THE bodies of air traffic controller Leslie Yeo, 40, and student Lu Weiye, 26, returned home late last night from Bangkok accompanied by their family members.

The wakes of the two men, who died in a pub fire in Thailand on New Year's Day, will be held at their homes in Punggol and Bedok from today. Before leaving Bangkok, the men's coffins stood next to each other at the Police General Hospital mortuary, fronted by porcelain urns holding joss sticks.

On Tuesday at about 3pm, prior to leaving Thailand, 17 relatives and friends of Mr Yeo and Mr Lu turned up at the morgue to take their bodies home. Mr Yeo's family and friends were the first group to be led into the open-air area of the mortuary. There, one of the doctors gingerly opened a white body bag and Mr Yeo's three Thai female friends burst into tears.

Undergraduate Lu Weiye's family were then taken to see his body, dressed in a black jacket and blue jeans. The six departed quickly with the women crying as they emerged from the room.

Mortuary staff transferred the bodies into the coffins and two monks spent a few minutes chanting before the coffins while grieving friends and relatives held joss sticks and prayed. The groups then made their way to the site of the Santika Pub to say prayers for the two men.

Read the full report in Wednesday?s edition of The Straits Times.