BBCBecause the solar slowly dips behind the jagged peaks of Mount Nam Xay, a bunch of brightly colored sizzling air balloons drift throughout the Vang Vieng valley.
Within the river under, younger vacationers chortle and splash one another from their kayaks.
It’s not laborious to see what attracts so many travellers right here to this little city in central Laos. The surroundings is gorgeous, the enjoyable low-cost and plentiful.
However the city has discovered itself on the centre of a world scandal after six vacationers died final week following suspected methanol poisoning.
It’s believed their alcoholic drinks could have contained methanol, an industrial chemical usually utilized in bootleg alcohol.
For the throngs of younger western travellers on South East Asia’s backpacker path, Vang Vieng has turn into well-known for what is known as “tubing.” One described it to me as a water borne pub crawl.
Teams of pals in swimsuits and bikinis clamber aboard large interior tubes that may usually be used on vehicles and drift downstream, pulling in every now and then at river facet bars the place vodka photographs are liberally administered, earlier than plunging again into the water.
By the point they attain Vang Vieng everyone seems to be pretty merry.
“I feel we’re going to present the tubing a miss” two 27-year-old ladies from Hertfordshire within the UK inform me (they didn’t need to give their names).
“The vodka photographs are a part of the bundle, however nobody desires to drink the native vodka proper now.”
The pair arrived right here from Vietnam, simply as information of the deaths from methanol poisoning was spreading internationally.
“In Vietnam we received free drinks, notably once you’re taking part in video games within the night,” considered one of them tells me. “And we simply by no means considered it, you simply presume what they’re providing you with is secure. We’ve drunk buckets earlier than, however we’re not going to take the chance once more, and lots of people right here really feel the identical.”
“Buckets” are precisely what they sound like – small plastic buckets stuffed with low-cost vodka and different liquor. Teams of pals share the combination by means of lengthy plastic straws.
“Now this has occurred it actually makes you consider it,” the girl’s pal says. “You surprise why are the drinks free? On the hostel related to the deaths we heard they have been giving free vodka and whisky photographs for an hour every night. I feel if that occurred within the UK you’d positively suppose it was dodgy.”
Each ladies stated they’re now sticking to ingesting bottled or canned beer.
The deaths of six vacationers has despatched shock waves by means of the backpacker scene. Younger feminine travellers really feel most weak. The lifeless embody Briton Simone White, 28, two younger Australians, Holly Bowles and her greatest pal Bianca Jones, and two younger Danish ladies, Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman and Freja Vennervald Sorensen.
Solely one of many lifeless, a 57-year-old American, James Louis Hutson, was male. On the travellers’ chat-groups many have been questioning whether or not solely ladies’s drinks had been spiked with methanol. The reality is, it’s nonetheless a thriller.
What we do know is all of the victims stayed on the identical place, The Nana Backpackers hostel. It’s now been confirmed the American sufferer was discovered lifeless in his bed room there on 13 November. On the identical morning the 2 Danish victims have been discovered unconscious of their rooms and rushed to the native hospital.
Immediately, the Nana hostel is closed, the swimming pool that till a number of days in the past was internet hosting pool events, is empty. A brief stroll away beside the river a bar known as “JaiDees” has additionally been raided. The homeowners of each have forcefully denied serving any unlawful or do-it-yourself alcohol.
Out on the river there may be little signal that the poisonings are stopping folks coming to Vang Vieng. Late November is peak vacationer season. The wet season is over, the skies are clear and the temperature is a comparatively cool 28C (82F).
Alongside the primary drag hostel homeowners informed me they’re absolutely booked. The younger travellers from Europe and Australia are literally the minority. By far the most important teams are from neighbouring Thailand and China, the latter shuttling south on the newly completed Chinese language-built Laos high-speed rail line.
Vang Vieng remains to be a dusty rural city. But it surely’s booming. Native enterprise homeowners glide previous in large black land cruisers and vary rovers. As I walked again to my lodge on Saturday night time, I used to be greatly surprised by the loud bark from the exhaust pipes of a Lamborghini cruising alongside Vang Vieng’s single essential avenue.
Twenty years in the past this was a sleepy little city surrounded by rice fields. Now it’s being reworked by Thai and Chinese language cash. Fancy new resorts are bobbing up with riverside cocktail bars and infinity swimming pools.
However the younger western backpackers aren’t right here for the five-star expertise, they arrive for the pleasant anything-goes ambiance.
At an area bike rental I meet two contemporary graduates from Sussex College.
Ned from Somerset says he has no intention of cancelling plans due to what occurred. “Individuals are scared for certain,” he says, “however I don’t get the impression anybody is leaving. Everybody remains to be right here having an excellent time.”
He provides: “However everybody can be saying the identical factor, don’t drink the spirits, so individuals are being cautious, there’s positively that feeling within the air, however I feel it’s truly fairly secure now as a result of all of the bars are on edge, no-one desires to go to jail”.
His pal Jack is equally unflustered. “We’ve come right here to fulfill up with some pals and have some enjoyable, and we’re nonetheless going to do this,” he says. “I’ve been right here every week now and I can let you know the folks listed here are completely pretty. They’re a few of the nicest folks we’ve met in all of South East Asia. So no matter occurred, I don’t suppose there’s something malicious about it.”
Malicious or not, six individuals are lifeless, 5 of them younger ladies.
The shock waves from what occurred right here has rippled out all over the world to suburban houses from London to Melbourne, the place anxious mother and father with kids on the backpacker path are frantically messaging, checking the place they’re, and attempting to steer them to not go to Vang Vieng.
