EBC - making the most of it in a month

WRT water, just take along a filter setup and filter the local water, or use iodine tablets or a steripen.

Hi

Continuing the tangent and flogging my own dead horse:

last year I ysed a Travel Tap (Aquamira have a similar product in the US) that is a 'fill and drink immediately' micro-purifier and filter. Advantages over the mystifyingly popular Steripen include no wait, no batteries, no bulbs to break, filters non-biological contaminants without the need for an additional pre-filter (extra cost and faff).

At £28 with a 1600L filter capacity it costs 1.75 pence per litre which, I ssume, is much cheaper then a Steripen. It was useful when a landslide blocked the road during a bus ride and the Nepalis would not drink from the nearby stream because it was very muddy (such water does reduce the filter capacity though).

scoodly

scoodly,
I agree, it's good to have a back up, a safety solution.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, we had puryfing tablets with us on EBC trek, just in case, but never used them.
I had a similar situation with landslide in Colombia, when we got stuck for 8 hrs plus the remaining part of the journey. But then the locals turned up with all kinds of temporary remedies, doubling the price of water and drinks.

Hi Fieldgate

I too had a back up, iodine, but if I was using untreated groundwater my back up would be some cyprofloxacin and tinadazole ;-).

If we were near a village, I'm sure the Nepalis would have demonstrated the same entrepreneurship!

scoodly

Alas it seams that Fieldgate wasn’t satisfied with the opinions of us Biased Regulars on the Nepal board regarding the potential pitfalls of drinking untreated water when trekking in Nepal, so continued “Flogging his Dead Horse” by starting a new thread seeking an Unbiased (see post #8) opinion Here
.
Alas this also seams to have Backfired on him as even the “Unbiased” opinion is the same as ours.

Apologies for temporally hijacking the post, and at the risk of being called Rude (Again) I just thought that the Nepal regulars might well be interested ;-)

Best Regards
Rob

scoodly,
I realise I should have been more precise in my post about drinking untreated water.
The water we filled our bottles with every day, came from the kitchens and was recommended by our guide as safe for drinking.
We also used water from streams and untreated, maybe four or five times. Twice where there was a sign "drinking water" and anothere couple of times on high elevation, coming down from Renjo pass and some other place. Generally, in places not close to villages. The water was excellent and I even joked with our guide saying that it would be 4 € a bottle in a European supermarket.
I'm aware that most trekkers wouldn't do it. I used my own judgement, as I did in similar places in the Andes in South America.
I'm not recommending doing it to anyone, but I thought there would be nothing wrong to mention it.
As I said, we never had a stomach problem and we didn't buy a single bottle during the trek.
We also had water purfying tablets with us but never used them.
I was even thinking to myself "why do people buy water when they can have it for free?". That was in Labuche where I saw three porters who had just arrived with big and heavy loads of bottled water.
I was probably too naive in that thinking, as I can see now.

Fieldgate – I really don’t think anyone reading this thread will have any doubt in what it is that you are saying – However, do you understand what it is that the rest of us are saying??
If you can come up with some kind of medical evidence that drinking untreated water is safe, or you can point us to a reputed travel website, or find other regular trekkers that agree then fine – All we, the regular posters are saying is that in our own experiences (Which between us probably amount to 100’s of treks) is that the safest option is Only to drink one of the many options available of treated water.

BTW – From your earlier post #19 re comparing drinking unthreaded water to drinking black tea – The water used to make the tea has been boiled, so this is as safe as buying boiled drinking water.

Best Regards
Rob

Hello

Briefly, Fieldgate you could have been lucky, on another occasion it could be different. Others might strike it unlucky first time and have a trek spoiling infection.

CIWEC state "All water in Nepal must be considered to be contaminated". More information on the link.

While acknowledging "some mountain water might be almost pure", LP's Trekking in Nepal continues "but it is better to disinfect all water".

Kev Reynolds in in his Langtang guide writes "all water in Nepal must be considered suspect".

"The vast majority of diseases that plague the trekker in Nepal are transmitted by water and food contaminated by infected human and animal feces. You should assume all water and uncooked foods in Nepal are contaminated". This by Stephen Bezruchka in Trekking Nepal (2011), he is a long time trekker and climber who is a practising doctor and lecturer in Public health.

I can't claim a comprehensive review of the literature but did not find any reference to groundwater, however high, being safe.

scoodly

Hi there,

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Alpine Adventure Team Pvt. Ltd. More information: www.alpinenepaltrekking.com / info@alpinenepaltrekking.com, Phone: 977-1-4258723

My good friend and favourite Guide is called Nir Bahadur Lama. He is a very spiritual character. At the same time he loves singing and dancing and he has got a good sense of humor. Whereever we went, people loved him and he was a door-opener to many special Nepal-insider experiences. His direct contact: niralama@yahoo.com

He will do a good price for you and he will organise permits ... + you will spend an unforgetable time! If you have special wishes, he will be in, and if you tell him: you decide, he will as well!

Say hello to Nepal and all its people!!

basiclife