Robbed After Drinking in Patpong 2

I was drinking in Patpong 2 late one night last week. I got pretty drunk and had about 7,000 baht on me when I went out. I also had my main debit card in my wallet.

I remember drinking until about 5:00 AM, but after that I remember nothing. The next thing I knew I woke up in some strange hotel at around 16:00 the following afternoon. I felt pretty rotten. There was a girl there asking for payment.

Firstly I almost never take anyone home with me when I go out for a good drink as I generally get pretty drunk and just want to sleep it off when I get home so it's best leaving that kind of activity for one of the nights when I'm
not so drunk. I have a great apartment in Bangkok so would never use some crappy short time hotel in the Patpong area and have never used a hotel in a place where I have an apartment.

I thought waking up in the hotel was a little strange and couldn't remember anything about how I got there. I often forget returning home so I thought nothing of it until I checked my bank the next day. I had withdrawn 20,000 baht which
is what I normally withdraw when I go to the bank during the day. Of course I don't take this much out with me when I'm drinking in the bars. This money was missing from my wallet. It's obvious that someone has stolen this from
me after I went to the ATM.

After waking up I got a taxi home. I slept most of the way in the taxi. I just couldn't stay awake. When I got back to my apartment I still felt pretty bad and went back to bed, sleeping until around 23:00 that night and even then I
felt real groggy and went back to bed after being awake for only a few hours so I lost a whole day because of this. I still didn't feel 100% the day after this – two days after I went to Patpong although I was on the mend which is just as
well as I had to fly to Phnom Penh for the weekend.

I suspect I was given some kind of drug and from what I've been reading it was most likely some kind of barbiturate as this drug is water soluble so it can easily be mixed into any drink and has quite an effect unless your body is used
to it which of course mine isn't as I've never taken it before. One of its effects is that it can literally knock you out.

I guess I have grown complacent over the years as nothing like this has ever happened to me or anyone I know. There's a couple of lessons to be learned from this.

Never go to the bathroom unless you have finished your drink. Even then it would be easy for someone to distract you whilst someone else puts something in your drink. At one point I do remember one of the girls at the bar grabbing hold of
me and kissing me which is a little unusual for a freelancer in a bar. I had already told her I was going home alone and just having a drink that night. I have my suspicions that this is when someone poured something into my Jack Coke. They could
have already dissolved the drug into a small glass of coke and just topped my drink up – I would never have noticed and it would only take one or two seconds.

From now on I will only take out what cash I could possibly need on a night out plus maybe a couple of thousand in emergency money but more importantly I will leave my credit / debit cards at home so further withdrawals are impossible without
a trip back to my apartment.

For what it's worth, I was drinking in the small bar towards the bottom narrower end of Patpong Soi 2, by a concrete outdoor staircase at the end of a row of beer bars. The woman who works the checkout there is old, must be 70 or something.
I'm not sure if the girls worked there or were just passing freelancers. I suspect they were just freelancers.