“Steer Clear of the Spirits”: Laos Backpackers Refrain from Shots Amid Suspected Poisonings

 “I think we’ll skip the tubing,” say two 27-year-old women from Hertfordshire, UK, who prefer to remain anonymous.

“The vodka shots are included in the package, but no one’s interested in drinking the local vodka right now.”

They arrived in Vang Vieng from Vietnam just as reports of the methanol poisoning deaths began to circulate globally.

“In Vietnam, we got free drinks, especially during evening games,” one of them explains. “We never really thought about it; you just assume what you’re given is safe. We’ve shared ‘buckets’ before, but we’re not taking that risk again, and many others feel the same way.”

“Buckets” are small plastic containers filled with cheap vodka and other liquors, shared among friends through long straws.

“Now that this has happened, it really makes you reconsider,” her friend adds. “You start to question why the drinks are free. At the hostel linked to the deaths, they offered free vodka and whisky shots for an hour each evening. If that happened in the UK, you’d definitely think something was off.”