Reading my colleague Mary's blog posting yesterday made me wonder: how many media assembled on Everest to cover the Olympic torch relay to the top are taking Diamox? On more than one occasion those little white pills have allowed me to hit the ground running (okay, maybe just walking purposefully) in Lhasa in recent years -- as opposed to setting aside at least a day, unable to work, getting used to the high altitude (okay, make that lying in bed with splitting headaches and nausea).

     On my first trip to Tibet, in July 1980, I'd never heard of Diamox.  And I wasn't ready to "rest for the first afternoon without leaving the hotel", as my group's official Foreign Ministry handlers advised. I was on one of the post-Mao government's first independent press tours of Tibet. We were terrifically excited to be allowed to report on the roof of the world.  We'd even pitched in to pay for the transport and lodging of our own translator, Mr. Wang, the Chicago Tribune office assistant.

    Instead of resting in our rooms that first day, we clamored to be allowed into the center of town, the fabled Barkhor area where the Jokhang temple is located.  The officials accompanying our group refused. But they did agree to sit down at the hotel to discuss with us the following week's itinerary.  We had a decidedly unappetizing lunch -- I recall that the butter had sprouted green mold, and I mistakenly thought it was blue cheese at first -- and then gathered around a coffee table to hash out the itinerary. 

    By this time Mr. Wang was looking a bit pale; he clutched a rubber oxygen-filled bag with the end of an attached tube stuck into one nostril. He gamely tried to keep up with his translation, but clearly felt worse and worse as the negotiations went on. He began fiddling anxiously with the oxygen tube. I thought "Hmm, he really looks green around the gills" -- at which point he vomited his lunch all over the coffee table.

    The meeting ended abruptly. By this time I was feeling pretty bad myself. Head pounding, I retreated to my hotel room, dozed for the rest of the afternoon, and even slept through dinner (yup, our handlers got their wish after all).  By early evening I felt fine. Turns out that by skipping dinner I had done my oxygen-starved brain a favor, since eating food draws blood to the stomach (and away from the brain), exacerbating headaches and nausea.

    At very least, carrying Diamox can help a journalist make the most of his or her trip to Tibet, by reducing the "down time" required for acclimatization. Then again, the foreign correspondents on Everest have been waiting quite a while for the weather to clear so that the torch can ascend -- the one thing they have had on their hands, paradoxically, is time.