Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng, Laos, is abandoned and forlorn. But until a few days ago, it was usually heaving with students in swimwear drinking at the bar, where cocktails with names like “cucumber slut” and “dark madness” are on the menu, and a sign on the wall politely discourages sex in the public dormitory.
Six people have died of methanol poisoning after staying at Nana two weeks ago, when a night of fun in a small tourist town turned to tragedy and horror.
They include 28-year-old Simone White, a solicitor from Orpington, southeast London, Australian friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both aged 19, two Danish women, Frela Vennervald Sorensen, 21, and Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and the US citizen James Louis