I googled to see if, as I suspected, David got taken for a ride on that dowry thing. According to these guys, "an average middle-class, university-educated Thai lady deserves a dowry of 100,000- 300,000 baht. Thai dowry prices fall drastically if your bride-to-be has been previously married, already has children, or is not a virgin anymore. In fact in most of these instances, no dowry deserves to be paid. Thai dowry, however, is usually symbolic in nature and will normally be returned to the married couple after the wedding, so as to help them start on their new life. "
Nothing symbolic about this family's $500K baht extortion effort, and more power to them!