A little off-topic, but since it's already been brought up -- Regarding the safety of wild water:
I've heard Les Stroud ("Survivorman") say that in a survival situation it's silly to worry about giardia in the water when dehydration is a more-urgent issue -- same as some folks have alluded to here. Most of Les's experience (outside of his show) is in North America.
And yet, in a different reality-TV show -- "Naked and Afraid" -- they frequently say, depending on the locale, that the surface water must be treated because it can contain viruses and other deadly pathogens. "N&A" is frequently set in tropical areas, sometimes in Asia. In one episode a guy drank untreated --- but beautiful-looking -- surface water from some Asian jungle creek and got very ill within hours. Not simple diarrhea -- he had to be evacuated to a hospital.
Just wondering if it's true that wild water outside of North America -- maybe in tropical Asia -- is actually, potentially, significantly more dangerous to drink than water "around here".
I'm not talking about drinking from the Ganges or downstream of a dead elephant -- I mean nice looking sparkling water in a wild jungle, wondering if in some areas of the world there are naturally-occurring pathogens that are fiercer and faster-acting than good old giardia.
Does it seem kinda funny to base a question on reality TV shows? Yeah...but the question still interests me.