'Parents' worst fear' The risks of drinking on backpacker 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 party hub in the early 2000s. Twentysomething backpackers are lured to the town by tubing on the Nam Song River, an activity in which travelers 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.

- Adeshola Ore Kate Lamb

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 of Laos, Vientiane, has remained popular among tourists. Yesterday, 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, died on Thursday 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.

Three other tourists - two Danish citizens aged 19 and 20, and an American - died in Laos after the incident. About 11 foreign citizens remain in hospital. Authorities in Laos yesterday detained the manager and owner of the Nana backpacker hostel in Vang Vieng, but by last night no one had been charged.

One backpacker who suffered a similar experience, but survived, is Claire*. Almost a year ago, the thirtysomething British traveler was gazing up at the sky, vodka and cola in hand. Her "tipsy tubing" trip had begun as planned. But after the first stop at a makeshift riverside bar in Vang Vieng, it went awry.

"I started to feel strange. Suddenly I was very weak and tired, and I was sliding in and out of consciousness," Claire says. Her friends witnessed her eyes rolling back, and Claire remembers them later describing the scenario as "terrifying".

She said: "I was mostly aware of everything but couldn't see - I knew I was being carried but couldn't physically do anything. I remember that I was trying to explain that something wasn't right - that I wasn't simply drunk."