You can be at risk!

I thought my friends were joking.

Last week, they told me that the tap water was contaminated with arsenic. I have been boiling water from the tap in my hotel room to drink. According to them, boiling the water doesn't make the water safe to drink.

So I said if that's the case, then we are all at risk, since most food is probably cooked with water direct from the taps. We will all die from arsenic poisoning. They said I was right.

After that conversation, I consciously chose purified drinking water to quench my thirst.

Then I chanced upon the following story from the Straits Times: Drinking water in Vietnam has excessive arsenic.

The astounding fact is that more than a quarter of drinking wells in the Red River delta contain unsafe toxic levels of arsenic and manganese. This can potentially cause cancer, neurological problems and hypertension.

Don't take a risk with your health when you are in Vietnam. Stick to safe bottled drinking water.