Two Danish backpackers who died in a mass poisoning in Laos messaged a friend to say they had been vomiting blood for hours before they went eerily silent, and were later found deceased.

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.