One of her most memorable experiences was a trip to St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai wilderness was the bleakest, driest, hottest, sandiest, most inhospitable place she had ever seen, a mass of steep, jagged, barren mountains rising out of the sand. While at the monastery, she exerted herself more than usual, ascending two mountains in the vicinity, mostly by camel, but on foot for the top difficult bits. One of them was Moses Mountain, where the prophet was said to have received the Ten Commandments. The second was St. Catherine’s Mountain, about 2438 metres in height. She enjoyed the magnificent views, composed of wonderful hues of yellow, brown and red with small patches of the Red Sea in the distance. Once again, her muscles demanded a few days to recover.
Her mother, travelling at the same time in Western Europe, expressed concerns over Elizabeth’s safety, having heard of an element of fanaticism in the country. Elizabeth assured her that she was conducting herself properly and prudently and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. But she couldn’t be completely honest with her mother, because the Arabs censored all letters leaving Egypt. It was only later, during a 10-day boat trip to Beirut, Cyprus, Rhodes, Istanbul and Izmir, that she was able to write freely about her plans to travel on to Israel. It was impossible to mention this in a letter read by Arab censors, because she would not have been allowed back in again. To facilitate her freedom of movement, she carried some curious documents with her, including her Methodist Sunday School certificate. This humble scrap of paper was sufficient proof that she wasn’t Jewish. When she travelled between Arab countries and Jerusalem, the authorities stamped her visa on a separate piece of paper, so it wouldn’t appear in her passport.
In southern Turkey, she travelled to Izmir and Antalya, which became her jumping-off point to explore the ruins in the surrounding mountains. Together with a Danish architect, she decided to visit a ruin called Side. They took a taxi for a certain distance and then got out and walked about five kilometres from the highway to its seaside location. After exploring the ruin, they took a swim and enjoyed a good lunch at a seaside café. They began their return at about 5:00 p.m., walking back to the highway to wait for a bus or a taxi. At 6:45 p.m., a tractor came by, pulling a farm wagon loaded with several men and boys. They climbed in and went as far as he was going – about half an hour to his village. He explained to them in sign language that they were still a long way from Antalya, and as there were no more buses, why not spend the night at his place. They declined, as Elizabeth had a plane to catch the next morning. They began to walk. Soon a private Jeep came by filled with two men, one woman and four children, along with two large suitcases, various bundles, gasoline cans and tool kits.
Despite the congestion, everyone adjusted to make room for the two strangers – Elizabeth perched on the lap of the Dane. Then the engine died. While one of the two men attempted to fix it, a taxi came by, but it too was overloaded. However, the taxi driver said – again by sign language – he was dropping off a couple of passengers shortly and he promised to come back for them. As a guarantee, he left one of his other passengers to assist with the Jeep repairs. He returned, but in the process of turning around, his car also died. Finally, an ancient Vauxhall drove up. Elizabeth and the Dane climbed in and proceeded to the next town, where they decided to revive themselves with a meal. The local schoolmaster treated them to dinner and several rakis (a local liquor) because he wanted to chat with them in English. The newly repaired taxi showed up and at last they made their way back to Antalya, arriving at about 10:30 p.m. Such was travel off the beaten track in Turkey, mid-20th-century style. She made the flight the next morning.
What most impressed her about that day – and many others in Turkey – were the unexpected acts of kindness from fierce-looking characters. She had observed this characteristic in a bus driver who swerved to miss a pigeon, and in another bus driver who, at the sight of a legless beggar, stopped his vehicle so that all the male passengers, who were poor themselves, could disembark and give the man some money. She wondered if this would be the case in militant Israel.
She arrived in Haifa on June 18 to find a city that felt more European than Middle Eastern, with many modern buildings and a splendid location on the slopes of Mount Carmel. As always, Elizabeth had prepared herself by reading related literature well in advance of her visit. In this case, she was enlightened by Sholem Asch’s controversial novel The Nazarene, in which he sought to reconcile Judaism and Christianity.
One Friday evening in Jerusalem, as the sun set and the Sabbath was proclaimed, men and boys began to emerge from their small homes and walk slowly and with dignity to nearby synagogues. They were dressed in the medieval garb they had worn in the ghettos of Eastern Europe, and their quiet procession of devotion impressed her.
When people learned of her recent trip to Lebanon, they engaged her in intense conversations about the situation there. They wanted to know if it was true that the Lebanese might like to make peace with Israel. She sensed they had real hope that peace might have a chance. She couldn’t respond positively, though, because she was convinced it was unlikely, especially since it would be impossible for any one Arab country to make peace with Israel for fear of retribution from its Arab neighbours. She was curious about the other side of the Arab–Israeli conflict; she wanted to better understand it. And she was impressed with the speed at which the Israelis were building a country for their citizens, although the development was largely financed, she knew, by outside sources. She found the social, religious and political conflict complex, intriguing and disturbing, but she didn’t imagine it would still wrack the region many decades later.
By September Elizabeth was off to Amman, Jordan – a village that seemed to have grown up overnight to become the capital of a struggling nation. No ancient walls confined its growth, and its modern buildings were rapidly creeping up the seven hills on which it was built. With introductions to friends of Mahmoud Abu Reish, the city opened its doors to her. “Here in Jordan I am beginning to find the charm of the Arab as described by the romantic orientalists of earlier times,” she tantalized her mother.
She learned about the complexity of the various brands of Arab nationalism still alive, in competition with each other: the Hashemite family, which led the Arab revolt of the First World War; the religiously fanatical Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia; the followers of the ex-mufti of Jerusalem, whose family quarrelled with the Hashemites in Palestine and who led the Arab terrorist activities in Palestine under the Mandate; and the pan-Arabists, who idolized Nasser. These family feuds were complicated by power politics and a general high state of emotional tension, made worse by the existence of Israel on the western border. In Jordan she found that these were not just theoretical discussions, but life-and-death struggles for power, wealth and glory.
Through her connections, Elizabeth arranged a trip through the southern part of Jordan as the guest of an Arab Legion colonel who was based in Ma’an. Now she would see T.E. Lawrence country: Ma’an, Petra, Aqaba and the great southern desert. It began in an unorthodox manner, driving with the colonel to a camp outside of Kerak, where she was fed. That night, she slept on a hospital cot. They continued on to Ma’an, a scraggly, mud-brick town in an oasis, inhabited by conservative Muslims who forbade movies or liquor in their town and who locked the women in their houses when the men went out. She explored the ancient city of Petra on horseback and foot with another army major, and went to Aqaba, Jordan’s single tenuous contact with the sea. She drove across a wide expanse of the Wadi Rum desert, where she paused beside a fresh spring a few hundred metres up a slope from a group of black Bedouin and ate freshly killed pigeons roasted over a fire. The trip back to Amman turned into a marathon of driving the rough desert route for 14 hours to arrive at 4:00 a.m. After a bath and a few hours’ sleep, she reconnected with Mahmoud and returned to Jerusalem.
Elizabeth continued on her Middle East journey, arriving in Baghdad by the end of October. Armed with introductions to friends and con
tacts at the American embassy, she set about seeing the country she’d read about in Gertrude Bell’s travels and the Bible: the Tower of Babel, Nineveh, Ur, the supposed location of the Garden of Eden. She saw many evocative ruins in a state of recent excavation; some of the contents were in the archeological museum in Baghdad, a place she visited frequently and thoroughly.
Slightly farther afield, she managed to get permits from the security department to visit the important Islamic center of Karbala, 105 kilometres southwest of Baghdad, as well as the well-preserved ruins of Al-Ukhaidir and Basra. She was almost the only tourist in Baghdad, according to the locals, but she didn’t mind, because she found that “most of the Americans one meets travelling in these parts are better kept at home.” From Basra, she flew to the sheikhdom of Kuwait.
Kuwait was fascinating because of the contrasts between the old, traditional and poor Eastern way of life and the new, brash and rich Western style that had burst upon the land with the discovery of massive oil deposits. There were barefoot men in desert garb driving gigantic Cadillacs, traffic jams of huge American cars in narrow, winding alleys, and men dressed in Western suits alongside women completely veiled and draped in black. She met Egyptians working in Kuwait who earned 10 times what they could make in Cairo. She was amused to see the first two and a half pages in the telephone book devoted to “sheikhs.”
An unusual invitation arrived from the secretary of the deputy ruler, Sheikh Abdullah Mubarak es Sabbah, to visit him at his seaside palace (one of several). She didn’t know why she was invited, but she had a pleasant time at his sumptuous palace, particularly enjoying the ceiling of one remarkable room painted with portraits of lovely European ladies – a rare sight in a country that hides its women. As she travelled through the area, she read Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, connecting and comparing his famous stories with her own observations.
By mid-December she was in Tehran, just in time for winter. Nighttime temperatures plummeted and snow draped the mountains in white, providing a spectacular backdrop to the city. Her friend Judy Friedberg arrived in mid-January and they made plans to depart for India. Their first stop en route to India was Karachi, which Elizabeth described as an “overgrown, ugly town” with nothing to hold the interest of the casual tourist. Having gone there only because of Judy’s freelance assignment, they continued on to Bombay as soon as they were able. Elizabeth and Judy found themselves sharing a taxi with a man who looked remarkably like Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon. In fact, he was Arthur Koestler. Travelling alone, he was keen to share their company and provided many hours of good conversation. Particularly interesting were his views on the totalitarian tactics of the Soviet Union, provoking lively discussions on the relationship between the state and the individual. From there, it was on to Delhi and finally – Kathmandu.
CHAPTER 6
Nepal Beckons
... a place where you can see what the world is becoming.
— Elizabeth Hawley
Elizabeth arrived in Kathmandu on February 8, 1959, near the end of her two-year, round-the-world trip. It was to be a short visit – only a couple of weeks – but Nepal had been in her mind since 1955 when she read a New York Times article about the first tourists to the kingdom. Thinking it would be an interesting place to visit, she had tucked the information away for future reference.
Her excitement grew as her plane from Benares (now known as Varanasi), India, approached the southern border of Nepal. She was captivated by the dark forests of the Terai, imagining the wildlife prowling in what appeared to be an impassable barrier. As the flight continued north, the landscape changed and brown hillsides emerged from the jungle depths. A jigsaw maze of terraced fields was dotted with small thatched cottages, and the hills were laced with pathways connecting remote villages. Suddenly, a broad valley opened up and the city of Kathmandu appeared. Surrounded by hills and the shining Himalayan peaks in the distance, it appeared, she said in a letter, as “a kind of fairy tale mirage, an oasis of fertility in a sea of verticality.” The scene had a sense of intimacy, as though cut off from the rest of the planet by the towering peaks. Her first impression was one of remoteness – remote in the sense that the 20th century was less apparent here than in most of the other countries she had visited. “Here one really feels oneself to be in Asia – timeless Asia,” she wrote her mother.
Kathmandu felt medieval. Ancient three-storey houses leaned over the narrow streets, their intricately carved wooden window frames testament to the skills of local craftsmen. Above every lintel were carved the gods of Nepal, offering countless opportunities for ordinary Nepalis to stop momentarily and offer pujas (Hindu prayers). Tiny shops with brightly coloured fruits and vegetables and startling slabs of meat provided a visual feast as she made her way through the streets. The proportions of the city were balanced, giving a sense of harmony and prosperity. The relative prosperity was real: the valley’s strategic location between Tibet and India had made its Newari citizens wealthy from trade between the two countries for centuries.
Elizabeth visited the government offices, housed in the then 50-year-old Singha Durbar palace. The great structure presented an impressive gateway at its entrance, but the gardens were neglected. Lavish banquet rooms with gleaming marble floors and sparkling chandeliers were used for special occasions, but the only rooms accessible to the public were the administrative offices – a rabbit warren of small, badly lit rooms that had been used by the palace concubines in days gone by. As the residence of the prime minister, it had been a marvel of opulence. Four storeys high, reflected in the still waters of a lake, it appeared to float in space.
She discovered Durbar Square and the Tundikhel, a huge grass parade ground. Alive with activity, the maidan was an ideal place to get a sense of the pulse of Kathmandu. Young boys came by the dozen, marching and exercising under the watchful eyes of Royal Nepal Army soldiers. Cows grazed contentedly and squealing children competed in sporting events and gymnastics.
The other lifeline in Kathmandu was the sacred Bagmati River. It was here, rather than on the streets, that she saw the women of Kathmandu, washing their hair, their bodies and their clothing. The Kathmandu bazaar was a place of mass confusion and activity. Bicycle shops, beggars, cows and the occasional Rolls-Royce all shared street space. Mounds of spices and rice, piles of peppers and bananas, bolts of brilliant silk and cotton, cheap plastic jewellery and the all-important moneychangers caught her eyes. The smells and sounds were overwhelming: bells rang ceaselessly from more than five thousand temples in the valley, drums drummed and horns honked. Even though there were few cars, each seemed to have a fully functioning horn and a highly motivated operator. The evenings were strangely silent.
But Elizabeth Hawley’s arrival in Nepal was of a professional as well as personal nature. Before she left India, she had learned that Nepal was about to hold its first general election in history, so she dropped in at the Time Inc. bureau in Delhi and asked the correspondent if he would like her to do some work for him there. He said yes, so she teamed up with two journalists, her friend Elie Abel from the New York Times, a man she described as wonderfully bright, and a correspondent for the London Observer, Cyril Dunn, who struck her as gentle and witty. The three of them travelled as a pack, doing interviews with leading Nepalese politicians and others. Watching the two experienced journalists work, Elizabeth was exactly where she wanted to be – on the inside track of an interesting period in the political history of Nepal, when King Mahendra would institute the nation’s first constitution.
The chronology leading to the first parliamentary elections was one of intrigue and a massive shift in power that was centuries old. The Ranas had ruled Nepal since the mid-19th century, and the Rana prime minister normally held his position until death. To accomplish their stranglehold on power, they had devised a crafty refinement of the caste system that split the powerful Rana clan into A, B and C classifications. Only the A’s could rise to the upper levels of power, and of course i
t was an A-class Rana who devised the system. They were known for their keen interest in women, whisky and hunting. They didn’t tolerate freedom of speech in religion or politics, and the prison was full of political prisoners to prove it.
Under the Ranas, the members of the royal family were powerless and lived as virtual prisoners in their own palace. Needless to say, there was some tension between these two most powerful forces in Nepal. Just before Elizabeth arrived in Nepal, Tribhuvan – meaning “dweller of three worlds”: material, spiritual and human – was king. His son, Mahendra, was crowned in 1955. The new king lived in a palace which, while not as the prime minister’s palace, was nevertheless impressive, Elizabeth wrote, with grounds resembling a “fairyland version of an English country garden.” His title was hollow, but the throne was maintained because, to the Nepalis, he was a deity. The Ranas arranged his marriage and by the time he was 14 he had fathered two children by two wives who were sisters. To foreigners, he was a symbol of self-indulgence, rumoured to be interested only in opium and women. In fact, this was not the case, and history would prove he had intelligence, self-discipline and the courage to mobilize his people to a new way of governance and life that would emerge at just about the time Elizabeth arrived in Kathmandu. The nation had begun its rebellion against the Ranas and was about to embark on its long road to democracy.
By 1950 King Tribhuvan and his family had escaped bondage in their palace, finding refuge in the Indian embassy at Kathmandu and then in India itself. There, they were welcomed by Pandit Nehru. While the king was in India, armed Nepali Congress supporters invaded southern Nepal and captured the Rana government, setting up a provisional government. In the west, peasant guerrillas leapt into action. Nehru’s opinion was made clear in his statement: “We are anxious that there should be peace and stability in Nepal. At the same time, we felt that the introduction of substantial political reforms was essential for this purpose.” With the fall of the Ranas, the king returned as constitutional head of the country. He announced that an interim cabinet would be set up with seven Ranas and seven representatives of the popular party. All political prisoners would be freed and there would be a constituent assembly chosen by adult suffrage the next year.
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