About 30 minutes past Base Camp I, standing at 5300 metres above sea level, on a beautiful blue-sky morning ... posing with Mount Everest (8848m) in the background. Part of a group of six (2 Americans girls, 1 French girl, 1 Australian man, our Chinese driver, and myself), we spent the night at Rombuk Monastery (4980m), the highest monastery in the world.