Lhasa sits on a plain over 13,000 feet above sea level. The sun is bright, the views are sweeping, and the air…well, the air is thin. For many lower-altitude people, this means altitude sickness.

Here in Mississippi we’re only a few feet above sea level, and on the coast, many folks are below sea level. The atmospheric density is far above Tibet’s, and the humidity is much higher. Moving quickly from this low altitude to the high one–as we did–can produce symptoms in some people. (It’s not so much the altitude itself as it is the speed at which you move to it.) However, even this doesn’t always determine whether you will get sick–some people just seem to be more susceptible than others.

I turned out to be one of those susceptible people. From the time we touched down in Lhasa to the time we left (a space of three whole weeks) I felt dizzy, short of breath, and tired beyond imagining. Physical exertion of any sort made me feel faint. (This was a very bad thing, considering the apparent Tibetan love of steep stairs.) I felt like I was breathing through wet cloth the whole time, and often wheezed. Hiking comes relatively easy to me at home, and I love to do it, but the walking we had to do in Tibet absolutely wiped me out. Toward the end of our stay, when it was becoming clear that I just wasn’t going to feel better in time to really live it up, I gave in and started taking rickshaws and taxis when I could. (This was a life-threatening situation in itself, as the Chinese driving philosophy seems to be “if you can’t go faster than me, you don’t deserve to be on the same road.”) The really weird part was that when I had been exerting myself too much, I could see my heartbeat in my own eyes. A sort of pall would come over my vision, and I could see my blood vessels pulsing. It was creepy.

Toward the end of the stay, we traveled up to Lake Namtso and Reting monastery. In order to reach Namtso, we had to cross a pass that was nearly the same altitude as Mount Everest base camp–an altitude of over 17,000 feet. I was reduced to lolling about in the bus for this time. After the pass, we descended to Namtso, which was still at 14 or 15,000 feet. It was at this time that I felt really bad. At sundown a group of us went to meditate at the water’s edge. I could not concentrate, I felt so bad. As we walked back to the guesthouse, I began to feel as if I might faint, but my husband pushed me to stagger as best I could. Finally I could take no more, and I’m sorry to say that I broke my years-long no-vomiting streak in front of a few yak herders, to my eternal embarrassment. It was also the first time I’d been physically sick in front of my new husband. Oh, I wanted to die. But mysteriously, as soon as I’d thrown up, I felt like Popeye after his spinach. I felt like I could dash back to the guesthouse and do jumping jacks. That didn’t last, but it sure was nice.

As filthy as Beijing’s air was, I took a heaping lungful when we had touched down, grateful to have a clear head again.

Only one or two others in our group got this sick. Most of the others were just dandy, or at least knew how to push through their illness. Those of us lagging behind mostly felt like out-of-shape jerks who were holding the more fit travelers back. So apart from physically feeling crappy, we felt bad mentally too.

Of course, my damn husband felt great the whole time. The only real adverse effects that he noticed was that he was sometimes out of breath and his eyes became badly bloodshot and stayed that way until we got back to the States. So I felt bad that I was ruining our honeymoon too. Oh well…an excuse to travel somewhere else later on.

There are medicines that you can take to reduce the likelihood of altitude sickness. The most popular is Diamox, which I could not take because I am allergic to sulfa drugs. The other, a type of steroid, I refused because my doctor told me it caused radical, rapid weight gain. Instead I opted for a foul concoction from an online herbalist. It got the approval of the herbalist who came on the trip with us, as it was full of vasodilators and bronchodilators, basically designed to help me breathe better. It didn’t work too great, and was so nasty that I hardly wanted to take it. Two things actually did help: canned oxygen and canned rhodiola juice that was not only tasty but also conquered nausea.

The Travel Doctor has a good article on altitude sickness if you want to know more.