The music is still playing and the alcohol is still flowing at the bars along one of the party streets in Vang Vieng. Inside a popular venue, a voice over the speaker announces a special offer on beers, as disco lights flicker on the floor. Small paper flags from nations across the world - from Britain to Gabon - hang from the ceiling. Young people travel from all over the world to party in the small town nestled in the Laos countryside.
But Vang Vieng is under a global spotlight, after a suspected mass methanol poisoning that killed six foreign tourists, including two teenagers from Australia, two Danish citizens, a Briton - Simone White - and an American.
The Laos government has promised justice and says it is investigating. But there are concerns about how thorough and transparent any inquiries will be in the country, a communist one-party state that the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has described as "an information 'black hole' from which little reliable information emerges".
The poisoning has also prompted wider discussions about the risk of contaminated alcohol in south-east Asian countries - and how young tourists stay safe while travelling. Before the deaths this month, most backpackers did not think much about what might be in the free shots that are often offered at hostels and bars in Vang Vieng and other parts of the backpacker trail.
"We literally arrived in Laos the day that the news came," says Sam Ayling, 23, from Surrey. "If our trip was pushed forwards for three days or something or two days... it's quite scary to think that that could have been us."
News spread quickly among backpackers, says Eliza Rolf, 21, from Hertfordshire. "In the hostel we were last in, all the friends that we made were very paranoid about what to drink." No one is drinking spirits any more, they say.
This story is from the November 30, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the November 30, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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