15

Simple solution: drink Coca Cola. Just make sure you buy it in glass bottles.

16

#18: my boyfriend will do that :-), he's a real coca cola addict....and it has to be coca cola, not another brand.

I rather have my 2l of water per day. I'm pretty sure about bying the Steripen to use on tap water.

17

In Thailand and Malaysia there seem to be purified water vending machines everywhere, selling a liter of water for as little as 1 baht: . So when in those countries, I'd buy a 1-liter plastic bottle of water once, and then refill it at those machines as needed.

In China, such public purified water dispensers are rare, although I've seen a few. But people there drink tea everywhere, and many public places, such as as train stations and airports, would have hot (as in, "boiling hot") water dispensers (usually free). Works fine for me, although of course instead of a plastic bottle I have to have a metal containers (they sell portable thermos cups etc. for this purpose everywhere), or, in a pinch, just a glass jar with a lid. In Chinese hotels they always give you a big thermos bottle of boiled water, or there will be an electric kettle in the room; so you don't need to buy water for your tea or coffee, and when the boiled water cools off, surely you can refill your plastic bottle with it.

18

I don't particularly find any trouble on being a "heavy" water drinker while traveling around Asia. nrclibn is right, just leave your water overnight to let some residues subside...or you can just refill your water jug with over the counter mineral water.

19

I'm about to buy a steripen - I met a traveller in Indonesia who had one, and showed me how to use it. Very simple, fast, and I think he had the kind that you can recharge with rechargeable batteries.

I looked on the steripen website the other day and I think they had one version with the rechargeable batteries, 2 that used an uncommon kind of battery that other reviewers said would be hard to buy in developing countries, and one that was more expensive but looked like it didn't need batteries (I'm not sure how it worked!)

There are several discussions on TT about steri pen, so maybe check them out before you buy.

20

As @tony0001 mentioned, I think purchasing a BRITA filter would be a good option. Before you leave the house (or hostel, or whatever), fill a reusable custom water bottle with water from your BRITA filter and you should be set! If you know you will need more than one bottle for however long you're out, consider packing a bag with a few. Good luck! :)

21

You can walk into any pharmacy and ask for water purification tablets. They have no taste, and the water is ready to drink in 30 minutes.

22

Hey,

My girlfriend and I have been trying to go plastic free as we cycle through Asia. There are 20l water tanks round the back of most businesses that cost the owners about 10-15baht each, and are refilled/recycled. 90% of the time people will let you top up your bottle with that.

Failing that, there are clean water dispensers in most of the larger towns. They look a bit like a portable ATM or something. 0.5 - 2 baht per litre. We're compiling a list of places that have these dispensers on our blog, which also has a bit more info.

Lesson we've learnt: it is a piece of piss to avoid plastic bottles in Asia.

http://wecycletour.blogspot.com/2012/07/make-plastic-fees-how-to-avoid-plastic.html