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Chuck knew Bangkok was going to be a hard place to leave because of its many enticements and seductions: the nightlife, the food, the beauty, and the people.

During his stay, he looked around Bangkok for a traveling companion and lover. He had only one problem. Looking turned out be more fun than actually traveling with one companion, or so it seemed. For three weeks — two weeks longer than planned — he frequented the bars of Bangkok before he found someone irresistible. He must have talked with a hundred ladies among the thousands of young women employed in Bangkok’s bars.

He was in a "girlie bar" where lovely, bikini-clad women dance, smile and try to make friends with you. He sat next to a woman wearing street clothes and playing liar’s dice.

"Why don’t you dance?" he asked. "You are very pretty."

"I don’t like to dance," she responded.

"What do you like to do?"

"I like to make love."

Chuck thought this was an ideal interest for a traveling companion. They were soon on the train to Chiang Mai, the city in northern Thailand famous for exquisite handicrafts and beautiful women. She called herself Me, which was short for an unpronounceably long Thai name. English names for Thai women are always a one syllable abbreviation. Chuck heard names like Mim, Mem, Lo, On, Joy and Ple (pronounced "Play").

They spent a week together before Me had to return to Bangkok and her schooling as a chair-maker. Chuck loved Chiang Mai and decided to stay longer, but it was a decision he long had second thoughts about. The week he spent with Me haunts him to this day.

Another gentleman, Sam, often dined at an open-air restaurant across from the colorful night market of Chiang Mai. It was the kind of outdoor restaurant often found in Thailand. Fish, meat and vegetables are spread on a bed of ice. You just point, pay and describe how you want it cooked. The cook’s only English words may be "stir-fry, steam, garlic, hot and spicy, and curry," but the food is always fresh and tasty.

The restaurant not only had great food, but Sam also fell in love with the waitress. She was a schoolgirl whose best subject was English. Only seventeen, she was pretty, modest and charming beyond any hope or dream. She had the golden-brown skin so common to many women in Northern Thailand. She enjoyed practicing English on him and waited on Sam every day for a week. When he told her how good her English was, she would say she had a good teacher. He toyed with the idea of asking her out, but decided she was too young.

Mel often ordered a curry and rice plate for 50 cents at lunch. After that, he enjoyed a refreshing fruit shake from a small stand near his guest house. It was operated by two local women. Every day they set out a huge bowl of fresh fruit with cantaloupe, coconut, bananas, oranges, watermelon and tropical fruits never seen in the U.S. He would point to what he wanted. One of the women would peel it and put it in the blender. Mel usually had a blend of three fruits, one of which would be coconut or bananas to make it creamy.

The fruit shakes weren’t the only reason Mel liked that place. One of the owners was so sweet, pretty and friendly he could hardly stay away. She spoke no English and Mel spoke no Thai, but one day she pulled out a Thai-English dictionary and they managed to talk a little. Her partner spoke a few words of English and, eventually, he was able to ask the pretty one to dinner.

To his surprise she had a car, a luxury by Thai standards. She lived in a modern condominium with her sister who ran a furniture store and owned the new Toyota.

His new girlfriend took him to the finest seafood restaurants he had ever been in his life. Romantic open-air tables sat next to brooks and waterfalls. Lush tropical plants and colored lights overhead provided even more ambience. Tank after tank of live seafood, little of which Mel could identify except catfish, took the place of menus.

After dinner she would take him to her home where her sisters served him native fruits. The oldest sister, the furniture store manager, spoke English.

It turned out his date was a former local beauty queen. They showed Mel photos of her at eighteen years old in her bathing suit with the Miss Chiang Mai banner across her chest. Even though she still looked eighteen, she was thirty and much more slender than in the pictures. "Imagine," he thought, "an ugly bastard like me dating the most beautiful woman in the city famous for the most beautiful girls in the world."

Even though Mel was very attracted to her, their difficulty in communicating made him impatient. Mel felt she would make a wonderful wife, but he wouldn’t wait for her to learn to speak English. He often grew impatient with Thai women, finding it difficult to really talk with them.

I’m sure there are plenty of men who would have more patience with ex-Miss Chiang Mai. His loss might be your gain.

Mel returned to Bangkok. Running out of money, he bought his ticket home with a stopover in Manila. He’d heard Manila was a lot less expensive than Bangkok, because of the "gray" market for U.S. dollars. Even more intriguing, he’d been told that the women spoke English, although an Englishman in Thailand told him they spoke it but didn’t understand it.

Mel knew Manila offered the same sort of entertainment as Bangkok. You could easily meet a pretty, friendly lady in a bar. And they all spoke English!

On his second or third evening in Manila as he sat in a disco, someone touched his beard from behind. Mel turned and saw an amazingly cute 4’10’’ girl. After inviting her to join him for a drink, they went bar-hopping. She didn’t drink alcohol but she knew how to party. She turned out to be the best lover Mel had ever had in his life, and a riot to be around. Once, in a bar with go-go dancers, she got so excited by the music she jumped on the stage and started dancing too.

They spent a week together in Baguio, a popular mountain resort town in northern Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. Then they went island-hopping, visiting several of the thousands of tropical islands in the Philippines. They relaxed on beautiful beaches, ate exotic fruits and fresh seafood and made love often. She had a playful personality, but also a bit of a temper. However, she was quick to forgive and laugh about it afterwards. When he returned to the U.S., Mel continued to write to her. She returned to her home in Cebu, awaiting her visa to live with him in the U.S.

Joe was frustrated with American women. He had been fantasizing about looking for an Asian wife when he found a job in Hong Kong. He spent his free time meeting and socializing with women and hanging out with his Australian drinking buddies. He wondered why the guys weren’t interested in Chinese women.

"Why drive a Ford when you can have a Cadillac?" his Australian buddies would ask.

There were 70,000 Filipinas working in Hong Kong, mostly as domestic helpers. A few Filipinas were employed as "cultural dancers" in the girlie bars of Wanchai. They would sit and talk if you bought a drink for the modest sum of US$13. If you want to date them, it costs the tidy fee of US$350. Joe enjoyed the hospitality of the dancers, but it got so expensive he decided to look elsewhere for overnight companionship.

Filipinas were easy to get to know outside of the go-go bars. The only problem in Hong Kong was that domestic workers can only see you one day a week. They only got Sunday off, but a few were off on Saturday.

In Hong Kong, Sunday is a special day for men who like Filipinas. The discos in Wanchai are packed from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., when most Filipinas must leave because of curfews. There are three discos in Hong Kong that cater to English, Australian and American men and Filipinas. Occasionally you will see a Thai woman and, rarely, a Chinese woman. On Sunday, there are three times as many Filipinas as men in the discos. It was such a change from Western bars where a friendly smile is rare.

Joe couldn’t believe there were so many pretty smiles among they Filipinas. He didn’t have to be handsome, outgoing, dynamic or a great dancer to find a girlfriend. The women looked for men who were sincere, friendly and fun to be around. If you were fat and bald, fine. If you were slim and handsome, they wouldn’t hold that against you. It might even give you an edge with some of the really young women.

Since Joe was a friendly and easy-going guy, the Filipinas liked him. He got to know several women before he went after one in particular. Being patient eventually helped him choose between three pretty women who wanted him. When he’d decided, though, he found out something about Filipinas. They can be extremely jealous. The other two women wouldn’t speak to him or his new girlfriend for a month. Eventually they got over it, and they all became good friends.

Joe knew an unattached American who kept putting off going with him to the disco to meet Filipinas. His friend wanted to try his hand at the "Chuppie" (Chinese yuppy) bars. Finally Joe persuaded him to come with him to the disco one Sunday.