Leif Pettersen, travel writer behind the Killing Batteries blog, walked into Bangkok’s notorious Pat Pong district expecting sleaze, not sabotage. After navigating a maze of knock-off market stalls that had all but swallowed the entrance to the infamous sex shows, he found himself seated solo in a theater that promised outlandish vaginal acrobatics—and delivered. What it didn’t promise, but quietly served, was something far more sinister: a drink that would later leave him disoriented, staggering, and struggling to string thoughts together.
He’d only ordered a Coke—just one—and nursed it for an hour while watching dancers do increasingly improbable things with bananas, beads, and blowguns. But the moment he stood to leave, the room tilted, his balance betrayed him, and his thoughts slowed to soup. In the swirl of confusion that followed, Pettersen realized with unsettling clarity: he had been drugged. Though he made a half-hearted attempt to return and identify the bar, the fog in his brain proved stronger than his sense of justice. By the time he was back at his hostel, dehydrated and shaken, all he could remember was the bar’s name—maybe—Queen’s something III.
