For Australian friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, it was their first big trip venturing out to explore the world.
Like so many 19-year-olds, they were drawn to the romance of backpacking across South East Asia - where food is great, people are friendly and the scenery stunning.
They had “saved up enough money after school and university to have their overseas jaunt, as so many of our kids do,” said their football team coach Nick Heath. “And off they went.”
They ended up on 12 November 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 shot upon arrival. Days later both were on life support in hospitals in Thailand.
Jones’s death was announced on 21 November, and Bowles’s a day later. The death of a British woman, 28-year-old Simone White, was also announced on Thursday.
They are among six foreign tourists who have died from what is believed to be a mass incident of methanol poisoning in Vang Vieng.
