Travel Health

Is it any better than the bottled water? Does it make you more of a hard-core traveler?

Drinking the local water was something that I once felt set me apart from the other travelers who all needed their special water in a plastic bottle tapped god knows where. I aspired to live like the locals wherever I went and so across the Middle East and India, I drank water from wells, mountain springs and where it was pumped out of the ground. I quickly learnt that government water invariably sentenced me to ten metre dashes to the nearest bathroom but otherwise I was happy to drink what the locals drank.

I reasoned that local water probably gave me immunity against infections and viruses, that it was somehow charged with the magnetic energy of the earth and in any event, it had to be better than the bottled water that had been stuck on a shelf in a dusty storage room for a year and a half.

And in places like India, who knew where that water had been bottled in the first place?

I drank the local water in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Syria, Jordan, Morocco and considered myself smarter than all the guidebook warnings until I came to Mexico and noticed that just about everyone drank bottled water. In fact, trucks selling the stuff terrorised everyone with loudspeakers on top of the hood blaring out sales pitches as they tore through the quiet back streets. I heard that there might have been heavy metals in the water due to unscrupulous mining activities and left it at that.

Then I came to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and a local woman cracked up laughing me when she heard me extolling the virtues of the local water. Taking me by the hand, she showed me just where it came from: my ‘spring’ had passed two villages where the locals threw out all their garbage, the run off of several community bathrooms and fields where animals grazed.

What Can Drinking the Local Water Do to You?

What the woman from Guatemala helped me understand was that in most of the third world, only people who can’t afford to do otherwise drink the local water. Because with appalling local infrastructure the water can be infected by local sewage, decomposing animals, rat urine and any other number of the dark side of Nature.

Amongst some of the more fun things you might catch are:

- amoebas – cholera – hepetitus – typhoid, – e-coli – salmonella – guinea worm

and any other number of water-borne illnesses for all the family.

So Why Don’t the Locals Die From the Water?

Well, they do.

But not usually in huge numbers as immunity builds up from exposure to pathogens and there’s probably some genetic resistance to certain forms of illness. None of which you have.

We’re not saying that you’ll die from drinking bad local water but you are playing Russian Roulette with your health. Some of the diseases mentioned above can take years to recover from and are just no fun at all.

So Which Local Water Can Be Drunk Safely?

You’ll be okay if you drink from:

- Springs that the locals testify as good (The earth itself acts as a pretty good filter).

- Mountain streams that are above any grazing pastures.

- Rain water.

- Local wells that are considered to be good but even here remember the story of local resistance and think about boiling it.

What If There’s No Good Water Available?

If you’re miles from anywhere that sells bottled water and you don’t trust the water that the locals are drinking then there are a few options:

- Ask someone to boil the water for you, preferably for at least 12 minutes.

- Drink beer and soft drinks.

- Add iodine drops although this shouldn’t be a long term solution.

- Buy and carry a water purifying kit

Water, Water, Everywhere

We felt compelled to just give travelers some decent advice on drinking local water but there’s no need to get too paranoid. Nietzsche was probably right in reckoning that ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ and in a crazy, cosmic kind of way, if illness is coming your way it’ll probably find you anyhow.

But that’s no reason to make it any easier for the pathogens to find you.

Tom has been traveling non-stop since the age of 18 and co-founded Road Junky in 2004. Follow him @tomglaister

He’s the author of Hand to Mouth to India, an account of hitchhiking from England to India with no money and which will soon be rereleased by Road Junky Books.

Tales of a Road Junky featuring tales of breaking people out of jail in Delhi, selling fake Rolexes in Japan and other adventures in Israel and Brazil will be out later this year.

He also writes fiction for anyone who never really grew up and his latest novel is Bozo and the Storyteller – download the audio book for free or even buy a copy…

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