For the crowds of young Western travelers on the Southeast Asian backpacker route, Vang Vieng has become famous for what is called “tubing.” One of them described it to me as an aquatic pub crawl.

Groups of friends in swimsuits and bikinis climb aboard huge inner tubes that would normally be used on trucks and drift toward the current, stopping occasionally at riverside bars where shots of vodka are generously administered, before diving back into the water.

By the time they reach Vang Vieng, everyone is quite cheerful.

“I think we’re going to leave the hits aside,” two 27-year-old women from Hertfordshire in the UK told me (they didn’t want to give their names).

“Vodka shots are part of the package, but no one wants to drink the local vodka right now.”

The two men arrived here from Vietnam, just as news of deaths from methanol poisoning spread across the world.

“In Vietnam, we got free drinks, especially when we played games in the evening,” one of them told me. “And we just never thought about it, you just assume that what they give you is safe.” We’ve already drank buckets, but we won’t take any more chances, and a lot of people here feel the same way.

“Buckets” are exactly what they sound like: small plastic buckets filled with cheap vodka and other alcoholic beverages. Groups of friends share the mixture through long plastic straws.

“Now that this has happened, it’s really sobering,” the woman’s friend said. “Are you wondering why the drinks are free? At the hostel associated with the deaths, we heard that they offered free shots of vodka and whiskey for an hour each evening. I think if this happened in the UK you would definitely think it’s dodgy.