Laos methanol poisonings: Free shots and beer buckets in party town

For Australian associates Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, it was their first huge journey venturing out to discover the world.

Like so many 19-year-olds, they had been drawn to the romance of backpacking throughout South East Asia – the place meals is nice, persons are pleasant and the surroundings beautiful.

They had “saved up enough money after school and university to have their overseas jaunt, as so many of our kids do,” stated their soccer crew coach Nick Heath. “And off they went.”

They ended up on 12 November within the riverside city of Vang Vieng in central Laos.

The two checked into the favored Nana Backpacker Hostel – the place visitors typically obtain a free shot upon arrival. Days later each had been on life assist in hospitals in Thailand.

Jones’s loss of life was introduced on 21 November, and Bowles’s a day later. The loss of life of a British girl, 28-year-old Simone White, was additionally introduced on Thursday.

They are amongst six international vacationers who’ve died from what’s believed to be a mass incident of methanol poisoning in Vang Vieng.

Two Danish ladies, aged 19 and 20, died final week, whereas an American man additionally died. They haven’t been recognized.

It is unclear what number of others have fallen ailing, however a transnational police investigation is now underway into the deaths.

Much of the scrutiny has fallen on the hostel the place a few of the victims had been reportedly staying. The ladies had taken free pictures there earlier than heading out for the evening.

The hostel supervisor has denied culpability, saying the identical drinks had been served to a minimum of 100 different visitors that evening who reported no issues. The supervisor was taken in by police for questioning on Thursday.

Mr Heath, who spoke to media on behalf of Ms Bowles’s household, stated they knew it was methanol that precipitated the ladies to fall ailing. But “no one really knows how and where it entered their system”.

To perceive what occurred, the BBC spoke to backpackers and a diplomat in regards to the space.

Our reporting discovered the city the place travellers fell ailing stays a celebration hotspot regardless of previous efforts, with some success, to scrub up its picture, and that whereas the danger of methanol poisoning is thought amongst consulates and tourism operators, travellers seem largely ignorant.

Vang Vieng – a tiny city on the Nam Song river surrounded by limestone mountains and paddy fields – is thought for its surroundings.

It is often known as a celebration city – a fame Laos officers have been attempting to shed over the previous decade.

A four-hour bus journey from the capital Vientiane, it has lengthy been the stopping level on the Banana Pancake Trail backpacking route between Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam earlier than heading north to the traditional temples of Luang Prabang.

In Vang Vieng, hostel bunks are marketed at lower than €10 (£8) an evening, whereas a bucket of beer can price half that. Drugs like marijuana and mushrooms are in prepared provide, overtly marketed at cafes and diners.

During the early 2000s and 2010s the city was well-known for hardcore partying and river tubing. But after a number of vacationers had been injured or died, efforts had been made at elevating security requirements.

“To combat the river tubing deaths they demolished a bunch of the riverside bars that were selling buckets of vodka to people floating by,” one Western diplomat within the area instructed the BBC.

Laos officers aimed to re-centre the city as a spot for eco-tourism slightly than only a hub for the younger and drunk.

“And it worked,” they are saying. “It’s actually changed a quite a lot in the past decade, they’ve cleaned it up, it’s way more modern than it used to be.”

But because of that: “I think it can be very easy for young travellers to miss that this is still a very poor country with lax regulations and safety standards.”

The diplomat said methanol poisoning – where alcoholic drinks are contaminated with a toxic compound – is well-known among consulates and tourism operators.

Consulates are fairly regularly having to deal with cases of tourists who have fallen ill from dodgy drinks, the diplomat noted.

South East Asia is documented as the worst region for methanol poisoning. Local producers making cheap alcohol often will not correctly reduce the toxic level of methanol produced in the process.

Thousands of deaths are recorded every year in the region, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

But for tourists, awareness around poisonous alcohol is low.

British backpacker Sarisha told the BBC’s Newsbeat programme she had never considered the risk of free drinks when she was recently staying at Nana Backpacker.

Like most other hostels, happy hours were a daily staple at the venue as well as free shots of local vodkas as courtesies, she said.

“It’s a very party city,” she said.

Tourists still in town are now taking extra precautions after the shocking deaths.

On Friday, Miika, 19, a Finnish backpacker staying at a hostel just 10 minutes walk from Nana Backpacker, told the BBC he and his friends had arrived in town two days ago. They were now only ordering bottled beers and rethinking river tubing because shots were included.

“Now because we know about this, we didn’t really want to go there,” he said.

British woman Natasha Moore, 22, told the BBC she cancelled her booking for Nana Backpacker after hearing about the deaths.

“It’s just so scary, I feel so overwhelmed… it feels like I’ve escaped death, almost like survivor’s guilt”, she said in a TikTok video warning other travellers.

Her group arrived in the town two days after the poisoning, where “it was still kind of hush hush, nobody really knew too much about what was going on”.

She knew many travellers decided to skip the town and said there were signs in the hostel warning to be careful about drinks.

She said she “can’t even count how many free drinks” she had on her travels, but over five nights in Vang Vieng, she and her friends had no free drinks or spirits, only bottled alcohol.

“I feel so, so sad and upset for all the friends and family and the people still in hospital. It’s just so unfair, we were just trying to have a good time,” she said.

“We’ve worked hard to save up to go travel, like it’s such a brave thing to do, and then something like that can happen.”

Additional reporting by Gavin Butler, Amy Walker and Jack Gray