Martha Peacock

Since I see that "don't drink the water" is a common refrain, I was wondering about water purification tablets. Would these be a good solution if I don't want to constantly spend money on bottled water while I'm in Egypt?<BR><BR>Thanks!<BR><BR>Martha<BR>

Karen

Possibly. But water is only about 50 cents a liter. We drink lots of water, and only spent at the most $2.00/day.

gail

Without being too gross - the major problems with water is bacterial contamination (from fecal sources) and parasites. My limited understanding of water purification tablets is that they will, to some extent, kill bacteria or parasites. However, just the thought of drinking dead bacterial from feces or dead parasites is enough to make me rush to the bottled water vendor. A word of caution - make sure the water bottle is sealed when you buy it (and not just refilled from some stream) and dry off the outside before you drink from it, as it may have been sitting in contaminated water. <BR><BR>Also, I agree with Karen - we drank great quantities of bottled water and it never amounted to much cost. Good hotels and Nile cruisers generally offer bottled water for free with meals. Water is easily available at all historic sites. An advantage to bottled water is it is usually cold. <BR><BR>Another tip, if you get tired of regular water is to bring some powdered drink mix to add to some of the bottles.<BR><BR>Have a great trip to Egypt. We found the food and water precautions to be well worth it - our trip was so great. Others in our group who did not follow rather strict food and water precautions found themselves at least mildly ill for a day or rwo.

little tourist

our TRAVEL AGENT gave us this advice, NOT a medical doctor. We went to Mexico last year and were also worried about the water and some foods. He told us to start taking a pepto bismal a day, a week before we left, and then every day that we were there. He said that it coats your stomach and can keep you from becoming mildly ill.<BR>It worked for us. We didn't buy fruits from the vendors off the street, but we did have ice cubes in our sodas at restaurants and things like that.<BR>

Alice

Martha, I tried the tablets a couple of years ago when I was in Egypt. Trust me on this. DON'T!! The water was disgusting. Don't know how backpackers and Eco-Challengers do it. The bottled water is cheap and taste delicious after a tramp through the ruins. (..and I normally don't drink a lot of water!). One note: be sure to take an insulated carrier for the bottle. Keeps chilled water cold for some time and room temp water from gettng too warm.