Can you drink the tap water in Thailand?
This question is met with the short answer of, No.
Not even the Thai’s drink the raw tap water in Thailand!
The risk is not from the water itself but from the pipes that it passes through, collecting up toxins and bacteria along the way before it gets to you.
Although, with so many alternatives readily available, not drinking the tap water in Thailand is not really a big issue.
Every shop and supermarket sells an abundance of bottled water.
A 6 litre bottle costs around 30 baht from a supermarket. Usually, the bigger the bottle the cheaper it is.
There are special water machines positioned all over Thailand, in the cities, villages, outside shops, you’re never really far from one.
They are coin operated, where you fill up you own bottle with Reverse Osmosis Purified water (RO)
Some of these machines pour out cold water, charging a few more bahts than the machines where you need to chill the water in the refrigerator yourself.
This is one of the water machines where we get our water from, at 1 baht per liter, and we have since found another machine in our village which is ½ baht per liter and we can fill up our 6 liter bottles for 3 baht each, you can’t really get any cheaper!
Water filtration systems can be bought to install in your own home so you can drink the water straight out of the tap, already filtered. These cost around 5000-6000 baht.
Water delivery companies can supply you with large 20 litre plastic bottle of filtered water. I see the trucks driving through our village almost every day, collecting the old bottles and doing more deliveries.
We make our ice using the filtered water as freezing the tap water does not get rid of any toxins.
However bad the tap water maybe for drinking, it is absolutely fine for brushing teeth and cooking.
We have used the tap water for our teas and coffees since we arrived, and have never had any problems.
As for pets, the tap water in Thailand is fine to give to dogs, cats and other animals. They are not affected by the water. We have been giving our dog the tap water to drink since we got here and she has been perfectly fine!
Sacha El-Haj – 8 Miles from Home
To view our cinematic travel videos, visit:
To keep up with our adventures in between blogs & videos…we’re also on Facebook:
