chinese
family and they had been together a couple of years boyfriend/girlfriend and
mem they had a child one year before I met her she had a little boy sadly that
relationship did not work out for many many reasons and I won't go into those
and the boyfriend and the family took pretty much pushed mem out of the
relationship and insisted on bringing up Mem's son going on years and years we
then moved in and as in financially 5050 with them I talked to that that the
previous boyfriend and the family and we've jointly
brought up my son-in-law mems them and put him through school and international
school and going on to university so we've contributed and we've seen him many
many times so that's good but he's not been to the UK but he's we see him alot
she'd had a son and parted company and she was sharing a room with her best
friend this is the one that came to the bar and we started dating it was very
hard so it went on for five months she only had Sundays off work a lot of Thai
people work six days a week she only had Sunday's off only time we get
together and I'd get a cab down to one of the shopping centers Paramsom
mahachi and we meet there and for four months we did that every
week gradually mem's English was picking up some words I went out and
bought one of those translators bit like a calculator didn't have Google
Translate in those days but the calculator with a translator and you
could type in entire English and it would Translate wasn't brilliant but it made
the difference and I also brought some English books and Thai books
so we'd meet up and date a lot of our date was trying to talk to each other is
quite it was great it was brilliant I was learning some Thai words she was
learning English and it went on we went on months and months doing this after
I've been living in Bangkok maybe 9 or 10 months Mem managed to get because you
don't get much holiday being a Thai person and the companies but She occasionly
got the odd few hours off or a day off our relationship moved on to the
next step maybe as a set maybe 8 10 months in and i would pay for her get up in a
taxi to Bangkok on weekends like wine and dine her around Bangkok in the evenings
and she'd stay over first contact one of my favorite dining
places was in Siam Square was the Hard Rock Cafe food was good but the service
was brilliant and the music was fabulous and places like that we mem had never
seen the red-light districts the entertainment zones she'd never been in
a go-go bar anything like that and she was inquisitive and kept saying to me
could we have a look can I remember one night we went to SOI cowboy and went
to some gogo bars I mean she was fascinated she was horrified she was shocked it was
completely shock of the system she enjoyed it a little bit the music watching
everyone but she wasn't fust on it at all but you know it was good for her to
see what happens she spent some time with me we started falling in love it
was the love story it was there was a big 15-year gap on the age still is
and we started falling and it was it was we become best mates as well as
boyfriend/girlfriend it was really good and I was making really good money with
the import/export things were going from really good and getting better and
better after a year of dating we decided okay and I started talking to Mem about living together
but I was getting homesick wanted to go to the UK at some point and maybe she
could come and maybe we could settle down and so in the second year in
Bangkok we were getting on to the subjects and it was looking that way
that we were going to settle together which point I decided mem agreed that
she'd leave her job I mean she was earning ten thousand baht a month which
was great in those days but on the import/export I was raking in the money
so she left a job moved into my condo in a
Judas Tower she became such an asset she was
brilliant her English was improving but she was so good at picking up the
numbers the eBay the buying and selling she took to it instantly and having her
speaking Thai with me going out looking for products it was so much easier it
was brilliant we worked as a team for that second year
absolutely marvelous all of this the more details of this are in my new
series the bangkok chronicles so if you go into there you'll hear more about
them and how we did the buying and selling together all of that approaching at the
end of our second year my second year in Bangkok I was getting homesick family
back home and seeing them I've been nearly four years in Thailand and at
this point I said to mem that I'd like to go back so we started looking into the
visa situation and again guys and girls this is 14 years ago maybe 15 and these
are things then were totally different to they are now
you don't have the VFS agency back then you didn't have it you had to go
straight to the British Embassy UK Embassy and again if you're in different
countries different rules applied went online found all the information and a
tourist visa was the way to go for us and it would give them a six-month entry
into the UK at which time she had to leave the UK you have to stick to those
rules otherwise if you want to progress and get married then you'll get know
what happened if you start doing overstays
so we got all the forms together I had to contact families that back home and
banks and things to get all relevant paperwork but mem was methodical because
of her job there was thai versions of the information online as well as the UK
about how you get a visa and whereas I was happy with a dosier about quarter
of an inch thick ten millimeter thick she wasn't we had to get photos together
emails from contacts all the monies we had monies available or her job history
her bank details details of her son and previous relationship we put everything
in certainly everything and it came out it was huge dossier it was like a book
we'd covered every Avenue and then mem pushed me to go to a translation shop
and have everything translated anything Thai to English anything English
to Thai so we ended up with two books one English one time was amazing I still
have those books dossier as I'm sure to this day we had loads we found out the
process you just go along to the UK embassy first thing in the morning you
would queue up go and get a ticket number submit your application this was
funny we turned up and we were told says turn up at five in the morning and it
didn't open till about 8:00 air about and I was a few hours outside and a
queue formed and the guy next to us I remember had just gone to an
entertainment zone picked a girl up the works in a bar just got her thai
passport his passport maybe two bits of paper there was no way they were going
to get over he said surely no way but and they didn't we saw them going up in
a huff and I kept looking as with all our books and dossiers and they're like
yeah that's what you need to do you put more information in than they ask for
more you put in the more chance you get getting a visa you'll bring in I mean
UK Embassy were in those days and probably more so today they are looking
at the type person you're trying to bring in as an immigrant
whether it's holiday settlement marriage whatever they want all the proof that
the girl or partner is going to come into the UK and leave the UK go
back to Thailand and then if you're come in getting married and getting settled
that everything is in place financially it's a huge thing visas bringing a Thai
person to UK or your own country we after the queue we got end of our ticket
and presented our application for the girl on the desk we presented it to was
gave a big smile when we passed all these books and everything in now I
can't exactly remember it's a while a go but I believe a couple of days later we
got an interview we had to go back the interview both of us separately and then
together on the interview for my wife there was a Thai person and a UK
immigration officer clearance officer it was like behind windows in the kiosks
but we had two interviews everything and much to our delight a week later we were
told we'd be informed a week later the decision we later we got the visa first
time got it and we went back wife's passport been
stamped with the visa six month entry to the UK and we go over our paperwork I
that was the first step so two years in Bangkok and you had the Bangkok
Chronicles I want to say too much cause it might spoil it for that but we then left
Bangkok after I've been there two years somchai the apartment we left our
stuff there we came to the UK six months after six months UK we went back to
Thailand and we got wasn't our exact condo on the same floor and we moved
back in from there we went on to do over the next six months we got married in
the ampher in Bangkok sort of registry office I've gone and met the
folks family in two places in Thailand we went on to have a Thai marriage after
the thai marriage we applied for settlement visa which was the big visa
for mem to come to the UK for two years I'll probably do separate videos because
there's so much there may be some good information for you guys but she came we
got the visa that she came to the UK two years later extended visa which was a
visa for remain permission to remain in the UK forever further on she did lots
of exams and tests and citizenship tests and things then she went on to get a
British passport and stayed here and then we did a lot of things in Thailand
together buying land building house and all the rest of it though my other
videos cover that but I might do more on this but that's how we met we dated we
fell in love the first UK tourist visa and then we went back got married I probably
talk for an hour but it would cheese you off I'm sure you get bored questions
drop down below please give me a thumbs up like the video and please share the
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free and I have like answered so many of you subscribers asked me for that story
we skip through it quite quickly but that's the basics if you want more
in-depth information let me know I'll look at that video
thanks so much for watching I hope you enjoyed my story my own life story and
we're still married and we're still in love 13 years on how about that I catch you
soon on one of my other videos bye bye