Deaths shine spotlight on risks of drinking on party trail

Vang Vieng is an unlikely party hub. Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it morphed from a small farming town to a hedonistic tourist destination in the early 2000s.

- Adeshola Ore and Kate Lamb

Twentysomething backpackers are lured to the town by tubing on the Nam Song River, an activity in which travellers float downstream on inflatables between bars set among spectacular scenery. The experience has cemented Vang Vieng's spot on south-east Asia's famed backpacker trail.

While a spate of backpacker deaths led to a crackdown on bars and a temporary tubing ban in 2012, the town, a 90-minute drive from the capital, Vientiane, has remained popular with tourists.

Last week, a 19-year-old Australian, Holly Bowles, became the sixth person to die in an incident linked to the suspected consumption of drinks laced with methanol. News of her death came just hours after that of the British lawyer Simone White, 28.

Bowles's best friend, Bianca Jones, 19, had died in hospital in Udon Thani, in Thailand near the northern border with Laos. Thai authorities confirmed that the Melbourne teenager had died from methanol poisoning.