Strange (Drugged?) Experience in Soi Cowboy Last Night

[Gadfly]

I am not going to name bars (well, not publicly) because even I am not 100% sure what happened. But here goes:

 

Early in the evening I go to one bar, have about two-thirds of beer, a BG is flirting and touching me, but I am not interested, decided to cut it short on move on. I go to a second bar, drink, perhaps half a beer, and then something - not sure what - hits me and I feel real dizzy. At this second bar, another BG is flirting and touching me as well, although in neither bar do I recall anyone touching me around my wallet (but that has been very rare in my experience, and I perhaps I don't pay as close a attention as I should). I pay my bill and quickly exit the second bar.

 

I' am practically legless. Hard time walking down Soi Cowboy to Soi 23 to catch a taxi. I am fighting to keep myself walking straight. And I notice a strange taste in my mouth.

 

On the way home I stop and have a double expresso. Maybe not the smartest move, but I am not a doctor and I am scared that if I am drugged, I will go to sleep and not wake up. Also not thinking entirely straight.

 

I am incredibly tired, dazed and confused, but I fight whatever "it" is. Around three or four hours later I feel as if this tremendous cloud is starting to recede. Normal functions start to back on-line. But now I am wide awake from the expresso (I never drink coffee after about, say, 9 a.m.) I can't sleep until around 4 a.m. I have a cranium cracker of a headache that lasted until about one hour ago. Yuck. (This is why my post on the ex-Gov of TAT was so short; I did want to say more.)

 

This morning, when I wake up, I don't feel hung over, but I feel, well strange. Hard to describe and I am not entirely sure if my paranoia about being drugged is influencing how I perceive how I feel, but I certainly don't feel right.

 

Have not seen a doctor since the whole conversation would be a bit embarrassing and I seem to be OK now (headache lingers a bit). I am not 100% sure myself, but I kind of think someone drugged me; or is this a health issue? I feel OK now, and intend to do some exercise to shake off what remains of whatever it was that hit me. I certainly don't feel ill as in I caught some bug.

 

Called a friend, and he is convinced I was drugged, but these are big "reputable", by Soi Cowboy standards, bars. I wouldn't expect that to happen in those bars (actually, I have never had this happen before, and not really on guard against it).

 

Any other rational and likely explanation? No plans to go back to either bar to discuss the matter since I am not 100% confident and, even if I was, I would have to say "there was a 50% chance I was drugged in your bar last night" since I visited two. I can't see that going anywhere.

 

Finally starting to feel normal this afternoon. If this was a health issue, damn strange since I now feel fit enough to head off to the gym.

[gobbledonk]

I dont know about Thailand, but most of the drink spiking here is initiated by other punters, not the staff. Cowboy is a different environment to a Farang bar, granted, and I seem to recall at least one older thread asking much the same questions you have asked. Doesnt matter how well established the bars are - I believe they hire new girls all the time, and you may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[Old Hippie]

Glad you are o.k. t does seem like you might have been drugged. Or maybe a blood sugar problem? Before you went into the bars, did you have any contact with anyone else? any drinks etc...? Seems odd it would happen in the "reputable bars," but anything is possible. Just be thankful you got through it alive and well and with all your stuff still there.

[Gadfly]

Funny you mention blood sugar. When I get my physical several months back, the doctor I had "slightly elevated blood sugar levels". But I had also violated the rules about drinking and eating before the physical, so they re-did the exam and I was on the high side of the normal range. He said I was probably OK but should check on this again and was going to suggest exercise more, but knew I already work pretty regularly (I had some knee problems before when training for my last marathon). He also no more that two glasses of wine or bottles a beer a night, but I thought of that as general advice applicable to everyone (and probably violated by most on this board) and I was definitely under that limit when it hit.

 

Still, this is another reason I am not 100% convinced I was drugged. But this is also not what I imagine a blood sugar/diabetes problem would be like (I have never had an experience like this before so really don't know). And when I was examined, he said to be careful; didn't say I was diabetic.

 

Hell, if I have a blood sugar problem, and this is what is what happens after less than two beers, my nightlife activity will need to change drastically (and I am not a big drinker), as I do not want to go through that again. I prefer to think I am drugged, but just to be sure I think I will get my blood sugar checked again without telling the doc where exactly this happened (I see the same guy who corrected my knee problems by suggesting a stretching exercise (I was impressed) and would rather not let alone where I sometimes spend my nights).

[Bangkoktraveler]

Do you eat a diabetic diet?

 

Probably not.

 

 

If your diet is not a diabetic diet, then 3 drinks should not have that much effect on your system.

[Bangkoktraveler]

One of the pictures in the sponsor section is of a Thai lady who I once porked. [i didn't post the picture] She hangs around Soi Cowboy a lot.

 

I also watched her one day buy some yaa-ba from a taxi driver. There are a few others, beside her, that hang around Soi Cowboy that get at times really spacey.

 

So yes, you could have been drugged.

[USVirgin]

I dont know about Thailand, but most of the drink spiking here is initiated by other punters, not the staff.

 

I had a very similar experience to Gaddy's recently, here in SoCal. My first time in this particular bar, the barmaid seemed nice enough, most of the customers were guys playing pool. I had only 3 drinks (I DID leave my drink unattended to go outside and have a smoke) and staggered out of the place. Strangers in the parking lot were worried that I couldn't drive.

 

Went straight to my local to meet a friend and I had to leave as I was nodding off at the bar. My buddy told another regular what happened and the guy said he had the same experience over 1 beer in the same bar and had heard of the same thing happening to another person.

 

I can't quite figure out the motive, but I'm certain I was drugged because 3 drinks could never put me in that state, no matter what condition I was in prior. One strange thing I recall was some pool players coming up to the bar and talking to me - not normal for a rough looking bunch to initiate small talk with a strange dude.

 

Only diff between my experience and Gaddy's was that my headache/hangover/general malaise lasted about 3 days.

 

Only other time I was drugged was at a clip joint in Buenos Aires, but their motives became clear when the management put a gun to my head to sign about $2000 in bogus charges.

 

Don't think I've ever been drugged in Thailand, but it would be really hard to tell because I'm pretty much shitfaced at all time there.

[Bangkoktraveler]

I remember getting on a plane once and took the wrong pill out of my pill box. I was 'out' from Taipei to LAX and when I got off the plane, I just barely could stand up.

[USVirgin]

The difference between the two incidents I mentioned and being 'legless drunk' is that I have pretty vivid and surreal recollection of the events, whereas if I were just drunk I'd have blacked out. I've been legless twice on Cowboy, and I only know after being told the next day by friends. Flash was there on one occasion; on the other, I spent the day drinking at QPP when an American guy asked me about Cowboy, so we legged it over there. All I know is, the next day a barowner told me the American guy had taken me by taxi to my hotel on Soi 18, got me up to my room, then returned to the bar. Nice chap, never saw him again.

[tartempion]

Something similar never happened to me, but knowing what I know by reading all these stories I would have taken a taxi to nearby Bumrungrad to have a blood test and a general examination.

 

I once had a severe condition without knowing what possibly was going on (nothing to do with drugs or alcohol - heavy sweating and feeling cold in tropical climate then legless) but was glad the night watch of the hotel called a taxi, which showed up as an ambulance a few minutes later. Probably saved my life (I did call the hotel's reception when I understood something was very wrong)