Sigatoka Valley.

In the last post I showed you a photo of the Sigatoka Valley in Central Viti Levu in Fiji which brought back such crazy happy memories, I really have to share them with you:

Site of this very silly adventure!

What happened was that back in early 2004 I was reading Gavin Menzies "1421" and getting angrier and angrier about his truly stupid evidence for China and Zheng He discovering the whole world back in the 15th century.

And one of the stupidest pieces of evidence was his claim that a stelae existed in Sigatoka Valley on the banks of Sigatoka River in Fiji that was written in a mysteriously different version of Chinese calligraphy, which in the photo looked to me more like Viking runes that read, in the midst of a lot of gibberish, something very like "Ice Journey Centre" and since there's that 1000 year old Viking DNA turning up in coastal areas of Papua New Guinea it gave me pause for thought and made me curious if maybe these same possible-PNG-visiting Vikings had ever also made it to Fiji.

I already knew ancient petroglyphs were scattered all over the Sigatoka Valley because I'd once seen historian Kim Gravell's photos of them - all enormous rocks carved with circles within circles - and wondered back then what they meant, eventually reaching the conclusion that they were used in a particularly smutty pseudo-sacred game played by teenage boys, and that's even before Kim told me they were used in ancient times as the centerpieces of various Secret Teenage Boy Ceremonies.

But the thought of possible carved Viking runes being among these scatterings of giant rocks really blew me away and it was something I simply HAD to find out for myself.

Yes, I know I'm not very bright but no one can ever accuse me of not being tenacious, so I was determined this was a mystery I was going to solve, and when I get my teeth in this way nothing will stop this bulldog.  When I remember that is!

So there I was in Nadi in Fiji in July 2004 for Molly's wedding, and early one morning was chatting with Joyce and Baby Jane about what we should do that day, when Jane started to reminisce about the amazing currie-roti they used to serve in the little cafes on the main street of the little coastal town of Sigatoka and that's when the word "Sigatoka" triggered my memory and I recalled my mission so was immediately saying "Let's go find out NOW!"

Thus, hustled along by me, Baby Jane, Joyce and I immediately drove to Sigatoka where, even before we chose a cafe, (they're all good, btw) we dropped by the Sigatoka Tourist Information Centre so I could ask what they knew about a particular petroglyph in Sigatoka Valley, but since I didn't have my book with me I had to draw a diagram from my exceptionally shonky memory.  

It just happened that it was an odd accident of timing because, unknown to me, it had very recently become a fashion among esoteric-type Germans to get married in a cave in a place called Tonga deep in the heart of Sigatoka Valley and the Sigatoka Tourist Information Centre was curious about why it was so and my questions ... well, let's just say it triggered rather a bustle and things instantly got rather strange, but I didn't then know any of this, so when they said they didn't actually know but they'd find out and get back to me as soon as possible, I stupidly told them our plans for the next hour.

Well, Fiji is Fiji so what happened next was hardly a surprise: There we were, Baby Jane, Joyce and me, in some random little cafe on the main drag of Sigatoka town, eating a lot of exceptionally good currie-roti, when the two bubbly teenage Fijian girls we'd seen earlier at the Tourist Information Centre burst in, very excited, saying that they'd located my stelae and that Bobby was going to drive us all to Tonga immediately and that it would only cost me F$80.

Jane and Joyce were outraged but, well, this is me, so I'm instantly excited too and "Let's do it." so I hurried out to meet Bobby.

Bobby was an elderly Indian man with a small old truck and an air of natural and joyous naughtiness, so, with Jane and Joyce calling the entire venture ridiculous and a waste of time and money, and despite knowing full well - because he told me - that Bobby would have done the trip for as little as F$8.00 (he joyfully told me he was deliberately cheating me only because he had 16 grand-kids and needed to pay their school fees) I was happy to play stupid rich tourist/sucker and pay the whole amount and that's when all five of us hopped into the truck and took off into ... an entirely new world.

Yup, the teenage girls piled in too. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?" Baby Jane asked them.  "Our boss told us to find out something." they replied happily.

I'd never been there before so it was indeed a great adventure, and I can now tell you that Sigatoka Valley is very lush, scenic and very beautiful but it's also primitive, poor and primal too, as it's almost entirely without infrastructure and most of the roads are hardly more than goat tracks, but I quickly developed the greatest respect for Bobby and his truck.

 See that river? We crossed it in Bobby's truck.

Robert's photo.

Man, that old man and that old truck could take some punishment and I quickly began to suspect there was a new and powerful engine beneath that battered old bonnet. And Bobby was laugh-out-loud funny with the most hilarious running commentary, and it was specially hilarious how, when driving through mountains and streams and ravines and other unpromising bits of landscape, passing through poor villages and past lonely hamlets, Fijians would constantly shout out in Fijian "You can't go down that road. There's been a landslide." or "You can't cross that stream. The water is too high."  Bobby would look at me and laugh uproariously and say "Lucky I'm Indian and don't know what they're saying."

And then he'd go ahead and do it and we'd plunge deep into heart-in-mouth time.

Yes, Bobby and his truck could do anything and everything and we had the most spectacular and hair-raising moments with Jane shouting "If you get me dead, Denise, I'll kill you." and the rest of us hanging on for dear life, seeing no possible way we'd survive. In fact, Jane got a lot of it on film and whenever she's shown it to people, they all say "No. It's not possible. There's no way you survived that." but yes we did.

Oh, that Bobby!  He was the most wonderful, wonderful old man and I'm so happy I met him!

Anyway, it took us hours but eventually we arrived in Tonga, a little village perched on the side of a mountain, where we were completely denied access to the cave.  Yup, no one cared that we'd nearly died at least a dozen times trying to reach them, and that the teenage girls had been sent on a mission by their big boss, they would NOT let us go into or even see the cave.

It was because we were all girls and no girls were ever allowed.  And when our teenage girls pointed out that it was odd that they let esoteric German brides in there, we were told that only the chief could give special dispensation and he wasn't around so it wasn't going to happen.

But I'm a wily soul and when I spotted a couple of teenage boys I recalled the whole Secret Teenage Boy Business Kim had talked about, and so took the pair of them aside and showed them my picture and asked if there was a rock in that cave.  Yes, they told me, there was: a giant rock.  And did it have carvings on it?  No it didn't. It was a huge round uncarved white rock that shone like the moon and sparkled like it was full of diamonds, which sounded to me like it had to have been mica or one of those types of rocks.

Odd, huh!  I have no idea what it means to esoteric Germans but it certainly wasn't the Viking stelae I was after.

So that's when I realised the truth of the matter. It wasn't about finding my stelae at all. The entire venture was a scam and there I was, the big sucker paying for Sigatoka Tourist Information Centre to find out why so many strange Germans were choosing to marry in a cave in Tonga, but it was all so cheerful and good-natured, I was fine with that.

After that, I could only wave around my diagram and ask after other petroglyphs and ... well, Fiji is Fiji and it's very common for people to make up stories as a way of saying "Sod off and become someone's else's problem." so, directed by the chiefless Tonga-villagers (who strangely look more Tongan than Fijian, I should tell you, which is a definite ancient mystery requiring investigation.) and by the Fijians at every other village we arrived at, we drove for hours on goat tracks around the Valley, being jolted till our teeth rattled, risking everything and hanging on for dear life with our hearts in our mouths at dangerous moment after dangerous moment, being sent around in ever increasing circles, waving around my diagram and looking for rocks we all knew no one was really going to let us see, and by late afternoon even our bubbly teenagers had lost their sparkle, and when a bunch of villagers at our latest destination suggested we hire their horses to take us deeper into the jungled mountains, (Jane for all for it, btw. How's that for shocking?) I was finally "Bobby, can you take us home now?" because the bulldog in me was ready to roll over, whimper a lot and go to sleep. After foaming at the mouth and savaging everyone, that is.

So that's the upshot of my attempt to find out if Vikings ever made it to Sigatoka Valley.  I really don't know, but I doubt it.  Although I can say with 99.9% certainty that Gavin Menzies is simply full of **it and that the Chinese definitely never ever did.


And just to wind up this story, much later on, when I showed the photograph of the Viking stelae to Ela Koroi - since she traveled for years the entire length and breadth of Sigatoka Valley when she was with the Fiji Red Cross - she said "I know that rock.  It isn't it Sigatoka Valley at all.  That's the one on an island in the Yasawa Group.  It's not ancient at all.  It was a joke by some silly boys back just after WWI." so I guess that puts the whole thing to bed very nicely, doesn't it.

What a silly billy that Gavin Menzies is, isn't he!  

But he doesn't come close to being as silly as I am.