His passages about the sex trade are explicit but not titillating. He is neither judgmental about prostitution nor particularly probing about its sociological impacts. His personal view is that there is nothing to justify.

“Prostitution is the oldest profession that we know of and it isn’t going to go away,” he said. “The only time it’s ever gone away is in police states, and even then the police state had to be at its most hysterical.”

Burdett is clearly more sympathetic to the prostitutes than the aging, Western men they service (”Australians with guts so huge they look about to give birth”).

As part of his research, he has traveled to the stilt houses in northeast Thailand, a Lao-speaking region known as Isaan and the home turf of most of Bangkok’s bar girls. In Burdett’s books we meet the families these women support financially.

“It’s the story of the country coming to the town,” Burdett said, peering down the length of Soi Cowboy where the neon lights are so bright they cast shadows. “Here in this street, every single one of the girls you speak with will be from Isaan, will be originally a rice farmer.”

In his writing and in his life, Burdett is comfortable around the Isaan migrants. He can name the different types of fried insects they like to eat - crickets, grasshoppers, silkworms, scorpions, etc. He describes his girlfriend, Nit, to whom “Bangkok Haunts” is dedicated, as an “extreme country girl.” Without Isaan people, Thailand would have much less appeal for him.

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