Where an older man can think he is debonair

Nothing sells newspapers like sex or murder or even better a combo of the two and the Guardian went for the Daily Double with an article by Richard S Ehrlich.

Love at first sight, even through an air-conditioned prism of cheap beer, purple lights and men leering and cheering, is easy to find in Bangkok's bars.

Welcome to Thailand's raucous yet surprisingly sweet, West-meets-East sex industry, which often breaks hearts on both sides. 'Fall in lust, don't fall in love' is a frequent warning. Pretending to be the idealised girlfriend - all coos and kisses, giggles and gaga-eyes - a Thai bar girl allows a man to believe he is a dazzlingly debonair, undiscovered celebrity.

'Where else can an old man go to bed with a beautiful 20-year-old girl?' one elderly Brit asked me with a gleam in his wrinkled eyes. 'Do they love it? Why not?' he laughed. 'I pay them enough.'

The Thai bar girls we interviewed said British men are usually the most polite. Instead of haggling about prices and positions - which some foreigners do - Brits may instead ask if they would simply like to spend the evening together.

While most tourists go home with the memory of an adventure or mishap from their Thailand trysts, a small minority of foreign men do fall in love, sometimes for all the wrong reasons, including a delusional desire to 'rescue' a girl, even though the man soon becomes the one in need of a life-saver.

Worst-case scenarios include men who admit they poured much of their savings into buying a house for their beloved, only to find that she was secretly married to a Thai who helped her secure the land ownership documents, abandoning the foreigner to contemplate shame or suicide. Best-case romances allow women to escape the grimy bars and grim HIV statistics, and develop their potential as a wife, mother or worker.

Each coupling offers a unique story, with some women saying they believe in their foreign boyfriends, and innocently marrying into what may or may not be a happy-ever-after life in Britain or elsewhere.

Other girls have become so jaded that when a hopeful admirer offers to buy them a drink, they will add his details to their database and then squeeze out as much as they can, while whispering whatever he wants to hear.