What’s Really In Your Drink?

You come to Bangkok expecting a good time. For the most part the city never disappoints. But there are those little irritating things that gets under your skin. Nothing major. But it happens and it makes you say “I’ll never go there again.” So a couple mates and I meet in Bangkok for a week of good fun and play. We arrived mid week and on Friday we decide we’ll have our first all out bender.

We decide to start out on Soi 4 because one of the guy ran into a girl he’s become all agog on over at Nana Plaza. Won’t shut up about how she’s just all the shit; tall, dark skin and beautiful eyes, big boobs. She’s the whole package or so he claims. Said she’d been married to some fat ass’d bloke by the name of Crag and had been living in some run down council flat in Staines. Told him she couldn’t take it anymore and left one day while he was out and just got back to Bangkok to start over. But that’s another story.

Anyway, we decide to start the night at Big Mango so we can get a bite to eat along with our drinks. We’d read such terrible reviews on BigBabyKenny that we knew it couldn’t be true so off we went.

After a very good ½ chicken dinner, my friends, Kenny (not his real name) and Graham (not his real name) start off with the hard stuff. Johnny for Graham and Kenny’s drinking Jim Beam and Coke.

I’m drinking Tiger and we’re all having a good time, bullshitting with the girls and each other. About two hours and seven or so rounds later we’re all feeling good but Kenny (not his real name) is getting itchy to head over to Nana to see his girl. Besides Graham (not his real name) is starting to get a little out of hand because the alcohol is kicking in. The place is absolutely packed and Kenny’s nagging to leave is becoming more frequent. I agree it’s time to hit Nana to see what unfolds there, so we depart the Big Mango.

Decisions, decisions. Since we’ve had a bit to drink and had a nice buzz going we weren’t sure if we wanted to hike it to NEP or take a taxi. Since we read about the scams of health hazards associated with taking a tuk-tuk on BigDummyKenny.com, and realized we could be waiting for hours for an available taxi to come, we come to a consensus decision to forego the taxi and take the lonnnnnnngggggg walk wayyyyyyy down Soi 4 to NEP…

In what seemed to be the longest 100 seconds of my life, we finally reach our destination without breaking a sweat. 😉

So we head upstairs to the bar where Kenny’s sweetheart awaited. It’s about 10:30pm and the place is packed. Plenty of cute girls and the place has a good party atmosphere going. Graham says the drinks are on me and the alcohol rounds start coming.

I decide drink Vodka-Tonics and Graham opts for Johnny. Kenny is talking to his honey and decides on drinking Johnny as well, but he also decided to do tequila shots with his sweetie. This is how our evening went for the next couple hours. We’re on a torrid pace and Graham has a picked up a couple girls (or was it 1 ladyboy and 1 girl) and I have a playful one with me.

Interesting thing is I’m not getting any drunker. In fact, I notice my buzz is gone, I’m feeling quite lucid and I notice my Vodka-Tonics are quite smooth. Too smooth. I ask Graham how he’s feeling and he says he doesn’t feel very buzzed either. The only one who seems to be a bit buzzed still is Kenny, but he’s doing the tequila shots every 20 minutes or so plus his drink. It was getting late and since we had all made our arrangements earlier we called it a night and made our way back to the hotel.

I’ve read about some bars watering down lady drinks, but I didn’t think that they’d be watering down the customer’s drinks, especially during the high season. I’m almost certain the drinks were watered down because we drank more rounds in about the same period of time and although I walked in with a buzz I certainly didn’t walk out with one. Saturday morning I felt good. Too good for someone who’d been out drinking like a fish well past 1AM.

I’ve been told if you’re going out with a couple friends and want to spend the night at one bar you’re better off buying a bottle. You don’t have to worry about being ripped off unless you’re drinking shots with the girls (Kenny, it has to be said, she had man hands and looked like she was 40). Drinking shots with the girls is another story as well.

This is what turns me off to going back to a place even though we had a damn good time. The music and entertainment was good and we all found something to our liking. Still, I felt I’d been ripped-off and at the very least short changed a good hangover if not a couple middle of the night trips to the toilet. It just seems that this thing wouldn’t be happening during this time of year but I guess some bars are trying to make up for bad business the past year. Is it just me and my imagination or has this happened to other people recently?

[The reader who sent this asked that I help him with creative aspects for the story. So although there is considerable embellishment, the points concerning them going to The Big Mango, NEP, their drinking behavior and if the drinks were watered down remain intact. – BDK]