You’ve Got to Lick It Before You Kick It

[Pattaya One]

Peter Lloyd’s recent story, ‘Pattaya’s Tourist Drugging Epidemic’ reminded me of a significant and important chapter in my now out-of-print book Pattaya, Patpong on Steroids. Yes, that book is still available as an e-book (http://www.amazon.com/Pattaya-Patpong-on-Steroids-ebook/dp/) and if you think I’m trying to plug it, you’re completely on the right track!
Nonetheless, to prove this is not just a beat up and to provide some socially historical perspective, I shall quote large chunks of the relevant chapter, just to show that druggings have probably been around since Adam had a mia noi.
The chapter in question is entitled ‘You’ve got to lick it before you kick it’ and included:
A brief article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph of 7 January 1997 headlined, ‘Deadly sex trap sprung’ caused me to recall an incident that occurred to my friend Martin.
Filing from Bangkok the reporter stated:
‘Police at Thailand’s Pattaya beach resort said yesterday they had arrested six people for allegedly robbing male tourists after enticing them to lick the drug-laced nipples of female suspects.
Police said five Thai women and a man were arrested on charges of drugging and robbing tourists following a long investigation prompted by the deaths of dozens of victims by suspicious drug overdoses. Police at Pattaya, about 180 km southeast of Bangkok, said the suspects confessed to having applied drugs to the nipples of female members of the robbery gang. They then lured victims into licking their breasts, causing them to pass out in a few minutes. At least 45 western and Asian tourists had died of drug overdoses at Pattaya in the past year.’

“I’ve been robbed,” said a slurred voice.
A tattooed, muscular figure, wrapped only in a towel, literally staggered into my room in Cheena House, in Soi Skaw Beach.
It was 10:00 a.m. and I was talking with Manchester Dave, who also had a room in Cheena House, about our plans for the day ahead, when we were suddenly disturbed by Martin’s arrival.
We both looked around in stunned surprise as he stumbled through the door, reeling like an alcoholic awoken from a nightmare.
He was clearly unwell, pale and barely able to remain upright.
“Come and look at my room... It’s a mess... She robbed me,” he muttered, almost incoherently.
The three of us walked- well two of us walked while the other stumbled- down the hallway to Martin’s room. The place was a shambles. It looked as if an errant gibbon had gone berserk in the confines of the room.
His large suitcase had been prised open and anything of value pilfered. The room had been searched quite thoroughly. Martin wore two gold chains around his neck, a gold wristlet and gold ring and these were all missing.
We were soon joined in the room by Martin’s nephew, Jason and his friend. Both were on their first trip to Thailand.
Dave said, in his broad Manchester brogue, “Tell us what happened Martin. Who did this to you?”
“Well, I went up to Soi 2 last night and was sitting at this bar having a drink when a very beautifully dressed and pretty lady sat down just near me,” Martin said.
“I was laughing and joking with all the girls at the bar, as I do, you know.” Martin was well known among the outside beer bars of northern Pattaya and well liked by the girls for his sense of fun and humour.
“Then I got talking to this girl, I bought her a drink and asked her name. She told me she was 22 years old and was a hairdresser and she was just down from Bangkok for the weekend,” Martin continued.
“She was dressed really beautifully and I thought ‘there’s no way she’s going to go for me.’ And her English was very good.” “After having a drink at the bar in Soi 2 I asked her what she was doing and she said ‘I’ll go with you’. I was a bit surprised but we went down to Leo’s bar in Soi 9. All the girls said ‘hello’ to me and we spoke to them. She could see that a lot of people knew me. I don’t know what the time was when we came back here. I think around two o’clock. She came out of the bathroom with her towel wrapped around her waist. She had a beautiful body. Then she said ‘Kiss me, Martin’ and I kissed her. She gave me a deep tongue kiss, and that’s when she must have slipped me the drug. I don’t remember anything until I woke up this morning. My left eye is really sore. She must have poked me in the eye to make sure I was really out of it.”
His left eye was indeed puffy and partially bloodshot.
“I think we should go to the police and report this,” I said.
“OK. Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Some 20 minutes later, he came downstairs and, because he was still very unsteady on his feet, we arranged for a taxi to take us to the main police station…
After talking with a couple of junior policemen, we were asked to wait and a more senior officer would attend to the matter. [This] officer interviewed Martin and took down the details of the incident.
Martin appeared incoherent and very vague when answering some of the questions. This was obviously because the drug had left his system in some disarray and made him appear intoxicated. We established the value of the gold and other items at over 140,000 baht. She had also absconded with about 13,000 baht in cash. Not bad for a night’s work.
Martin gave a description of the girl: brown eyes and black hair. That narrowed the search down to around 30 million possibilities. Of course, the description was a little more detailed than that. She had short black hair and was of average height, attractive and well dressed. Maybe the search could be narrowed down to just a few million people.
It took Martin until the early evening before he started to feel well again. He had been to Thailand on many occasions and never had any trouble of this nature. “Here I am with my nephew and his mate and I’m constantly warning them to be careful, and I’m the one who gets done over,” he remarked wryly…
When we related this incident to David, the proprietor of Joffens, a small restaurant along Second Road where we habitually ate breakfast, he told us this was the third time something like this had happened to someone he knew in the past six months… It was not the last time people I knew being robbed in similar fashion. Despite the arrests of the six people in January 1997, I heard of two further incidents occurring after that time.
An Australian friend of mine, staying at Cheena House, came to see me one morning and said he’d been robbed of about 25,000 baht. He said he’d been wandering along Beach Road at about 3:00 a.m. when approached by two girls. They offered to both go with him and he accepted. After the double act they said, “We go in the morning?” He said OK and then fell asleep. When he woke up at 6:30 a.m., they were gone and he’d been robbed.
A few days later, another Australian said he had taken two girls back to his room early in the morning and woke up to find himself considerably lighter in the wallet.
It was like the hunter unwittingly becoming the hunted.

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[Hamlet]

Yes def an issue but can/does/has happen in other countries as well.....I try to have/leave min valuables in room and cards well hidden or in safe or down at reception to minimise possibility as well as I do photcopies of vos things as well...Better to be as safe as possible

[vimto66]

got the book `pattaya patpong on steroids`i`ve had i a few years and still go back to it now and again, its a great read.