British national Bethany Clarke still remembers that day in Vang Vieng, Laos – tubing down the river with friends, followed by a sunset happy hour at the Nana Backpackers Hostel. It had all the hallmarks of a classic backpacker afternoon. The vodka and whisky shots were free. The cost would come later.
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It was November 12, 2024. The next morning, Clarke and her two companions – childhood friend Simone White and a male friend – set out early for a kayaking trip they had planned the day before. But instead of excitement, Clarke felt unusually drained.
“I just felt sick and we were lying flat on our backs in the kayaks looking at the sky. My brain wasn’t functioning. I didn’t feel like it was a hangover, but I couldn’t work out why. It didn’t make sense,” Clarke told This Week in Asia.
It was the beginning of a nightmare that would end in a hospital bed in Vientiane, with Clarke watching her best friend die from methanol poisoning – a preventable tragedy that, experts say, continues to result from periodic outbreaks of contaminated alcohol across Southeast Asia and claims hundreds of lives worldwide each year.
White, a 28-year-old lawyer from the UK, had also felt unwell that morning. Still groggy and confused, the group endured a torturous bus ride to the Laotian capital, first to visit a medical clinic before being referred to a larger hospital, as White’s condition quickly deteriorated.
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