SATURDAY, June 12, 1999. It's not a day history will remember as poignantly as, say, September 11, 2001.

But on that day, the tyrant Slobodan Milosevic agreed to withdraw Serb forces from Kosovo, leading NATO to suspend air strikes on Belgrade. Heady stuff.

And for me, it was the day I lost a fair chunk of my childhood innocence – at the ripe age of 27 – plus plenty of cash, my passport, two credit cards, clothes, a trusty backpack and, most distressingly, film of my travels through Europe.

(Thankfully, my kidneys remained intact. That will make sense later.)

This is a true story that may serve as a warning about how easily drink spiking can occur, not just to women, but also unsuspecting men.

A search of The Post’s archives turned up several reported cases of drink spiking in the Cairns region.

There was a spate of it back in mid-2007.

In the past few months there have been almost 30 reported deaths from drink spiking in another tourism hot spot – Bali.

But let me take you back to 1999 and pristine Prague, one of the few cities in Europe that came through relatively untouched by the world wars in the 20th century.

I’d been travelling for four weeks, starting in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the Tivoli Festival.

I went down to Hamburg, across to Berlin for a week and then on to Prague by a pleasant Eurail day trip.

Having checked into a modest hotel, I was keen to wet the whistle and meet some locals. I hailed down a cab and asked the driver to "take me to where it’s all happening".

He dropped me to classy-looking cocktail lounge in central Prague, where I made a beeline for the bar.

As it turned out, I’d walked straight into a trap.

Incredibly, there was one seat left at the semi-circular bar next to a rather gorgeous Russian woman.

I ordered a Scotch on the rocks. Then, as you do, another.

After a few, I had my first pit stop to the loo. By now, I was feeling tipsy, given I hadn’t eaten since lunch.

The Russian temptress began a conversation in broken English about nothing I can remember; but I can still recall those long legs.

On perhaps my third trip to the bathroom I remember standing in a state of bliss, thinking all my Christmases had come at once; I was clearly punching above my weight with the locals.

That thought at the urinal is the last memory I have of the night.

Next, I’m waking in my hotel to find I’d been done over – robbed blind.

She’d cleaned me out, leaving only the clothes I’d been wearing the night before.

Think about the worst hangover you’ve ever had, then triple it. Yes, I felt that crook physically.

After gathering my thoughts, survival skills kicked in.

Right, I thought, I’m in foreign country with no passport, cash, my flight and train tickets had been knocked off, so what do I do?

"OK, I have travel insurance, so I need to find a cop shop to report what had happened," I thought.

Three hours later, after covering the entire circular city with a thumping headache, I finally found a police station where someone spoke English.

They took a urine sample (from the few drops I could muster), put me in contact with the Australian authorities and a few days later I was hightailing it to Vienna to salvage the last leg of my trip.

Fast-forward six months and I received a 12-page Czech police report in which I could only understand
my name, address and the word Rohypnol.

Yep, the Russian bird had been lacing my drinks with "Roey" and – bam! – I was a goner.

A victim of the perils of Prague.

But at least I didn’t end up in an iced bath with my kidneys being spruiked on the black market.

Share this article