This is sort of a follow up to a topic about the local reservoir and dog deaths (in pets section). Anyhow was talking to a guy in the industry and he said that the reservoirs in Pattaya (and alot of other places in Thailand) have been excavated so low that they are now contaminated with metals that cause a lot of potential problems e.g. alzheimers etc. He said it had got to the point that you shouldn't even brush your teeth with this water becasue the deposits are so high. I always knew the water wasn't clean enought to drink, but thought that building a tolerance or resistance was a good thing. The other thing he mentioned was about the bottled water that is available. He told me that the only factories that clean their filtration systems to guarantee good quality are the brewery ones (Singh etc), and the so called internationals e.g. Nestle, carrefour etc don't have good enough procedures to ensure that their water is up to European or international standards.

Just curious to see if this is scare mongering or what anyone else might know

I would not like to drink the tap water but I have always cleaned my teeth in it, for drinking water I use Amtech and it tastes very good.

I guess you can't swim in the pools either then?

What exactly are the reservoirs dug in to? In order for most metals to dissolve in to water, you need the water to be pretty acidic.