A full synopsis of the story

Set in Thailand, the novel is about backpackers Ben and Emma and about Ben's affair with a Thai Girl, Fon. After university, Ben and Emma face the world of work for the first time, but, says Ben, why not put reality on hold for a while and go travelling. And where better than Thailand.

Things between them get tense when Ben shows too lively an interest in the girls in the Bangkok go-go bars and Emma gives him the push and goes off on her own. Ben then falls passionately in love with Fon, a vivacious Thai girl who works as a masseuse on the beach.
Thai Girl lifts the lid on commercial sex in Thailand which the travellers come across at every turn. Ben is intrigued but appalled that girls are available in bars and clubs everywhere for the price of a round of drinks. As he talks to Fon about her upbringing in the poor rice-growing North East region of Thailand, he discovers why young girls end up selling themselves to the western sex-tourists.

But there are many setbacks as Ben pursues his passion for Fon, the Asian girl of his dreams. While she is flirtatious and provocative, she does not fit the false stereotype of the accommodating Thai girl but guards her reputation fiercely. Her first duty is to her work and her family and she will not be deflected by falling for a passing tourist. She sees the love-affair as a western illusion and a dangerous trap for a poor migrant worker such as herself.
Ben admires Fon for her strong principles but is convinced she is keen on him. As he experiences the nightlife of Bangkok and parties with his traveller friends in the islands, he is always thinking of her and longing to be with her. The reader will share Ben's fascination for Fon and will want to know how the affair develops. Will Fon weaken and give herself to him and is there any future for them together? When Ben has to return to London on the same flight as Emma, can their long relationship be revived or is it now all over between them?
As Ben and his friends grapple with the many issues facing a fast-developing country, he gains some understanding of the problems of Thai society and its contact with the West. When people of two differing cultures meet, there is inevitably a clash of which the typical traveller is often unaware. Ben and Fon are a part of that clash, one of them privileged, the other strong and determined but poor. Whether Ben has behaved responsibly and what will be the long-term impact on Fon will be for the reader to decide. Only in the last few pages of the book do the final implications of the affair begin to emerge.