A seedy Laos bar where two Australian teenagers were allegedly poisoned openly sells hard drugs to customers, it has been claimed.

Methanol poisoning victims Bianca Jones, who has sadly died, and her friend Holly Bowles, who is fighting for her life in hospital, were seen at Jaidee’s Bar in Vang Vieng just hours before being rushed to hospital, WhatsApp messages revealed.

The best friends, both aged 19, had been staying at Nana Backpackers Hostel where they drank mixed spirits the night before, according to the Herald Sun.

WhatsApp messages have since disclosed the pair then left the hostel and travelled 950m to the beachfront bar, which offers free spirits and has a hard copy ‘drug menu’, offering patrons opium, ecstasy and ketamine.

One man who tried to help the Melbourne teens after they began feeling unwell claimed that they drank methanol-laced spirits there.

But Simone White, a 28-year-old British lawyer who died from alleged methanol poisoning, is not reported to have been to Jaidee’s Bar – which boasts of being the place to be for ‘drinking, talking, smoking, and smiling but no fighting’.

One Tripadvisor review reads: ‘Ignore bad food reviews, this is a ‘happy cafe’ so don’t come for good food. This place has an excellent ‘happy menu’. This place has some really good stuff’ but another labelled it ‘intense’.

Vang Vieng has garnered a reputation as a gap year party town for teenagers and twenty-somethings seeking hedonism and adrenalin sports.

Ramshackle bars sprung up along the banks of the river, each competing to lure backpackers with free shots of the local Lao-Lao rice whisky.

Locals suggested the notorious Jaidee Bar may have links to the Asian mafia, describing it as a ‘dangerous’ place with links to organised crime, according to The Herald Sun.

Photos on its social media show beaming customers – from students to middle-aged couples – having the time of their lives.

One video of the packed venue captioned ‘it is time to move’ shows a dimly lit interior full of clubbers with their arms in the air as they sit on each other’s shoulders and sing.

Other pictures taken in the daytime show off the lush green landscape in the background.

The bar even has a drugs menu, which includes the option of buying weed by the joint or bag, ‘happy brownies’, opium, mushrooms and ketamine.

Despite the party atmosphere, the possession and use of all drugs including weed are illegal in Laos and penalties are harsh.

According to the UK’s foreign travel advice, these include life sentences and the death penalty, with a number of Lao nationals having been sentenced to death in 2019.

It comes as staff at Nana Backpackers Hostel have been interrogated by police who have demanded to see bottles of spirits served on the night the poisoning occurred.

The mass drink spiking has so far claimed the lives of five people, while a further 11 tourists remain in hospital.

Simone White, from Orpington in Kent, sadly died in hospital after suffering from severe symptoms.

She is an associate lawyer based in London specialising in intellectual property and technology at American law firm Squire Patton Boggs.

After completing her A-levels at St Olave’s Grammar School in Orpington, she studied law at Newcastle University before taking the fast-track course at the BPP law school.

Ms White’s friend, Bethany Clarke, a healthcare worker also from Orpington, took to the Laos Backpacking Facebook group to warn other travellers.

She said: ‘Urgent — please avoid all local spirits. Our group stayed in Vang Vieng and we drank free shots offered by one of the bars. Just avoid them as so not worth it. Six of us who drank from the same place are in hospital currently with methanol poisoning.’

It is not yet known where the contaminated alcohol came from.

The region is currently in the headlines after Aussie Bianca Jones, 19, died in the horrific incident alongside two Danish women in their 20s and a 56-year-old American man. Ms Bowles remains critically ill on life support.

Hostel manager and bartender Duong Duc Toan, who served shots to Holly and Bianca, denied it was his Tiger Vodka that made the girls sick.

The best friends were on a ‘dream getaway’ gap year trip across south-east Asia when authorities suspect they drank poisoned cocktails which reportedly contained tainted shots of ‘vodka’.

Toan said he bought the alcohol from a certified distributor and insisted it had not been tainted by himself or his staff.

He said the shots were served to around 100 guests and that the hostel had not received any other complaints and to prove his point, the bartender drank from one of the vodka bottles that were in use on the night to prove it was safe.

Toan said Holly and Bianca were at the bar playing cards from 8pm to 10.30pm and had three drinks each in that time.

He poured them a Lao Pdr Tiger Vodka containing 40 per cent alcohol and mixed it with ice and Coke Zero.

‘Right now the police [are telling] every hostel and hotel and bar to stop selling drinks in Vang Vieng,’ hee said.

Staff became concerned after they failed to check out on November 13 and arranged to take the pair to hospital after they ‘calmly’ asked for assistance.

Hostel CCTV shows one the girls being transported to hospital on the back of a moped.

Methanol can sometimes wind up in alcoholic drinks in southeast Asia as a cheaper, counterfeit alternative to ethanol.

The Foreign Office has issued guidance to Britons travelling to the country, warning them against consuming replica alcohol brands that may contain hidden amounts of methanol.

The hostel’s manager said that more than 100 guests received free shots of Lao vodka from their bar on November 12, with no one else reporting health issues.

Ms Jones’ parents, who live in Australia, broke their silence on Wednesday to reveal they hope local police can swiftly find out what happened.

‘Our family has been overwhelmed by the messages of love and support that have come from across Australia,’ they told the Herald Sun.

‘This is every parent’s nightmare and we want to ensure no other family is forced to endure the anguish we are going through.

‘We hope the authorities can get to the bottom of what happened as soon as possible.’

Methanol can sometimes end up in alcoholic drinks in southeast Asia as a cheaper, counterfeit alternative to ethanol.

It is a dangerous form of alcohol that tastes and smells like standard alcohol and is typically used as a substitute in illegal alcoholic beverages.

Experts say the alcohol initially causes similar symptoms to drunkenness before more serious symptoms kick in between eight and 18 hours after consumption.

The chemical liquid contains a toxic metabolite known as formic acid which initially causes blurred vision and even blindness.

It then enters the brain leading to confusion, seizures and coma, before the acid builds up in the body causing respiratory failure, circulatory shock and kidney failure.

Fatal doses typically end in multiple organ failure and death.

Source: George Braitberg, Head of Emergency Medicine at University of Melbourne

Ms Bowles’ father, Shaun Bowles, said his family has spent every minute possible by Holly’s side.

He told reporters outside Bangkok Hospital on Wednesday: ‘Right now our daughter remains in an intensive care unit, in critical condition, she’s on life support.

‘We would just like to thank everyone from back home for all their support and love that we are receiving.

‘We would also like for people to appreciate right now, we just need privacy so we can spend as much time as we can with Holly.’

The two teens had booked in a four-night stay at Nana Backpackers Hostel, where they had been drinking and playing cards at the bar on the night they were poisoned.

The town of Vang Vieng previously hit world headlines in 2011 for tourist deaths while ‘tubing’, riding in an inflated tractor tyre inner tube down the Nam Song river.

Enterprising bar owners have 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 – has become so popular that at one stage backpackers outnumbered locals by around three to one.

But it has been marred by alarming reports of travellers dying, either from drowning or drinking, or from diving from bars into the river and smashing their skulls on rocks.

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.

Mr Light was said to have stayed underwater ‘for some time’ before crawling back up the riverbank.

He managed to stand up but then immediately fell backwards and his eyes ‘rolled back’ and he could not be resuscitated. A coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.

A former pub landlord from Slough, Michael O’Sullivan, 39, died on his honeymoon in 2009 during a tubing trip with his new bride Ilana in Vang Vieng.

The authorities finally launched a crackdown in 2011, after 27 tourists were said to have died in Vang Vieng in a single year.

Following this, the riverside bars were closed, drugs were taken off ‘happy’ café menus and tight controls were placed on the tubing operators.

Tourists were encouraged to visit the region’s stunning limestone karsts, caves and waterfalls instead of its bars and strict limits were enforced on tubing numbers.

The clampdown was hailed as a success, and record numbers of tourists continued to visit, without the lure of 24-hour partying and tubing.

But Laos remains one of the poorest nations in South East Asia, and alcohol and drugs are cheap, particularly by Western standards.

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.

The Jones family released a statement on Tuesday, saying their daughter had been on a ‘dream getaway with her best friend Holly’.

‘They were filled with joy and had such incredible adventures ahead of them, travelling through Asia,’ the statement said. ‘We are here by Bianca’s bedside praying for her. Please respect our privacy at this difficult time.’

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed that it was providing consular assistance to two Australians and their families in Thailand, but couldn’t provide further information for privacy reasons.

‘Our thoughts are with them at this deeply distressing time,’ the office said.