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BBC.com is banned in Vietnam. But Opera built-in VPN helped. Thank you.
In Laos, they sell cheap vodka in shops for super low prices - can't remember the price but I remember the scale of my surprise since the price was, like, below a dollar for half a liter or so. I doubt there is a serious quality control there. The hostel owner could just sell this cheap vodka or use it for cocktails.
Methanol is well-known in ex-Soviet countries since it was a regular way to die for Soviet people (low-quality alcohol or consuming technical liquids). A famous Soviet Russian novel's plot (Moscow-Petushki by Venedikt Erofeev) is fully built on methanol poisoning. A guy drinks while traveling on the train from Moscow to a small town Petushki, and gets more and more delusional until finally he loses his eye sight (because of methanol poisoning) and dies on the train never reaching Petushki.
wow bbc banned ! didn't know that, I guess backpackers are easy prey if they are not street wise and as for that book, it sounds wonderful...not