Cleo Odzer

If I hadn't lived in Bangkok for four years, I would dismiss much of what Odzer says as improbably absurd. Parts of this book started out as something of a doctoral dissertation, but it goes easy on the scholarly babble - in fact she shares many of her emotions. Her experiences, conversations and the relationships she forms with people in the sex trade are an eye opener. Given the treatment and low status of women in Thailand, prostitution turns out to be one of the few ways that a poor show more woman can be aggressive, entrepreneurial and bring home the bacon - sometimes to an entire village. This book should be required reading for anyone thinking about living in Thailand (despite the fact that it's outdated now), show less

I was born a year too late. I never got to be a hippie. Nevertheless (or, perhaps, as a result of this) I've always glamorized the hippie world. Goa, India was, for Cleo Odzer, hippie paradise. Odzer first came to live in Goa in 1979. Her early days in Goa were days of parties on the beach and fun with her hippie friends. As the years passed, however, Goa became more and more a world of sickness and drug addiction and death.

I enjoyed this woman's perspective on prostitution in Thailand and her dedication to studying this institution. I found her personal story less interesting than that of the women she was studying. I believe this book would have been improved by removing her own romance from her narrative. The other aspects of the book I found very interesting and enlightening. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in prostitution in Thailand.

Cleo Odzer documents her year in Bangkok researching AIDS and the sex industry. Many of her experiences with young bar girls and their families are revealing, but the book is dominated by her own doomed relationship with a Thai pimp. Could've been a much stronger book if Odzer had left her personal issues out.