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Holly Bowles, left, was confirmed dead on Friday, a day after British lawyer Simone White and Australian Bianca Jones.
For Australian friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, it was their first big trip to explore the world.
Like so many other 19-year-olds, they were drawn to the romance of backpacking through Southeast Asia, where the food is great, the people friendly and the scenery stunning.
They had “saved enough money after school and college to go on trips abroad, like many of our kids do,” said their football team coach, Nick Heath. “And they left.”
They met on November 12 in the riverside town of Vang Vieng, in central Laos.
The two checked into the popular Nana Backpacker Hostel, where guests often receive a free photo upon arrival. Days later, both were on life support in hospitals in Thailand.
Jones' death was announced on November 21, and Bowles' death a day later. The death of a British woman, Simone White, 28, was also announced on Thursday.
They are among six foreign tourists who died following what is believed to be a massive methanol poisoning incident in Vang Vieng.
Two Danish women, aged 19 and 20, died last week, while an American man also died. They have not been identified.
It is unclear how many other people fell ill, but a transnational police investigation into the deaths is currently underway.
Much of the attention has focused on the hostel where some of the victims are believed to have stayed. The girls had taken some free photos there before leaving for the night.
The hostel manager denied any culpability, saying the same drinks were served to at least 100 other guests that evening who reported no problems. The manager was arrested by the police on Thursday.
Mr Heath, who spoke to the media on behalf of Ms Bowles' family, said they knew it was the methanol which made the girls ill. But “no one really knows how or where it got into their system.”
To understand what happened, the BBC spoke to backpackers and a diplomat about the area.
Our reports reveal that the city where the travelers fell ill remains a party hotspot despite past efforts, with some success, to improve its image, and that even though the risk of methanol poisoning is known to consulates and of tourist operators, travelers seem largely ignorant.
Notorious party town
Vang Vieng – a small town on the Nam Song River surrounded by limestone mountains and rice fields – is known for its scenery.
It is also known as a party town – a reputation that Lao authorities have tried to shake off over the past decade.
A four-hour bus ride from the capital Vientiane, it has long been the stopping point for the Banana Pancake Trail hiking route between Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before heading north to the ancient temples from Luang Prabang.
In Vang Vieng, bunk beds in hostels are advertised for less than €10 (£8) a night, while a bucket of beer can cost half that price. Drugs like marijuana and mushrooms are available in stock and openly advertised in cafes and restaurants.
In the early 2000s and 2010s, the city was famous for its hardcore parties and river tubing. But after several tourists were injured or died, efforts were made to raise safety standards.
“To combat deaths caused by river tubes, they demolished a number of riverside bars that were selling buckets of vodka to passersby,” a Western diplomat in the region told the BBC.
Laotian authorities aimed to refocus the city as a place for ecotourism rather than simply a hub for young people and drunks.
“And it worked,” they say. “It’s actually changed a lot in the last decade, they’ve cleaned it up, it’s a lot more modern than it used to be.”
But that's why: “I think it can be very easy for young travelers to forget that it's still a very poor country with lax regulations and safety standards. »
The diplomat said methanol poisoning – where alcoholic drinks are contaminated with a toxic compound – is well known among consulates and tourism operators.
Consulates are fairly regularly confronted with cases of tourists falling ill from questionable drinks, the diplomat noted.
Southeast Asia is considered the region most affected by methanol poisoning. Local producers who make cheap alcohol often fail to properly reduce the toxic level of methanol produced in the process.
Thousands of deaths are recorded each year in the region, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
But for tourists, awareness of toxic alcohol is low.
British traveler Sarisha told the BBC's Newsbeat program that she never considered the risk of free drinks during her recent stay at Nana Backpacker.
Like most other hostels, happy hours were a daily on-site staple, along with free glasses of local vodkas as a courtesy, she said.
“It’s a very festive city,” she says.
Persistent fears
Tourists still in the city are now taking extra precautions after the shocking deaths.
On Friday, Miika, 19, a Finnish backpacker staying at a hostel just a 10-minute walk from Nana Backpacker, told the BBC that he and his friends had arrived in town two days ago. They were now only ordering bottled beers and rethinking river tubing because shots were included.
“Now, because we know about it, we didn’t really want to go there,” he said.
Briton Natasha Moore, 22, told the BBC she canceled her Nana Backpacker booking after hearing about the deaths.
“It's so scary, I feel so overwhelmed… I feel like I've escaped death, almost like survivor's guilt,” she said in a TikTok video warning other travelers.
His group arrived in the city two days after the poisoning, where “it was still a little quiet, no one really knew much about what was going on.”
She knew many travelers had decided to leave town and said there were signs at the hostel warning to be careful with drinks.
She said she “can't even count how many free drinks” she had on her trip, but for five nights in Vang Vieng, she and her friends had no free drinks or spirits, only l bottled alcohol.
“I feel so sad and upset for all the friends, family and people still in hospital. It’s so unfair, we were just trying to have a good time,” she said.
“We worked hard to save up to go on a trip, like it was such a brave thing to do, and then something like this can happen.”
Additional reporting by Gavin Butler, Amy Walker and Jack Gray
