A Disturbing First Experience

After being introduced to this site a few months ago, I’ve now spent many an hour reading the weeklies and submissions posted here. Although I’ve been thinking for a while to submit this story and each time coming to the conclusion that
it would probably be more of the same, the article called “I was eating my Big Mac when… posted on the 8th of December convinced me to submit it after all.

Just a quick background of myself, I am a 25 year old Dutch guy, and I’ve been living in Bangkok for about 1 year in total now. I first came here in May of 2004 as an exchange student to study 1 semester at Assumption University (ABAC).
In November I went back home to graduate. While back home, I received a job offer to work in Bangkok and I have now been back since May of this year, working as an IT consultant. <You fool for admitting that, expect sack loads of emails from guys asking the bi question, "how?"! – Stick>

This rather disturbing event which I am about to put on paper happened to me probably in the 2nd or 3rd week of my first stay in Bangkok. I had just arrived here and I was starting to get used to the life, the temperature and the Thais in
general, and started to feel more comfortable. I lived in a hotel close to the University. Here I met a few French students who at one point invited us to go out with them. One of them was a half Thai, half French girl who speaks the local language
and knows her way around the city, and because we (some fellow exchange students from my University in The Netherlands and myself) hadn’t yet been able to find a good place to go out to we decided to come along. They took us to Club Hollywood
at Ratchada Road.

Since this was our first time in a typical Thai club, we were rather surprised about how the Thais like to “party”. You buy a bottle of whiskey at the entrance, after which you are guided to one of the many tables which will
hold your bottle, along with some ice, mixers and a bunch of glasses. No real dancing takes place, it’s mostly drinking and talking. Nonetheless we had a good time, having a good look around at all the pretty girls and drinking lots of
whiskey.

At 1 am the club shut it’s doors (quite surprising if you’re used to going out till 4 or 5 am in the morning), but our companions (by then we were joined a few others, 1 of them being a French who’s been living here a
long time already, another a Thai himself) assured us this was no problem and that we could move to the other side of the street where we could sit outside and drink more whiskey. How could we decline…. It was here where my troubles began.

After a little while I was introduced to a sweet looking Thai girl of about my age. She didn’t speak any English, but having enough people around to translate, this was not a big problem. I had a few more whiskeys, while most of my
friends from the uni went back to the hotel. Around 3.30 AM I was told by one of my “translators” that the girl would like to go home with me. Having heard the stories about how easy it was supposed to be for a farang to get a Thai
girl home with you, and half a bottle of Johnny Walker to support this idea, I was pleasantly surprised and agreed (I was introduced to her through friends of a friend, one of them being a long-term expat, so it seemed ok). We got in a taxi and
I took her to my hotel room. Before we got there she wanted to stop at the Family Mart to buy some drinks. When we got up to my room, she started to take of my shoes, my socks, and suggested I take a shower. At that time I thought that was a bit
strange, but I figured that was probably a normal thing to do here (which I later found out is really not that uncommon actually). After my shower, I sat down on the couch and she handed me my beer. That is the last thing I remember from that
evening.

I woke up 9 hours later on my bed in the boxers I was wearing when I got out of the shower, and realized something was not right. I have never passed out on alcohol before and got suspicious. I soon found out that my phone was missing, and
about 5000 baht in cash from my wallet. It took me some time to realize what had happened, but it appeared I had been drugged, and robbed afterwards. I checked the rest of my room to see if anything else was missing, but fortunately the abovementioned
was all that she took (she could have taken my CD-player, credit card in my suitcase, and a hell lot more!). I even thought that the room had been cleaned up a bit… (table was tidied up, plastic bags folded neatly, go figure!)

Of course I was both scared and furious. I started to make a few phone calls (hotel phone of course, which wasn’t cheap either) and soon found out that the guys who initially introduced me to this girl didn’t know her that well either, or
at least claimed that they did not. Having straightened out my thoughts as much as possible in my still drowsy state, I realized I had better file a police report, for insurance purposes mostly, as I didn’t expect the girl would ever get
caught. I convinced the Thai girlfriend of my neighbor to help me as a translator and off we went to the police station.

Once there they asked me some questions; where did it happen, where did I meet her, what was missing etc. One question I had to laugh about was what she looked like. Let’s see, small, tanned skin, long black hair…. Thai I would say.
I was still at the point where all Thais looked the same to me.

Apparently the officer wasn’t too friendly to my Thai friend, who started to feel like she was being accused, even though she had nothing to do with the whole thing. Then they asked if I would like to have a drug test to see what sort
of drug I received. Of course I agreed. My friend asked if the police could provide transportation to the hospital, which they declined. She then got really pissed off and with some more frantic discussion she managed to convince them that I was
in no state to find the hospital on my own. We subsequently waited for about another hour before our mode of transportation arrived. This turned out to be nothing other than a hearse! Not a fancy black one, but one of those vehicles they use to
remove the dead off the road after a traffic accident. We were told to sit in the back (makes you wonder how they felt about me…), which contained nothing else than a stretcher and a first aid kit. I guess I should’ve just gotten a taxi,
but at that point I couldn’t really care anymore and even saw some humor in the whole situation.

When we arrived at the hospital I was told to fill out a form, after which they pointed to a few plastic seats on which I could sit and await my turn. Turned out that both seats were covered in a big pool of fresh blood, so I politely declined.
This was by the way a nice indication of the general state of this hospital. It was dirty, people on hospital beds still wearing their normal clothes and looking very miserable, and I even got the impression that surgery was being performed behind
a curtain next to where I explained to the doctor why I was there (nothing compared to the private hospitals I’ve been to at later times, which are of a surprisingly high standard). When I was called in, I gave a urine sample and they told
me I could call in about a week later to hear the results. In true Thai tradition, I never received them, even after calling several times.

After this whole episode, all I could think of for the next week was to get the first plane out of this place. I was scared to death and lost all my faith in Thailand and the people that live here. Not knowing what I was given, combined with
the fact that I was seriously drunk and the possibility that I could’ve been killed by this combination really wasn’t an invitation to stay here longer.

This feeling got less and less however with time, and the fact that I am still here proves that my faith in Thailand and the Thais is pretty much restored (although I will never be as trusting towards strangers as I used to be, which is probably
a good thing). The remainder of my first stay here has been an amazing experience, and I would still recommend this country to anyone when asked.

One more note to you Stick, you keep saying that it is probably not a good thing to come to Thailand for a long time when you’re still young (below 25). Although I agree with this to a certain extend, I don’t think this holds for all people.
If you come here for the party and the sex only, you’re probably right and you will most likely go home disillusioned. However, if you come here with real a purpose, e.g. work, study, etc. and use this as a disciplinary factor to balance
out the partying, I believe that you can live happily here even if you’re not that experienced yet. The general rule of course is to always keep your guard up and not to do anything here which you’d be disinclined to do back home
(something I had to learn the hard way). I hope this submission can serve as a warning for future (and probably current) visitors to this otherwise wonderful country.

Stickman's thoughts:

It has to be said that in the last 3 months or so I have received HEAPS of emails from guys who have been hit like this. From Pattaya, Sukhumvit AND other areas. This is a real concern and there is little doubt in my mind that some of the dubious deaths of farangs have been due to them being MURDERED by women spiking their drinks or administering some sort of substance.

I maintain that Thailand is not the best place to come to if you are very young and are here primarily for the naughty stuff – which wasn't you.