Baltimore Sun Store

Which year was it, exactly, that they rode on horseback into roadless Bhutan, where Mary [Taylor] had lunch with the queen and their young son played on the floor with the 6-year-old future king? Was it Carl's father or his neighbor who killed the crocodile in the Ganges River and found five pounds of silver jewelry in its belly, the only remains of the women it had eaten? How old were the children when they lived in Nigeria, getting the educational bonus of life as a tiny racial minority?

These days Carl is sorting slides and finishing up a report on his latest escapade: a 140-mile trek across Nepal, one that retraced the route of a pioneering 1949 trip on which Taylor conducted the first national health survey of the closed mountain kingdom.

"I guess the main thing I felt was an overwhelming sense of gratitude to be able to do it again," says Taylor, a tall, silver- haired man of erect bearing. "To walk the same trails. To climb a few thousand feet in a day. Just to be there and sense the fact that despite all the changes, Nepal is still Nepal."