1995

The Year of Cornelius' PhD and the Expedition to Tibet

 

February Barbara and Rolf Babysit in Denver

.Susanne and John badly needed a vacation in Hawaii and we took care of the girls in Denver.

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June-July Rolf drove Irmgard to East Prussia

I flew to Frankfurt and took the train to Aachen where Marc Hermans picked me up. I stayed a few days with them in Heerlen and he took me to Amsterdam, to discuss the final arrangements for our planned Tibet Expedition - arranged by a Dutch adventure-tour operator.

I picked up Irmgard and we drove via Berlin - where we stayed at Ursel Brandt's place, Irmgards niece - through Pomerania, along the Baltic Coast to Danzig-Gdansk, followed by a long meandering journey through the Masurian Lake district and the woods at the Polish-Russian border: many storks, an Old-Russian Orthodox Monastery, where we met Marianne Budke-Daeg, whose ancestors came from this area. On the way back I took Irmgard through Westpreussen where, in a sandy village, we found the church her mother's father had been Protestant pastor of and her parents were married in. There exists only one photo (I did not bring my camera, lest it be stolen) which Irmgard took of me and Marianne - whom she disliked intensely.

Eventually I dropped Irmgard at Udo and Franka's house near Frankfurt and sold the car to the owner of a gas station in Bad Godesberg - at a loss, of course.

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Barbara's Birthday in July

I don't remember who had had the idea to surprise Barbara on her birthday by having both her children and Carolyn arrive at our doorstep at the same time. Susanne and I organized the happening.

It became a near surprise collision: Elsa Saravia, to the left, had been cleaning the house, and Barbara rolled down the hill to take her home when Cornelius, Susanne and Carolyn drove up in a rental car. - Susanne took the picture.

Barbara nearly had a heart attack. She was stunned. It took her half a day to recover her usual spirits.

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In the end everybody was happy - but we have never done this to Barbara again

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There was again a string of visitors staying with us: Julia Euling came for a few days in May, as did Heike and Christine Glogasa, and later Mary Robertson and her second husband Stefan from Austin, TX.

Then Fifi Pay became ill with cancer and died only 17 years old. We had spent several winters skiing with the Pays in Mammoth and Fifi was part of these vacations since she was 5. A sad time.

Meanwhile Cornelius worked very hard to finish his PhD thesis at Yale.

Cornelius in his lab at Yale. He passed his last Ph.D. examination on August 15, 1995, and flew to Los Angeles a few days later: The Tibet expedition was in part our final "graduation" present to him. We would all fly to Bangkok and Kathmandu on September 4.

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At Last the Great Tibet Expedition

Few journeys have had such a long gestation period as this one. Going back to my reading Sven Hedin in 1943-45, Cornelius and I had for 2 years doctored the four large 1:1 Million Aeronautical Navigational Charts that cover southern Tibet by transferring information from other maps. I had even written in the Chinese names of the most important places in characters. Three times we had tried to enter Tibet, from Kathmandu, from Hong Kong, and from Xining, and had been repulsed every time. This was the last opportunity. I was getting too old for such a strenuous trip. Sure one could have found a group tour operator, who would have arranged for such a trip - at exorbitant prices. Through Marc Hermans I had found a Dutch outfit, "Monkey King" who offered to set up the minimum logistics for a private tour at half the cost Mountain Travel would have charged.

I recruited all my friends willing to join: Uli and Margit May, Marianne Daeg, Marc and Monique, Peter Grohs, Cornelius, Barbara and myself. In the end I persuaded Carolyn to join, and Robert to pay for her. The Mays opted out at the last minute, because Uli's mother had suddenly died. The Monkey King people added a single Dutchman to replace them. We met on September 6 at the Kathmandu Guesthouse coming from three different directions. Marianne appeared off the streets of Kathmandu. We spent a week exploring the Kathmandu Valley, collected our brave and ignorant Belgian tour guide Bart (delegated by Monkey King) and flew to Lhasa on October 12, almost by a hair being bumped off the Chinese plane. Marianne lasted only 5 days. Overcome by the thin air, the shaking in the cars - and gasoline fumes - she dropped out in Shigatse. She survived longer than we, sleeping at monasteries. We finally met her wandering the streets of Kathmandu a few days after our return. Barbara, Carolyn and I reached Los Angels on October 16, Peter and Cornelius stayed and went on a hiking trip in Nepal.

The tale of this journey has been rewritten three times: a harrowing story not alone because it was an endurance test, but Carolyn collapsed with HACE - high altitude cerebral edema - at 5200 m on our return trip, 600-km on bad dirt roads from the Nepalese border and lower altitude. We nursed her through the three days we needed to get down to Kathmandu with a powerful steroid..... It is too long a story to try to repeat here, and there are far too many photos.

There exists a very readable diary of our adventures on this website, and there are many pictures contributed by all participants.

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Barbara went on a tour before Esther and Peter Zwahlen from Switzerland descended upon her. In November she visited the Woods in Denver and on November 17 Cornelius and Peter finally returned from Nepal.

We celebrated Christmas with Regine and Cornelius. Sophia Severino, Regine's old friend, and Alexandra came by.

Alexandra, Sophia and Regine Wörner, Christmas 1995

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Alexandra feeding Rolf coockies....

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Regine Wörner, Sherwin Amimoto, and Cornelius at Regine's party. On January 2, 1996 Regine's birthday, Barbara cooked a great dinner for her and some of our friends.