Dark side of the Laos backpacker trail: Drug-fueled hedonism in a Communist backwater where drugs are sold at restaurants and 27 party-seeking tourists died in a year
For decades it was seen as Thailand's smaller, sleepier - and safer - neighbour.
But Laos has become increasingly popular with tourists, including Western backpackers, and that popularity has come at a price.
Once famed for temples and processions of Buddhist monks, some of its larger towns are now firmly established on the backpacker trail, but are also experiencing record levels of crime and drug-related violence.
Vang Vieng in particular has become known as a gap year party town for teenagers and twenty-somethings seeking hedonism and adrenalin sports.
The former farming village is now at the centre of an investigation after five travellers died after drinking shots thought to have been laced with methanol, a cheaper form of alcohol that can cause severe poisoning or death.
It is Vang Vieng's second taste of notoriety. The town previously hit world headlines in 2011 for tourist deaths while 'tubing', riding in an inflated tractor tyre inner tube down the Nam Song river.
Ramshackle bars sprang up along the banks of the river, each competing to lure backpackers with free shots of the local Lao-Lao rice whisky.
Enterprising bar owners set up rope swings, makeshift zip lines and rickety water slides for gap year revellers to play on and threw ropes to the 'tubers' so they could be pulled in for drinks or 'happy' milkshakes laced with hallucinogens.
The combination of cheap alcohol, a party atmosphere and river games proved wildly popular on the so-called Banana Pancake Trail, a well-trodden path around South East Asia for budget travellers.
The Lonely Planet guide described tubing as 'one of the rites of passage of the Indochina backpacking circuit'.
Vang Vieng - a four-hour bus journey from Laos' capital Vientiane - became so popular that at one stage backpackers outnumbered locals by around three to one.
But soon reports began to surface of travellers dying, either from drowning or drinking, or from diving from bars into the river and smashing their skulls on rocks.
Laos is a one-party Communist state, and strict controls on the media meant the deaths often went unreported.
But the authorities finally launched a crackdown in 2011, after 27 tourists were said to have died in Vang Vieng in a single year.
British tourist Benjamin Light, 23, from Bournemouth, drowned after jumping into the river from a rope swing during a tubing trip.
His inquest heard participants were given alcohol during several stops on their way down the river.
Another hidden danger dates back to the Vietnam War, when the US used air bases in Laos, including in Vang Vieng, and bombed suspected supply lines in the south.
Unexploded cluster bombs and landmines remain in some areas, although tourist regions are said to be safe.
The Foreign Office travel advice for the country is to avoid the central Xaisomboun Province, following armed clashes with anti-government groups.
It warns that male and female tourists have reported having their food or drink spiked with drugs, and that travellers should be cautious about accepting spirit-based drinks following the recent methanol poisonings.
