THE MOTHER of tourist Julie Bergheim spoke to her daughter as she lay dying from a mysterious malady on Phi Phi, say reports in the Norwegian media.

Unexplained deaths echo especially loudly in a nation that values the lives of its citizens, and today Norway cannot forget the tragic holiday deaths of Bergheim, 22, and another traveller, American Jill St Onge, 27.

A burst of coverage has followed the closure of the Norwegian investigation into the mystery, and now comes a public rebuke from Bergheim's travelling companion, Karina Refseth, 21,

Ms Refseth remained silent until the Norwegian investigators admitted that, halfway around the world from Thailand, their best forensic scientists were unable to unravel the mystery through a second autopsy and tests.

''I am very disappointed with both Norwegian and Thai police,'' Ms Refseth, who almost died herself from the same malady, told VG Nett, the largest circulation newspaper in the country.

She added that she feared Thai police were more concerned about the reputation of Thailand's tourist industry than to apportion responsibility for the tragedy.

''I am sure that we were exposed to a kind of gas,'' she is quoted as saying, ''and I think Julie died of this gas. I certainly do not feel that the police down there have taken this seriously.''

For the first time, the final awful moments the two women spent together, both close to death, have been revealed in detail.

Unknown to them, another tourist pair, Julie St Onge and her finance Ryan Kells, had been enduring similar agony in the room next door at Laleen Guesthouse.

The two couples probably never spoke or even nodded, yet they went through the same hell, and the two survivors have had to bear the same lack of explanation.

Ms Refseth said the Norwegian friends were out that night in May until 2am on Phi Phi, a highly social backpacker destination about an hour by ferry from Phuket. There are no cars, only paved walking tracks.

''It was the third night and when we got home that evening, I noted a strange smell in the room, but we thought nothing more of it,''she said.

Explaining that the two were on their way home after studying hotel management for 18 months in Australia, where they became friends, Ms Refseth said: ''Julie was an adventurous and bubbly person.

''We had a couple of weeks in Thailand before we moved in at Laleena Guesthouse on May 1 last year,'' she told the newspaper.

''We stayed first in a place without air conditioning, but by chance we found this guesthouse.

''It was so hot that we decided to move in there, the price was quite low, although it had air conditioning,'' said Ms Refseth.

''The third night when we got home that evening I felt a kind of strange smell in the room, but we thought nothing more of it, "she says.

During the hours that followed, the two became so sick that they were unable to move from their beds.

''We just kept throwing up,'' Ms Refesth said. They knew nothing about the tragedy that had already struck the couple in the next room.

Ryan Kells, 31, who also fell sick but had spent less time in the room, was able to have his seriously ill companion pushed to the local island hospital on a wheelbarrow of the kind used to cart baggage and goods around the island.

Nobody thought to alert the other guests in the 10 rooms of the guesthouse to the drama, or the apparent potential danger.

The Laleena maid, who preferred not to be named, has described to Phuketwan how she found Refseth and Bergeim in their room at 9pm the next day, naked and clearly dying.

''We had not paid for the room, so they came looking for us,'' Ms Refseth said. ''I can remember that we told them we needed a doctor.''

She remembers very little of the last hours in the room, but she does know that her friend spoke with her mother at home in Drammen.

''Then she grew so bad that she could not bear to talk,'' Ms Refseth said.

Having been found close to death, the two Norwegian girls were ferried in wheelbarrows to the small Phi Phi hospital.

''I cannot recollect the Phi Phi hospital, I was out of it,'' Ms Refseth said. ''During the night they took us by boat to a larger hospital in Phuket.

''I saw that the light was extinguished in Julie's room. They told me that she was sleeping, and I believed them.

''At first I refused to move, I was so sick that I was not prepared to sit for an hour in the boat, but eventually I gave up, " Ms Refseth said.

''I had asked for Julie several times, but they said she was sleeping. I was angry because nobody told me anything.

''First, the next day, after I had come to Phuket, I learned that Julie had died. It was Mom who called and said that, " Ms Refseth said.

Eight months on, she finds difficulty in talking about Phi Phi.

''No one knew what had happened. First, it was speculated that someone had put something in our drinks. It was suggested that it had to do with food poisoning.

''But we had nothing to do with the American pair. It was just nonsense,'' Ms Refseth said.

The latest of several articles in the Norwegian media this week is accompanied by a photograph of a woman, in deep snow and with more snowflakes falling, kneeling down beside a grave with a black marble headstone.

The grave belongs to Julie Michelle Bergheim, and the woman in her mother, Ina Thoresen, 52. She places candles or flowers there every day.

''On that Sunday I had a strange feeling that something was wrong, so I called Julie on Phi Phi,'' Ms Thoresen told the Norwegian media.

'''She said that both she and Karina were so bad that they could not bear to leave. I asked her to contact a doctor, but she said only that she was not able to talk more.

''Then she had to hang up,'' Ms Thoresen said.