Dear Hillary,
As a widower I went looking for a partner in my home country. All the ladies were more interested in what kind of car I drove, how much money I made per year and on and on. They were not interested in anything else.
With much misgiving I started looking in other countries. The dating services did not manage to find anyone near my requirements, but then I hit the jackpot and met a great lady who was 50 at the time, never been married, and ran a small corner shop.
Now after 10 years I do not regret anything. She has been a wonderful partner. Yes, there were cultural differences to overcome and yes I married the whole family. So we send some money to her mother, not a lot and it is a small price to pay for my own personal happiness.
Despite all the doom and gloom letters you get, this is just to show there is another side. I am sure my experience is not unique.
Craig

Dear Craig,
I am very glad to read of your finding the ‘right’ person for you. You obviously went looking in the right places and not the ‘easy’ places, which is where so many men on the mission go wrong. As I have said many times, you don’t go looking in a hardware shop for a round of cheese.

Dear Hillary,
I have come to the sad conclusion that all the women in Thailand are on the make. Every last one seems to have her hand into your wallet within days of going into a live-in relationship. At first it was money to buy groceries, and I thought that was great, looking after me. But then the grocery bill seemed to be going up all the time and the amount of food was getting smaller. Then it was some to send to Mama, school fees (in a village school?) for her children being looked after by Mama, it just went on and on. That ended that one. Then the next one was the same, and the one after that. Is there one honest woman in Thailand looking for a partner and not an ATM?
Enough is Enough

Dear Enough is Enough,
Is there an honest woman in Thailand? Of course there are plenty of them my Petal. Look at the letter above yours. “Easy” women who enter live-in relationships will generally turn out to be very hard to live with. You are looking in the wrong places.

Dear Hillary,
I picked up one of those tourist magazines the other day and it had listings of good places to go for the tourists. The interesting thing I noticed was the dual pricing which was plainly printed for the tourists to see that they were going to pay something like twice the price of the Thais. I thought it was against the regulations to have dual pricing. We certainly don’t have that in the UK. What is the real situation?
Tim

Dear Tim,
I get embarrassed by this situation, but I can also understand why this arises. The majority of Thai households do not have the spending power of the tourists, which is the basic reason behind the double pricing. It would be much better if these attractions advertised one price, but offered a 50 percent reduction for Thai residents (and that would include the foreigners who live here).

Dear Hillary,
Why do Thai women continue to wear such silly platform shoes and high heels? They are dangerous and many countries have already banned them. There is nothing wrong with wearing not-sexy wearing sensible shoes. What is your opinion, or do you wear such ankle breakers?
Chillin’

Dear Chillin’,
What do the Thai women use as personal transport round here? Motorcycles - correct! Now when you are only 1.5 meters tall what happens when you stop at the traffic lights? Your feet don’t touch the ground - correct! And you have to dismount or fall off. Thai people are very practical, my Petal, and they are safer with the platform shoes.

Dear Hillary,
You hear of all these poor saps being ripped off when the short-term Thai GF goes off to greener pastures, and they then make out that it is all the Thai GF’s fault, and how crooked the Thai women are and the like. They should remember Greg Norman ($103m), Paul McCartney ($48.7m), Prince Charles ($45.2m), for a start. While I understand you Hillary for trying to protect the uninitiated or naïve males from the not-so gentle sex at the bar, but please qualify the advice though by saying, that a Thai bar girl is really no different from many other ladies, bar girls or not.
Jeremy

Dear Jeremy,
I am not really in the position to comment on the ex’s of Greg Norman, Prince Charles and Paul McCartney, as I have no idea where they came from before marrying the money, but I am able to agree with some of your statement that a Thai bar girl is really no different from many other bar girls overseas, but I cannot be as sweeping as you to include “other ladies”.