Thai women are very beautiful and, unlike many Asian women, they usually don't gain much weight as they age. They are delightful companions.

Thailand's economy is booming, but there is still a wide gap between rich and poor. Many people in Bangkok live in slums and many people in the North and Northeast are poor peasants.

They have traditionally sent their daughters to massage parlors or allowed them to be the second wives of rich men.

Yet many prostitutes in Bangkok are well-educated and relatively affluent.

Some work regular jobs during the day and simply supplement their incomes by working parttime as escorts or hanging around certain coffee shops late at night where foreigners know to come.

Educated Bangkok women who aren't prostitutes are among the `nice' women of Asia most willing to go out with foreign men on a date.

They're relatively sophisticated and exposed to Western ways. Yet they retain the traditional virtues of honoring their husbands and being faithful.

They have a nudity taboo, but are not inhibited physically, because they're not taught by their religion that the body and sex is evil. They know men need and want sex and their role is to give is to their husbands.

Even when they don't like it as much as you, they don't have headaches. English is taught in Thai schools, so educated Thais speak it fairly well.

One thing to remember if you start to stay with one for a length of time, even a bar girl, is that they are jealous.

Many Thai men do have mistresses. They keep them apart from their main family.

Many Thai men go to massage parlors and many Thai women even encourage this, but only because there's no emotional entanglement.

Traditionally, Thai women picked out their husband's second wife when he could afford one, but the first wife's status was guaranteed.