Pokhara:

The sun room was warm and cozy, and luxuriating in its warmth was sheer bliss.

The mornings were meant for lazing around in the solarium. Pheriche on the left bank of the Lobuche khola forms a natural wind tunnel. The winds start gaining force by mid afternoon and literally howl down the valley.

The Himalayan hotel in Pheriche is a wonderful place to stay and Nuru Sherpa, the owner is a jolly fellow. The rooms are cozy, the food is excellent and the heated dining room is a wonderful place to spend evenings. Candle light dinners and hot towels were the specialty of the house.

We were spending a month in Pheriche as study administrators for a large, multinational research study. We were seeing whether acetazolamide is effective in preventing high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), the buildup of fluid in the lungs which occurs at high altitude. We were a multinational group with doctors and medical personnel from Nepal, US and UK. There were doctors from three institutions — Institute of Medicine, Kathmandu, Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Pokhara and Stanford University, California.

The research was approved by Stanford University and Nepal Health Research Council. The Mountain Medicine Society of Nepal (MMSN) was actively involved in it. The team was split into two with one with one group staying at Pheriche at 4,200-m and the second at Lobuche at 4,970-m.

We were recruiting healthy trekkers to volunteer for the study. Pheriche has a well-established HRA clinic with inpatient beds, Gamow bags, oxygen concentrators and other equipment. It is manned by volunteer doctors during the trekking season. The doctors at the clinic give a lecture on high altitude illness every afternoon and the lecture sessions were our main recruiting ground.

Doing clinical examinations in the cold had its own set of problems. Language barrier was one problem. We came across groups of trekkers who knew only Spanish or only Italian or only Chinese or Japanese. Taking informed consent from persons who did not fully understand English was problematic sometimes.

The sun room of the clinic was warm and a good setting for the lectures. There were many benefits for the study participants including a thorough medical checkup at high altitude, a pulse oxygen check and a free cup of tea.

We also started giving afternoon lectures at Dingboche (4,360-m) across the hill and recruiting volunteers there. Dingboche is a much bigger place and gets more of the afternoon sun and more trekkers stay there than at Pheriche.

Pheriche has good views of the mountains — Kantega and Thamserku to the south, Lobuche east to the north, Ama Dablam to the east and Tawachee and Cholatse to the west. Mornings were usually clear but the evenings were generally cloudy.

One evening, when it was perfectly clear, I utilised the time to capture the sun setting over Ama Dablam.

During the month that I was in Pheriche, it snowed for three days transforming Pheriche into a white wonderland.

In Lobuche, our British echo technician had a tough time doing the echos. It was nearly always crowded and we had a tough time tracing the study participants. The motivation level was high and most participants did report to our lodge for follow-up. A point that stuck me was the large number of health related professionals who were trekking.

We had put up flyers and the study became well known among trekkers.

It was not all work and no play.

We took trips to Gorak Shep and the Everest Base camp. The trip to Chukung was a delight. The Italian research station, the Pyramid, was like a five star hotel after the rather spartan accommodation. The group got along well and enthusiasm was high.

Life in the Khumbu was simple and reduced to basics. No television, no automobiles, no traffic jams, no smog, no rush hour, no power dressing. But frankly we liked it.

Being a part of an international team was a wonderful experience. It was a month well spent in one of the highest habited places on planet Earth.