# Angry and Frustrated



## gino

I am angry and frustrated today.

I invited a lady friend from the Philippines to visit me. I had wanted her to visit me in the States, but the only way for that to happen would have been with a fiancée visa which would have involved a bit of artifice with the State Department. I don’t mind circumventing unfair laws, particularly those that discriminate against fun-loving bachelors. However, it would have also involved raising questions I didn’t care to raise. Anyway, it never happened. 

But visiting Thailand seemed a much simpler, more attainable goal. She has a passport. Filipinas don’t even need a visa for visits of thirty days or less. Fares on a puddle jumper were fairly inexpensive. What could possibly go wrong? 

I sent her money for the tickets and incidental expenses and looked forward to seeing her again after two long years. 

The travel agency wouldn’t sell her the ticket without a notarized letter of invitation. 

I checked the Thai consulate web site and argued with the agency, but they were insistent. So I trekked out to the Thai consular offices, which are about halfway to the Myanmar border, where I was assured by several earnest government employees that she didn’t need a letter of invitation. 

A terse letter to the travel agency elicited a clarification. While she doesn’t need an invitation to enter Thailand, she needs one to leave the Philippines because there is always “prejudice” against Filipinas. They obviously aren’t heeding Chairman Mao’s advice on emigration policy. 

Thailand doesn’t really have notaries. The embassy will notarize documents for U.S. citizens and some lawyers will notarize documents for a fairly hefty fee, but you can’t just drop by your friendly neighborhood bank and get something notarized as a favor. 

The red-shirt protests and government intervention gave me a couple of unanticipated days off, but also resulted in the embassies closing, as well as law offices. But in the midst of the mayhem the U.S. embassy set up temporary accommodations for consular services at a hotel so I spent a morning cribbing an invitation from an example found on the Internet and getting it notarized. 

I couldn’t send it right away because the post office, FedEx and UPS were also closed. But the letter and other requested documents eventually began their journey. 

Meanwhile, the travel agency suggested a plan B. Apparently girls aren’t harassed at the airport if they are traveling in the company of a tourist, so the agency proposed arranging for one of their other clients to beard for me. But somehow that never happened. Marylyn says she waited for them to text her, but they never followed through. 

Meanwhile, my documents arrived in the Philippines and the agency assured me the invitation letter would suffice. 

But the money I sent Marylyn for her ticket had somehow evaporated, so I sent her money for two more tickets and incidentals. 

Finally, all the pieces were in place. The e-ticket was issued. The wait was over. I checked on the airport shuttle schedule and bought her a T-shirt printed in Thai with “I heart Thailand.” 

They wouldn’t let her on the plane. 

I’m not sure of all the details. I got a tearful call from a hysterical girl speaking in broken English. Apparently, the Philippine emigration officer wasn’t satisfied with her invitation letter and claimed it wasn’t an original, which doesn’t make sense as it was embossed with an official seal. I suspect he simply wanted a bribe. If she had called from the airport, I could have suggested she try to smooth things out with a contribution to the Greedy Scumbags Benevolent Association, but she didn’t call me until she got home. She had exhausted the prepaid balance on her cell phone and had not replenished it, as she wouldn’t be using the phone in Thailand and the official wouldn’t allow her to use his phone. It’s a bit of a lame excuse, as they sell phone cards at the airport. At least they do in Manila. But one can’t expect an emotionally distraught girl to think clearly. 

My plans for the next month have gone out the window. 

But it doesn’t end there. Today she went to the travel agency to try to pick up the pieces. They were closed. In her agitation, she left her cell phone in the trike (a motorcycle taxi with a covered side car). This is the third phone she’s gone through in the past two years. 

Maybe Nona is trying to tell me something. 

It isn’t like there aren’t enough pretty girls in Thailand. 

She’s cuter than most, but still.


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## Guest

> one can’t expect an emotionally distraught girl to think clearly


Hmm. Ever the cynic, are you absolutely certain that Marylyn's thinking hasn't in fact been crystal clear throughout, whilst on the other hand the Bangkok pollution and humidity has been having something of a dulling effect on your usual perspicacity?


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## gino

There is Yin and Yang in everything.

The masculine concept of truth encompasses those things that can be verified by independent observation and repetition, applying the scientific method. But the feminine side of the brain refuses to accept those things that don’t feel right. 

I don’t believe everything Marylyn says. It’s quite possible she couldn’t call from the airport because she lost her phone weeks ago and planned to hit me up for a new phone when she got here. But it’s inconceivable that she sold the phone. Cell phones are a status symbol and she loved that phone. If she needed money, she would have asked me before selling her phone. 

I know she didn’t pocket the money and lie about buying the tickets. Again, if she wanted money, she would have asked for it, which isn’t to say I would have given it to her. Also the agency sent me a copy of the e-tickets which are nonrefundable. I’m hoping the airline will reschedule due to the circumstances. 

In terms of emotional truths, I’m not looking for a wife or homemaker or a mother for my children or eternal love and devotion. I’m sure she’ll someday find somebody who is better marriage material than I and when that day comes, she’ll drop me like first period algebra.


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## Guest

Glad to hear you are maintaining a healthy level of scepticism, which can be a major plus when footloose and free in Bangkok! Still, your masculine Western logic is being applied to the thought processes of a SE Asian female, so there may yet be some scenarios that haven't occurred to you!


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## gino

*Unconditional Surrender?*

It’s all part of a seedy little scam. Now the travel agency is telling me they can arrange to get her cleared through emigration, no questions asked, by engaging a sort of VIP service which will cost me another PHP 8,000 or about $171. And I need to buy a new outbound ticket and pay a rebooking fee to reschedule her return flight so her trip won’t be curtailed by the week’s delay.

We should have simply let the Japanese keep the Philippines.


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## Guest

Starts to make sense. The best you can hope for is that your Marylyn wasn't in on the scam. I wouldn't bet on it though 

Things can only look up ...


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## blue eyes

Cut your losses now.It really looks like she is in on it.You have not seen her in two years,think about it.


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## JWilliamson

Is she broke? It seems you have to pay for everything and maybe shes immature and afraid to meet you in person?


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## gino

*Unjustly maligned*

It seems my omission of a few details for the sake of brevity and comic effect has inadvertently painted an unfair image of Marylyn. 

I’m quite certain she is not part of the scam. She hasn’t profited from this except by spending the money I initially sent her for the tickets. A week or so after the travel agency refused to sell her the tickets without an invitation letter, she told me she had spent part of the money. If it were a matter of concern to me, I could have objected, told her she would have to repay me, cancelled the trip or insisted she not spend any more of the money, but I did not. I told her not to worry about it. By this, I did not intend to give her license to spend the rest of the money, but neither did I prohibit or discourage her from doing so. She had had her heart set on a trip that had been unjustly denied her. Naturally, she wanted to indulge herself in some other way by getting her hair done or buying a new outfit or calling her sister in Australia. While inviting a girl to join you for a vacation in another country is probably not a good time to be ขี้เหนียว. 

Marylyn has her own agenda that doesn’t always coincide with mine. I suggested she bring an outfit I bought her for when we go dancing. Her plan is to bring a minimum of clothes, so I’ll be obliged to buy her new outfits. But she’s not being devious about it. That’s just the way girls are. Besides, I’m sure the jeans I bought her two years ago are no longer in fashion, even if my lack of fashion sense precludes recognizing how hopelessly outmoded they’ve become. 

On the other hand, I suspect the travel agency will pocket half of the VIP processing fee.


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## JWilliamson

*the things men do for love*



gino said:


> It seems my omission of a few details for the sake of brevity and comic effect has inadvertently painted an unfair image of Marylyn.
> 
> I’m quite certain she is not part of the scam. She hasn’t profited from this except by spending the money I initially sent her for the tickets. A week or so after the travel agency refused to sell her the tickets without an invitation letter, she told me she had spent part of the money. If it were a matter of concern to me, I could have objected, told her she would have to repay me, cancelled the trip or insisted she not spend any more of the money, but I did not. I told her not to worry about it. By this, I did not intend to give her license to spend the rest of the money, but neither did I prohibit or discourage her from doing so. She had had her heart set on a trip that had been unjustly denied her. Naturally, she wanted to indulge herself in some other way by getting her hair done or buying a new outfit or calling her sister in Australia. While inviting a girl to join you for a vacation in another country is probably not a good time to be ขี้เหนียว.
> 
> Marylyn has her own agenda that doesn’t always coincide with mine. I suggested she bring an outfit I bought her for when we go dancing. Her plan is to bring a minimum of clothes, so I’ll be obliged to buy her new outfits. But she’s not being devious about it. That’s just the way girls are. Besides, I’m sure the jeans I bought her two years ago are no longer in fashion, even if my lack of fashion sense precludes recognizing how hopelessly outmoded they’ve become.
> 
> On the other hand, I suspect the travel agency will pocket half of the VIP processing fee.


So now whats she doing? Will you fly to her?


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## JWilliamson

*angry and frustrated*



JWilliamson said:


> So now whats she doing? Will you fly to her?


who are you angry and frustrated at? at the paper work and the red tape?


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## gino

JWilliamson said:


> So now whats she doing? Will you fly to her?


If I fly there, I can only stay a week or so. If she flies here, we can spend thirty days together and I can still fly there when my schedule allows.


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## gino

*What, no app?*



gino said:


> If I fly there, I can only stay a week or so. If she flies here, we can spend thirty days together and I can still fly there when my schedule allows.


There's usually not a whole lot of paperwork associated with bribes. 

The travel agency has been less than communicative and could have saved me several hundred dollars if they had played it straight. 

Mostly I'm angry with Steve Jobs for selling me an iPhone that doesn't have an app pre-installed for detecting hustles.


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## Serendipity2

gino said:


> I am angry and frustrated today.
> 
> I invited a lady friend from the Philippines to visit me. I had wanted her to visit me in the States, but the only way for that to happen would have been with a fiancée visa which would have involved a bit of artifice with the State Department. I don’t mind circumventing unfair laws, particularly those that discriminate against fun-loving bachelors. However, it would have also involved raising questions I didn’t care to raise. Anyway, it never happened.
> 
> But visiting Thailand seemed a much simpler, more attainable goal. She has a passport. Filipinas don’t even need a visa for visits of thirty days or less. Fares on a puddle jumper were fairly inexpensive. What could possibly go wrong?
> 
> I sent her money for the tickets and incidental expenses and looked forward to seeing her again after two long years.
> 
> The travel agency wouldn’t sell her the ticket without a notarized letter of invitation.
> 
> I checked the Thai consulate web site and argued with the agency, but they were insistent. So I trekked out to the Thai consular offices, which are about halfway to the Myanmar border, where I was assured by several earnest government employees that she didn’t need a letter of invitation.
> 
> A terse letter to the travel agency elicited a clarification. While she doesn’t need an invitation to enter Thailand, she needs one to leave the Philippines because there is always “prejudice” against Filipinas. They obviously aren’t heeding Chairman Mao’s advice on emigration policy.
> 
> Thailand doesn’t really have notaries. The embassy will notarize documents for U.S. citizens and some lawyers will notarize documents for a fairly hefty fee, but you can’t just drop by your friendly neighborhood bank and get something notarized as a favor.
> 
> The red-shirt protests and government intervention gave me a couple of unanticipated days off, but also resulted in the embassies closing, as well as law offices. But in the midst of the mayhem the U.S. embassy set up temporary accommodations for consular services at a hotel so I spent a morning cribbing an invitation from an example found on the Internet and getting it notarized.
> 
> I couldn’t send it right away because the post office, FedEx and UPS were also closed. But the letter and other requested documents eventually began their journey.
> 
> Meanwhile, the travel agency suggested a plan B. Apparently girls aren’t harassed at the airport if they are traveling in the company of a tourist, so the agency proposed arranging for one of their other clients to beard for me. But somehow that never happened. Marylyn says she waited for them to text her, but they never followed through.
> 
> Meanwhile, my documents arrived in the Philippines and the agency assured me the invitation letter would suffice.
> 
> But the money I sent Marylyn for her ticket had somehow evaporated, so I sent her money for two more tickets and incidentals.
> 
> Finally, all the pieces were in place. The e-ticket was issued. The wait was over. I checked on the airport shuttle schedule and bought her a T-shirt printed in Thai with “I heart Thailand.”
> 
> They wouldn’t let her on the plane.
> 
> I’m not sure of all the details. I got a tearful call from a hysterical girl speaking in broken English. Apparently, the Philippine emigration officer wasn’t satisfied with her invitation letter and claimed it wasn’t an original, which doesn’t make sense as it was embossed with an official seal. I suspect he simply wanted a bribe. If she had called from the airport, I could have suggested she try to smooth things out with a contribution to the Greedy Scumbags Benevolent Association, but she didn’t call me until she got home. She had exhausted the prepaid balance on her cell phone and had not replenished it, as she wouldn’t be using the phone in Thailand and the official wouldn’t allow her to use his phone. It’s a bit of a lame excuse, as they sell phone cards at the airport. At least they do in Manila. But one can’t expect an emotionally distraught girl to think clearly.
> 
> My plans for the next month have gone out the window.
> 
> But it doesn’t end there. Today she went to the travel agency to try to pick up the pieces. They were closed. In her agitation, she left her cell phone in the trike (a motorcycle taxi with a covered side car). This is the third phone she’s gone through in the past two years.
> 
> Maybe Nona is trying to tell me something.
> 
> It isn’t like there aren’t enough pretty girls in Thailand.
> 
> She’s cuter than most, but still.



Gino,

I went through the same thing about 2 1/2 years ago with our good old State Department. I wanted to invite a friend I met on my travels to eastern Europe. I had an extra air ticket [free] to use and thought it would be fun to show her my area of the world and a trip to California for the "big do" the third week in August for automobile lovers/fanatics. Long story short, they told her one thing and me another. Finally I pinned the ******s down and they agreed she could come.....

But I would have to agree to be FULLY responsible for her financially should she be injured/hospitalized or decide to stay in America. Regretfully I couldn't afford to take a chance so I had to disappoint her. One other tidbit they admitted - she COULD get a visa to come here, get on the airplane, make the long journey and arrive in the USA and the immigration person she first met with could deny her and send her packing - it's TOTALLY up to that person. The recourse she would have had at that point would be to remain in detention, hire an attorney and appear before a judge. She would probably have prevailed BUT I doubt she could have afforded the attorney. Evidently our vaunted US government has as it's motto, "we're not happy until you're not happy". Vote them ALL out. 

Meanwhile MILLIONS of "undocumented aliens" aka illegals waltz across our border every year. Once here NO ONE bothers them unless they run afoul of the law and even then they might just do a "catch and release". Our government seems to hate two groups of people - any female from the Philippines and any bachelor wanting to invite her to our country. Or, apparently, to Thailand.

As a last suggestion, why not hop on an airplane, fly there and bring her back with you. I know it would cost a bit much but that might work. 

Serendipity2


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## Felixtoo2

I think I`d be angry that I`d been ripped off and frustrated that i`d been so daft!!
I don`t mean to be rude but there are proabably a hundred guys reading this who have been caught up in something similar.


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## Thai Bigfoot

Gino,

Jeeze, you don't want to marry her. You aren't in love with her. Yet, you're spend a bunch of money to see her after two years. Assuming what you said (above) is accurate, does the phrase "On to the next" make any sense to you?


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## Asian Spirit

*Too Many Poblems*



Serendipity2 said:


> Gino,
> 
> I went through the same thing about 2 1/2 years ago with our good old State Department. I wanted to invite a friend I met on my travels to eastern Europe. I had an extra air ticket [free] to use and thought it would be fun to show her my area of the world and a trip to California for the "big do" the third week in August for automobile lovers/fanatics. Long story short, they told her one thing and me another. Finally I pinned the ******s down and they agreed she could come.....
> 
> But I would have to agree to be FULLY responsible for her financially should she be injured/hospitalized or decide to stay in America. Regretfully I couldn't afford to take a chance so I had to disappoint her. One other tidbit they admitted - she COULD get a visa to come here, get on the airplane, make the long journey and arrive in the USA and the immigration person she first met with could deny her and send her packing - it's TOTALLY up to that person. The recourse she would have had at that point would be to remain in detention, hire an attorney and appear before a judge. She would probably have prevailed BUT I doubt she could have afforded the attorney. Evidently our vaunted US government has as it's motto, "we're not happy until you're not happy". Vote them ALL out.
> 
> Meanwhile MILLIONS of "undocumented aliens" aka illegals waltz across our border every year. Once here NO ONE bothers them unless they run afoul of the law and even then they might just do a "catch and release". Our government seems to hate two groups of people - any female from the Philippines and any bachelor wanting to invite her to our country. Or, apparently, to Thailand.
> 
> As a last suggestion, why not hop on an airplane, fly there and bring her back with you. I know it would cost a bit much but that might work.
> 
> Serendipity2


Tell ya what, I've have been coming to the Philippines since the me 90's and have live here in the Philippines for over seven years.
Seems to me you are or have been badly used. lost cell phone? A Filipina will protect a cell phone like it was a virgin daughter. Forget to get a load for the phone? Hahaha--never. And finally trouble with outbound immigration? Possible but doubtful as they handle these things daily. 
It's a sad truth, but many girls make a living getting money from foreigners and I may be wrong, but this sounds like just another scam to me.

More trouble than its worth and many fish in the sea----keep fishing.


Gene...


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## somtamboo

Wow, that does sound quite a hassle to get her over here. Assuming she's not in on the scam it sounds like someone is and they're going to make it as hard/expensive as they can for you. 
Like the others said, just fly there yourself and check things out, or move on.


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## gino

*Success at Last*

She finally made it in late Thursday night for what I hope will be the first of many trips. 

One unexpected problem is that everybody assumes she can speak Thai. They’re surprised to learn the Asian girl doesn’t speak Thai, but the Italian kid does.


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## Guest

gino said:


> One unexpected problem is that everybody assumes she can speak Thai. They’re surprised to learn the Asian girl doesn’t speak Thai, but the Italian kid does.


Wishful thinking? (The 'kid' bit, not the speaking Thai...)


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