The concept of Sinsod.

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Thailand, Pattaya,

So you're one of those, one of an army of mostly elder gentlemen having slaved most of their adult lives supporting defiant offspring and a nagging wife always wiping your nose with the better paid job the guy next door has.

By the time old age and a well-deserved pension is creeping up on you, kids gone out of the parental home, the wife something of the past if it wasn't for the monthly checks arriving by special delivery reminding you of your alimony duties.

You have heard the stories of nubile modest young Thai ladies desperate to marry elder European males for a free ticket to the Land of the Surpreme, plenty of honey and money for those willing to pay the ultimate price...marrying an sweaty Farang male two or three times her senior, being devoted to his over-weight body and fat face full with big red blotches caused by too many cold Heineken or Kloster, dark brown unhealthly looking spots on his wrinkled hands betraying the arrival of serious old age.

Oh, don't worry you embittered middle-age man from ancient Europe, your lady will be totally devoted on you, so much so you'll even believe her and forget you kept trying to convince yourself it was your fat wallet in your hotel's safe downstairs, maybe the free ticket you promised her to München or Antwerpen.

When you get to this stage soon the time will come to visit your new parents in law somewhere up north in the dusty country-side, a place that despite several years of coming to Thailand, after all these visits to your Tilak down in Bangkok, or maybe pattaya, after all the clean hotel rooms, cable TV and tasty hygienic food, you'll find yourself back in a dusty hamlet where the scrawny semi-stray dogs watch you disembark from a Song-Thaew with hard wooden benches watching your Tilak wai her relatives, quick snatches of conversation totally alien to you.

A bit bewildered you will follow your Tilak and her family to her house watching the wooden huts, your Thai love telling you that the only stone house in the village is the village house and class room for the village youngster who eye you curiously while following your every step.

You have never heard of Sinsod, the dowry that has got to be paid for your bride so her parents will have a nice little piggy can full with Farang money in exchange for the services of their daughter in a far away Farang country - maybe an invitation to come over courtesy of the new fanmily member would be acceptable too.

You have no idea about all this thinking this a meet the folks sort of thing, don't worry after dinner and the usual polite chitchat things will be made clear to you in an offhandedly way.

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Photos

Another market scène
in Bangkok

Market scène
in Bangkok

Chinese ornaments
in a Chinese temple