Surviving Tips for Traveling to Areas Where Visitors Shouldn't Drink the Water

In planning our trip to China, my husband and I started where we normally begin, at the bookstore in the travel section. One of the first things we read was don't trust the water even for brushing your teeth. This is not the first trip we've taken where this advice was given.

So what should the wise traveler plan to do to deal with the situation of bad water? I'm rather fanatical on this topic because I hate being sick. Our first measure is to visit our doctor and make sure that all of our inoculations are up to date. We've visited the UW Travel Medicine office on previous occasions, but since most of our inoculations were up to date, we chose to use our family doctor for this visit. When we visited South Africa, we found that polio was present in fresh water and in seawater along the coasts. We took the polio vaccine.

At the same time we had our inoculations, we were told about diarrhea. The doctor prescribed a small number of a very strong antibiotic, Darth Pill we called it, that were guaranteed to kill any bug in twenty-four hours flat. This is a potential backup plan for what to do if all your other precautions fail. When I spent three weeks on an Earthwatch trip in Turkey, one of the ladies on board suffered for days, never leaving her room and not seeing any part of the country.

Here are some of the simple precautions we take. First, drink bottled water. Even when we travel to Florida, we've found that if we drink bottled water, we are less likely to have bowel troubles. Constipation is almost as bad as diarrhea. Don't forget to bring a stool softener and or laxative in your first aid kit. I also bring powdered Gatorade or similar sport drink mix. Sports drinks help prevent dehydration, the main side effect of diarrhea by ensuring the body has enough potassium to retain your bodies essential requirement of salt. Boiled tea and coffee are an alternative-but make sure that the water was never left sitting out after it was boiled.

Second, don't touch your mouth without first cleansing your hands. If you wash your hands in contaminated water, they are not clean enough to eat off. I bring along waterless hand sanitizer. When we stopped at a pit toilet in Egypt, a woman sold us the opportunity to dry our hands on her dirty towel. Ick. But very hard to turn down seeing she looked impoverished. To brush your teeth, my dad recommends beer. To me the thought of mint toothpaste mixed with warm beer sounds atrocious. I make do with small amounts of bottled water to rinse my mouth, but use tap water to clean my toothbrush followed by a dollop of Listerine or other mouthwash. To cleanse my hands and face after showering, I use Pond's Moist Towelette's sold for makeup removal or those used for babies. The towelette's have my vote since they fit easier into your baggage. Also beware of temples where the priests, ministers or whatever the title is, offering you blessings of food, drink or something put on your face. Friends of my husband's became very ill after such an occurrence.

If you're wary of the water, you also have to be wary of food, especially fresh. If the food hasn't been cooked well, beware. The only fresh fruit that is okay to try are those you peel yourself. Fresh vegetables washed in a tincture of iodine, maybe safe. Even if your think the food is safe, if it was prepared by someone with dirty hands (meaning they washed with contaminated water), you don't want to take chances. Beware of dairy foods especially in hot countries. The exception is yogurt, which is a traditional cure for diarrhea and works if it is from a reputable source. Raw seafood and meat is very risky. Some local preparations of foods are also hard on travelers because of the oil and spices used to cook them. Keep these to a minimum at first and slowly build up your tolerance. I'm an extremely picky eater, so my motto is, if you can't find something good to eat at the restaurant, buy local nuts and beer. You really can't go wrong with them.

In places where you know that pure bottled water is unavailable, water purification kits can be your answer. Two methods are sold, one using iodine tablets, the other using a filter. There are places in the world where a bottle of clean water costs more than gasoline.

In conclusion, if you're careful, you should survive these areas with no harm. But always remember to bring a first aid kit that includes: iodine, iodine tablets for cleaning up water, bandaids (for blisters on your feet), antibiotic cream, potassium supplements, alcohol swabs, pills to halt diarrhea including a prescription of antibiotics, stool softeners, laxatives, aspirin as well as a complete supply of your normal medications.