If you are traveling to someplace like India it is important to realize that giardia as well as other illnesses are endemic to that area

When I traveled to India and Nepal for around 4 months with my family in 1985 and 1986 we all (except for one of us got giardia within the first two months sometime. At one point early in this trip we had been buying supposedly bottled and boiled spring water but as I left the island we were snorkeling on I noticed someone taking these bottles and filling them with a hose. This is one of many different reasons why since we were being misled regarding water that we could have gotten giardia then. Later there was feces in the dust in Kathmandu Nepal also which could have been a contributing factor then in 1985 and 1986. The people who live there and survive are much heartier than those of us from europe and the Americas for example because they all have giardia in their intestines BUT they have survived like this for maybe the last 1000 years.

So, when westerners to to places like India and Nepal and eat food or drink the water there they sometimes get giardia or dysentery from drinking the water (for whatever the reason) and they either just get sick or sometimes they die.

I presently have friends traveling there that have now been sick at least 1 week of their so far 2 week journey through India and now Nepal. My friend was telling me he had to get up once every 45 minutes the night before so he didn't poop his bed from Giardia. So, he and his girlfriend and another lady they are traveling with all have both Covid (from there) and Giardia (from there) at the same time. His girlfriend had 4 to 6 feet projectile vomiting last night for example.

So, the reason I'm writing about all this is I'm actually worried at this point about getting my friends home safely from over there and not having their health debilitated for the next year or worse so I felt that I should write about the dangers to westerners (people of the western World and not the far East) mostly because I'm worried about my friends now getting home safely from there by April sometime.

Another thing that might be useful to know. when I was there in 1985 and 1986 when I had giardia we came back and all of us were very thin from the giardia eating our food in our intestines. then I also saw spots before my eyes a lot as I returned home through Thailand and Japan. 

Then we went to a foreign disease specialist who told us then in 1986 that any medication she knew of then would harm our livers and our children's livers so her recommendation was to just let the giardia slough off because we were where it didn't live well because giardia is completely different here in the U.S. than the variety in India. Was this a good idea to not take anything? Since then I have learned about something called Tinnaba which is what my friend and his girlfriend are taking now over there. However, I didn't even learn about this until about 10 years after I had giardia. One Aryuvedic Western Nurse told me that a hypothyroid condition that I had was one of the results of having Giardia in 1986. So, this might be useful for you to know too. Because she also said that a hypothyroid condition or an autoimmune disease could also be the result of having Giardia from Asia too.

So, if you have either of these conditions now and traveled to a third world country somewhere on earth it would not be surprising. For example, most people who have been in the Peace Core overseas in third world nations have had some exposure to the local varieties of Giardia in their intestines.

Also, it took me personally about 6 months to be able to gain weight again to where I didn't look like I just came from a World War II Concentration Camp in Europe then in 1986 when I was by then likely 38 years old.

This is one of the reasons why I'm not over there traveling with them this time because though I would like to visit Pokhara and Kathmandu and Dhramshala I really don't want to have to die to do this. I remember how bad giardia actually was for 6 months and I remember all the dead people in the streets then too. Even though it is likely much different now than then in 1986.

Why do people go to India?

I think it's because people are so ALIVE there. Death is so near that people grasp every moment of life. Here in the U.S. it is like we all are the walking dead in comparison to how people are there. So, if you wonder why people go there it is for the aliveness of those still alive wanting to talk to you and engage with you because you are a westerner. It is an overwhelming experience going there both good and bad.

But, you will never be the same for better or worse or usually both if you go there.

I know that I perceive everything on earth differently after being there about 4 months time from December of 1985 to April of 1986 because it was like going to another planet doing this then because it is so very very different than being here in the U.S. in every way.