Fiji

🇫🇯 Fiji

Nadi

Nadi is Fiji's main tourist gateway — the city adjacent to Nadi International Airport on the western coast of Viti Levu, and the departure point for the Mamanuca and Yasawa island chains that have defined the Fiji experience in global imagination. The city itself is a working Fijian-Indo-Fijian town rather than a resort — the market, the Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple (the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere), the main street of duty-free shops and the Garden of the Sleeping Giant orchid garden give Nadi a character quite different from the resort islands. Indo-Fijians, descendants of labourers brought from India by the British in 1879–1916, make up 37% of the population and give Nadi its distinctive character — the dhal and roti eaten at a Nadi café and the temple incense drifting over the sugar cane fields are as much the Fiji experience as snorkelling at Beachcomber. The Mamanuca Islands — including Malolo Lailai, Tokoriki and Monuriki (the "Cast Away" island) — are 30–90 minutes by boat or seaplane from Nadi and represent the classic Fiji island experience: white sand, fringing reef, crystal clear water and the Fijian welcome that has made the country legendary for hospitality.

🇫🇯 Fiji

Suva

Suva is the capital and largest city of Fiji (population 93,000 city, 330,000 greater Suva), situated on the southeast coast of Viti Levu — the largest island in the Fijian archipelago of 330 islands and 500 islets spread across 1.3 million km² of the South Pacific Ocean. Suva was established as the capital of the Crown Colony of Fiji in 1882, replacing Levuka (on the island of Ovalau) which had been the capital since the British annexation of Fiji in 1874 but was physically constrained by its small bay and could not expand; Suva on Viti Levu offered the deep harbour and expansive land area required for a colonial capital. The Fijian state reflects two centuries of complex history: the pre-colonial chiefly confederacy system (the Fijian paramountcy established by Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau who unified the Fijian island groups and ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria in 1874 in exchange for British protection from the growing power of Tonga); the colonial indentured labour system (the British imported approximately 60,000 Indian indentured labourers between 1879-1916 to work the sugar plantations after Fijian custom law prevented the British from using indigenous land or labour for commercial agriculture — the legacy is a country with almost equal numbers of indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) and Indo-Fijians, divided by religion (Christian versus Hindu and Muslim), land rights and political representation in a tension that produced two coups (1987) and two more (2000, 2006)); and the remarkable natural environment: the 330 islands of the Fiji archipelago range from the rugged interior of Viti Levu (the central highlands reaching 1,323 m at Mount Tomanivi) to the coral reef systems of the Mamanuca and Yasawa island chains on the western side of Viti Levu, which constitute some of the finest snorkelling and diving environments in the South Pacific. The Fijian greeting (Bula! — said with enthusiastic eye contact and a smile — is the most recognisable cultural greeting in the Pacific and is applied universally).