They have stopped serving shots in the backpacker bars of Vang Vieng. The night spots of this south-east Asian tourist town would normally be full of young travellers downing traditional Lao whiskey,

The deaths of six foreign tourists linked to a suspected mass methanol poisoning has thrown a spotlight on a small town in Southeast Asia that has worked hard in recent years to shed its reputation for excess.

An Australian teenager has become the sixth foreign tourist to die in a suspected mass methanol poisoning in Laos, as a growing list of countries warned of the potentially fatal consequences of drinking tainted alcohol in the Southeast Asian country.