However, for more than a decade now a social culture of drinking bottled water has become rooted in Rangoon due to changing consumer tastes. It has become an integral part of society: bottled water is drunk pure or boiled with noodles, rice and tea. Donations of bottled water find their way to temples, as do water-distillation machines.

Executive director of Oasis Drinking Water Co, Dr Thein Myint, is one of the entrepreneurs who introduced pure bottled drinking water to Burma. “There were a lot of people who told me I was crazy doing this business,” he said. “They laughed at me when I came back from abroad and started selling drinking water.”

Thein Myint frequently says that he is selling health, not just water. Nowadays, there are five popular brands of pure bottled water in Rangoon and several water distilling plants.

However, not everyone is convinced as to the properties of the water they are drinking. One company operating from an office in downtown Rangoon orders about 10 bottles of drinking water every day for its staff. According to one employee, there is residue in the water, no seals on the bottle necks and even algae floating in the bottles. “I think the delivery men mix pure water with unclean water,” he said.

“In summertime, we must talk nicely to the water delivery men,” a local resident said. “In the old day the water seller was the poorest and most downtrodden man around; now in Rangoon, bottled water salesmen are the elite.”

Consumers must pay 3,000 kyat (US $2.4) deposit for 20-liter plastic water jugs and then 350 kyat ($0.28) for 20 liters of water. A one-liter bottle of “pure” drinking water costs 300 kyat ($0.24).

“Nowadays most people drink bottled water and the plastic bottles have replaced traditional water urns at home,” a drinking water delivery agent in Rangoon said. He claimed that the company made only 50 kyat ($0.04) profit in selling a 20-liter bottle of water bottle; however, their supply still cannot meet the demand for drinking water.

He said residents of Rangoon have to rely on bottled drinking water for cooking as well as piped water because of frequent breakdowns at the Joe Phyu reservoir due to renovations and constant electricity black outs, which prevents water being pumped up to higher floors.

Almost all Rangoon residents pump water while they have electricity and reserve it for dry days. However, if there is a black-out for several successive days, bottled water is the only choice.

In the past the Joe Phyu Reservoir was the sole water source for Rangoon, but in 2007 the Nga Moe Yeik Reservoir Project (1) was completed. According to Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC), the two sources provide some 45 millions gallons of water to Rangoon. The second Nga Moe Yeik project is due to be finished by the end of 2008.

At present YCDC provides the downtown area of Rangoon and certain prominent neighborhoods with piped water; however, the suburbs and satellite towns are not on the grid and must rely on local ponds and wells.

“No matter how much water is available to Rangoon, we can’t access it if we have no electricity,” a resident of Kyauk Myaung Township said. “The summertime is worst. When there are constant electrical black-outs, we have to hire contractors who own Chinese-made generators to pump water to higher floors.”

In low-income areas such as North Dagon Township and Hlaing Tha-yar Township, locals have no access whatsoever to piped water and they must rely on wells. However, according to several residents, the drained water from these wells is rusty and unfit for drinking or cooking.

“If we cook rice with the deep-well water, it changes a reddish color,” a resident of Hlaing Tha-Yar said. “We can’t afford to buy bottled drinking water at 300~400 kyat either; so we have to buy water at 100 kyat a bucket from the people who have access to piped water.”

However, the re-selling of piped water enraged the vendors of bottled water and they took up a complaint with local ward officials who, along with the muscle of the United Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) membership, threatened and blocked any citizens selling piped water for profit.

Water shortages have long been a problem for residents living in the outskirts of Rangoon—in dry season there isn’t enough and in rainy season the flooding contaminates the water, resulting in cases of diarrhea and dysentery.

A doctor who practices at a private clinic in the area said, “The flooding in the rainy season contaminates the deep wells. Locals have to cook and drink with this water and it makes them sick.”

It is reported that a Rangoon-based non-government organization (NGO), Population Services International (PSI) has distributed water purification pills (named “Water Guard”) to people in Irrawaddy and Tenasserim divisions and Arakan State.

“We focus the distribution of these pills on low-income families,” said an official from PSI. “The treated water can be used not only for drinking, but also for washing plates, washing hands and vegetables. The pills can kill germs that cause acute diarrhea and liver diseases.

Unfortunately, the pills are unpopular due to the smell and taste of chlorine. Rangoon residents who are used to drinking bottled water show little interest in these pills, the PSI official said.

Yet in Rangoon, it seems, clean water is still a luxury commodity for most people, as an advertisement on Burmese TV confirms.

In the advertisement, eights Burmese models find a treasure chest that is buried in ice. They try to open it with their keys until, finally, they crack open the chest and there inside is… a bottle of water.

A treasure indeed, but only in Burma.