“What does mountain sickness feel like?” I asked my boyfriend before we embarked on a two-month motorbike trip in the Indian Himalayas. He is one of those types who has done the Everest trek on his own without a guide or a porter or even a decent map, and with just his 20 kg+ backpack for company, probably in flip-flops and a t-shirt. He did get sick with the altitude, but he couldn’t explain how Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) feels, so I thought it couldn’t be so bad. I was very wrong.
On the Manali Leh Road
This is what high altitude sickness feels like: you’re lying inside a freezing cold tent in 4200 m altitude in a place called Sarchu in the middle of nowhere between Manali in Himachal Pradesh and Leh, Ladakh. The tent is made of an old parachute and your mattress has been used by millions of random people before you, but it doesn’t matter because your head hurts so much that you can place it on the makeshift pillow (ie. pile of your dirty clothes).
It is pitch black around you and you are freezing, but you cannot sleep. Everyone else is snoring away, but you cannot because you think your head is going to explode. You cannot breath either. There isn’t enough oxygen in the air. You think you’re going to suffocate and die and nobody will notice until it’s too late.
Sarchu on the Manali to Leh Road
You haven’t been able to eat, because you are nauseous, and you have no appetite anyway. Your stomach rumbles in a funny way and you think you’re going to throw up or get diarrhoea. There are no toilets in this tent camp, and since you are in a high altitude desert in the Himalayas, there are no bushes to squat behind either. You can’t do anything except pray.
You lie there for hours until the morning comes and you realize that you haven’t slept a second, but you’re still going to have to travel the whole day over higher and higher mountain passes to reach Leh, the capital of Ladakh. You can’t turn back either, because there are high passes wherever you look. You read the pages about altitude sickness in a friend’s guidebook:
Mild symptoms include breathlessness, headaches, dizziness, nausea, loss of appetite and sleeping difficulties. More severe symptoms include disorientation, loss of balance, and coughing up of pink frothy phlegm.
Sarchu: Somewhere Between Manali and Leh
Except for the pink froth, you have all of them. You watch the boyfriend pull a thick, slimy, bloody rope of snot out of his nostrils. He says he hasn’t slept a second either and his head is feels like it’s splitting in two, but he’s still going to have to drive you both over 5000 m mountain passes. Solution: take a couple of headache tablets, drink lots of water, get some coffee and move on, and hope you’re going to arrive in Leh in one piece. Which we did, in the end.
For anyone intending to travel in Ladakh, here are some good pages about AMS: this page has some general information about altitude sickness, and according to this interesting piece of news from the BBC, the reason Tibetans survive easily in high altitudes is genetic.
I read your story and I soooo feel your pain! I spent the month of July 2010 in Leh and never got over the altitude sickness. It was very intense the first 9 days. Massive headache the first two days, the breathlessness was so scary — I couldn’t get enough air. I couldn’t sleep. Would lay in bed some nights gasping for air. Bloody nose, coughing, swollen toes the first few days, extreme fatigue, sore throat.
Absolutely no appetite but it went on for so long I had to eat which, in turn, would make me vomit. It seemed to subside so I took a seven hour jeep trip to Dha where I got food poisoning and then couldn’t eat for three days after that. When we got back I continued to Nubra Valley travelling over the Kardungla Pass at 18,380 feet. I didn’t think it was possible to get AMS again since you go up and come right back down. Got it even worse than before. Was so, so nauseous and could not eat a morsel of food. Got back to Leh and bought a box of Special K cereal. I had one or two small bowls a day for an entire week. That’s all my stomach could take. I had to leave Leh after all this because I couldn’t take any more. My body could not handle being at that altitude. I tried for a month and I just couldn’t hack it.
hi, i too visited leh (via manali ) this july . It ws a bike trip . The pblm of ams starts wen we reach zingzingbar and lasts upto leh. We wr two guys on difrnt bikes with no medical or mech. backup. Bt v feel lucky n blessed dat nthng went wrong. Not even AMS . Al it ws a mild headache n drizines at hi passes like tanglangla. Wat prevented us was water n garlic.
U jus need to drink plenty of water wen u start. Cz it prevents, bt cnt cure. Drink as much water as u cn on d way too. Take sm raw garlic wid u. Keep a piece of it under ur toung for as long as u can. If u cnt den jus chew it a litle bit and swalow wid water.
Avoid smoking and alcohol for dese 2 days (manali to leh). Coz dese thngs dehidrate our body resulting in ams.
If u fallow dese thngs, trust me u need nt to take ny medicine either.
The key to handle AMS is proper acclimatization. I quite like the write up of the writer, but to me, it seems a bit over the top, dramatic. In our motorcycle trip, the itiniery was like Chandigarh-Kud(1735m)-Srinagar(1740m)-Sonmarg(2728m)-Kargil(2750m)-Leh(3505m)-Pangong-Leh-Sarchu(4290m)-Keylong(3000m)-Manali(2000m)-New Delhi. This route map and gradual going up the altitude helped us acclimatize almost perfectly. Here, I must mention that I am from Kolkata, very close to coastal area. We encountered a very little hint of breathlessness only at Sonamarg, but thats about it. Later, at the highest of the passes, we even smoked at our free will. And apetite? After a day of long motorcycle ride, we felt like we could devour double chicken tandoori at one go-whatever be the altitude. One piece of advice, if you are riding a motorcycle, try to avoid alcohol, even if you do, try to make it under 2 “large” and be sure to lose the early morning magical moments of the mountain, because you will not be able to wake up anytime before 9:00..
@Raj roy, good tips! You’re absolutely right, the Srinagar route is much better for gradual acclimatisation. At the time we were travelling (June & July 2008) the Amarnath land donation dispute and the unrest that followed meant that we were not sure if we could go to Srinagar at all. (We did make it from Leh to Srinagar in the end when things calmed down a bit).
You never know who gets AMS and how badly one gets it. I’m generally healthy and fit, don’t smoke, don’t drink, practice yoga every day… but I got it bad. I also know people who didn’t get any symptoms except a little bit of breathlessness. It seems to be highly individual.
It is very neccessary to to take 125mg – 250mg of acetazolamide /day for prevention of high Altitude sickness. Drug trade name – Diamox. start 2 days before your ascent, symptoms even if not improved nevr dare to ascent either stay at there or descent if symptom worsen. avoid alcohol and smoking during high altitude trek/trip. it is always advisable to ascent not more than 2000 ft / day and 1,000ft (300m) a day above an altitude of 10,000 ft (3,000m).