Bathing in a river healthy or hazardous?

This photo looks like an idyllic dream shot, enjoying the fresh flowing water on a hot summers day.

However bathing, swimming, washing and cleaning clothes in rivers can be hazardous or even illegal in some places. India is known for having the most polluted water, the ganges being a dumping ground for all kinds of chemicals and dead bodies meanwhile people also bathe in the water, however if this is how people treat their main river you will see little difference with local smaller rivers and the sea. The same goes all over the world, it is most visible in south east Asia but that does not mean it's not happening everywhere. I've seen chemical run off into the sea on my very own door step in northern spain.

The water I washed in the photo looked visibly clean however there was alot of algae which could be to do with excess nitrogen from agricultural run off or something to do with illegal mining near by.

I am worried when I bath in water especially the water coming out of my tap. I had started using a special water filter head attachment for the shower since I noticed I was getting a very itchy sensitive scalp from washing my hair in very hard and chemically treated water.

I would say the water in the river was softer on the skin, further more being outside in nature was very calming, there are ions in the air that help and heal, the flowing water releases tension.

I spent a month last year washing and cleaning my clothes in a river, and as beautiful and idealic as it seemed the reality is quite sad, the river again did look fairly clean yet many people were using heavy chemical products for washing their clothes and themselves directly in the river, I also saw people throughout down pellets of fertilizers on plants they were growing in the river.

I recently wrote a post about the sensitivity of the skin and how micro particles enter our blood stream through our skin.

To see our water ways so polluted is such a shame and I hope that by raising awareness we can start to make changes and protect these precious resources.

This is has been a major part of my thinking for a long time in that I want to be closer to cleaner pure bodies of water, even spring and drinking water. As things in the world are getting more uncertain, I'm looking for more certainly and security in nature.