<< Suva Main | Accomodations & Dining

The Suva Market, where you will find the most attractive array of fresh fruits and vegetables in the world, is within close proximity. And you will also find the Village 6 Cinemas, the Suva Handicraft markets, international restaurants and pubs, Suva Museum, Suva Olympic Swimming Pool, Suva Flea market and other great bargain shopping in downtown Suva.

Sogos on Cumming St, has good quality clothing for men and women at reasonable prices. There are a number of other stores and even locally manufactured surf clothing but I wasn’t too impressed. Fiji Bitter T shirts are still a great gift.

Sightseeing

Go to the Beach:
There is a beach in town but it doesn’t amount to much. Your best bet for a decent beach is to head down to Pacific Harbour, which is about 20 minutes by car or bus out of town.

Walking Tour:
Suva is a walker’s town; most of it can be seen in one day if you have a sturdy pair of shoes and a healthy constitution. You need not be an Olympic athlete to take a walking tour, but the heat – especially for those not used to it – can make a stroll around Suva seem arduous. Some of the things to see include:

Victoria Parade, extending roughly from the post office to Thurston Gardens, is the main drag and the heart of Suva. On it or nearby are most of the finest shops, the airline ticket offices, banks, travel agencies, the best hotel in town (Holiday Inn), the library, town hall, telegraph office, two of the most popular nightclubs and the classic Grand Pacific Hotel which is undergoing extensive renovation.

If you want to catch a movie check out the Village Six, a multi-plex theater with the latest Hollywood and Bollywood releases. It’s only F $6 per movie and half price for kids. Fully air conditioned state of the art theaters equivalent to any overseas standard cinemas.

At the Municipal Market the Polynesian, Chinese, Indian and Fijian vendors hawk fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, coconut oil and nearly everything else that a Fijian household might need. Some sections (upstairs) deal entirely with kava root (both whole and ground). Other merchants sell Indian spices exclusively, display freshly caught shellfish, sell tomatoes or offer bundles of dalo (taro root). A section of new kiosks toward the bus station is the place to try `Indian sweets’, many of which are not sweet at all, but rather are highly spiced and tasty snacks. There is also a `yaqona saloon’ outdoors at the wharf end of the market dedicated solely to yaqona tipplers. As you walk by, someone may call over, urging you to have a bowl. Should you take them up on it, for a dollar buy a round for the house, which is the customary reciprocal thing to do.

Cumming St. is known for its fine restaurants and duty-free shops. It is crowded and narrow, reminiscent of a Paris or London back street.

The Triangle, near the beginning of Victoria Parade, is what Albert Schutz in his fine booklet Suva – A History & Guide calls ‘the true centre of Suva’. A century ago it was a small lagoon fed by a creek coming down Pratt St; today it is a miniature park usually occupied by several locals sitting on a bench at the foot of an ivi tree. At the center of this triangular park is a concrete historical marker with four inscriptions. The landmark has a special distinction in that three of the four inscriptions set aside for posterity are incorrect:

Suva Proclaimed Capital in 1882. This is not quite true. The home government actually approved the move from Levuka to Suva in 1877 and the action was announced by the London Times in August of that year. The government’s official move from Levuka was made in 1882.

Cross and Cargill First Missionaries arrived 14 October 1835. Not quite; according to their diaries, the correct date was 12 October. Public Land Sales on this spot 1880. Wrong location. Apparently the land sales did occur underneath an ivi tree but not this one. In reality the sales were a bit further down the road, near the present-day locale of the Morris Hedstrom & Co store.

British Crown Colony 10th October 1874. They got this one right.

On Victoria Parade, the Old Town Hall, constructed just after the turn of the century, is one of the finest examples of Victorian architecture. Not only did it serve the duties of government, it was also a center for the performing arts and a host to concerts, vaudeville acts and amateur shows.

Behind the Town Hall is a very fine Olympic pool open to the public. Admission is 50 cents to the pool and 20 cents to the dressing room. From April to September opening hours are 10 am to 6 pm weekdays, 8 am to 6 pm Saturdays; and from October to March, 9 am to 7 pm on weekdays, 6 am to 7 pm Saturdays. There is also a reasonably clean public toilet here.

If you are addicted to a health club back home, you may want to check out the facilities at Olympic Gym (tel 304 970) at 14 Carnovan St. The gym is in a large Quonset hut-shaped building, not far from the municipal pool. The equipment is mostly weight-lifting gear, as well as some older, nautilus-style equipment. There is a small fee to use the facilities.

Next to the town hall is the Suva City Library, built in 1909. It is a noteworthy landmark in that the money for constructing the edifice (#1000) was donated by the US steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie provided similar donations to other libraries around the world. I have found the librarians a very friendly bunch and the long-term visitor might find it worthwhile to take out a library card. Note that some of the best books are in the Pacific Collection, inside the charge desk, and available on request. (Long-term visitors should also check into the University of the South Pacific Library on the USP campus, which has the best books in the country.)

Just down the street, Albert Park was part of the original land grant given by the Polynesia Company to the government as an inducement to move the capital to Suva. Named after the royal consort to Queen Victoria, it is and always has been a general recreational park with a cricket ground and tennis courts.

Across from the park, the shoreline adjacent to the Grand Pacific Hotel (or GPH as it is called by locals) was once a landing spot for commoners from the nearby village. It was called Vu-ni-Vesi after a group of vesi trees that grew there. The first hotel built on this spot, the Hotel Suva, was little more than a shack but the GPH, which opened in 1914, was to set the standard for the entire Pacific. It has been going under renovation for years in fits and starts. Finally with the economy booming and real estate very hot, it appears the latest incarnation will finally emerge.

About 100 meters down from the library is an area called ‘Naiqaqi’, which translates as ‘the crusher’. This vicinity, which is now occupied by the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB) building and the Fiji Broadcasting Commission building, was once the site of Fiji’s first sugar mill, built in 1873. Sugar grows quite well in Fiji but not in the Suva area, where the topsoil is thin and ‘the crusher’ was never a successful business venture.

The only nearby remnant of this exercise in futility is a gear 1-1/2 meters in diameter, on display near the corner of Carnarvon and Loftus Sts.

The massive Government Buildings site is one of the most prominent in Suva, but prior to 1935 the area was a swampy creek bed. Known as part of the greater Naiqaqi district, the area mostly contained tumbledown shacks and many of the neighborhood’s women plied the world’s oldest trade. The government buildings may be of more than passing interest to the visitor. Here the Department of Lands & Survey sells excellent topographic maps and city plans to the public. In the new wing, the Department of Information provides pamphlets such as Fiji Today, which offers an overview of the country, statistics and general background information. Nearby, in a barrack-like annex, is the office of the Fiji Dictionary Project. An impressive new parliament building, offering more space needed by the expanded post-coup government, was opened in 1992 on Ratu Sukuna Rd.

Thurston Gardens on Victoria Parade contain a large collection of flora from throughout the South Pacific. Named after the amateur botanist and founder, Sir John Bates Thurston, the present site was opened in 1913. The gardens are well kept and almost always uncrowded. Within the grounds you’ll find the Fiji Museum.

The Fiji Museum (inside Thurston Gardens) has the finest collection of Fijian relics in the world. Founded in 1904, the original site of the Fiji Museum (tel 315 944) was in the old town hall. After being moved to several locations, the present building was constructed on the grounds of Thurston Gardens in 1954. Despite the multitude of artifacts that were taken from Fiji by missionaries and sailors, the museum has the finest collection of Fijian relics in the world.

Among the exhibits are collections of war clubs, ivory necklaces, cannibal forks, spears, bowls, pottery, tools, cooking utensils, combs and a replica of a huge drua – an ancient, double-hulled canoe. One of the war clubs, which was actually used in battle, has several notches chiseled in it, each representing an enemy slain. The rear of the museum is dedicated to the arrival of European and US sailing vessels, highlighting the buhe-de-mer, whaling and sandalwood eras. There is also an exhibit illustrating the saga of the Indian indenture period and the infamous blackbirding trade that brought Micronesians and Melanesians to Fiji. In addition, you’ll see actual relics from the famous Bounty. There is a superb collection of old masi (tapa bark cloth) in an air-con room.

Aside from collecting and chronicling Fijian artifacts, the museum is also a research and educational institution. The staff engage in archaeological research, the preservation of Fiji’s oral tradition and publication of material on language and culture. Despite the museum’s good works, lack of space to showcase the exhibits and chronic lack of funding have always been problems. The museum is open weekdays from 8.30 am to 4.30 pm, Saturday from 9 am to 4.30 pm and is closed Sunday. There is an admission charge. There is often a temporary exhibit of some kind going on, and these are usually excellent. Anyone visiting Suva should not miss the museum.

History of Suva

Before Suva became the center of European activity in Fiji, it was a typical village, embroiled in the political squabbles and intrigues of the day which often resulted in attacks by rival tribes. The European settlement of this waterfront community was prompted by a series of events that began during a celebration of America’s independence day on 4 July 1848. The first was a fire in a house belonging to entrepreneur John Brown Williams, US commercial agent in Fiji. While the fire burned, many of Williams’ possessions were ‘liberated’ from the burning structure by the villagers, who saw no reason to give them back. Consul Williams, as he was called, took full advantage of the situation and inflated his 1848 loss of goods looted by the Fijians from approximately 200 (as some have estimated) to nearly 10,000 at the time of his death.

The responsibility for these actions was placed upon Chief Cakobau, who at the time was the self-styled ‘Tui Viti’ or King of Fiji. Having failed to eliminate the debt by an attempt to cede Fiji to Britain (which took some nerve because Chief Cakobau really didn’t have dominion over the entire country), he quickly accepted the offer of the newly formed Polynesia Company to pay the amount. The agreement was that the Polynesia Company would pay back the money in exchange for 200,000 acres of land and trading and banking rights in Fiji. About 23,000 acres of the total were in the Suva area. The price worked out to about a shilling an acre – not a bad deal even in those days. (Photo at right depicts mid 20th Century Suva when colonial architecture was still evident.)

Polynesia Company Settlement
After acquisition by the Polynesia Company, a boatload of Australian settlers arrived in Suva in 1870 to plant cotton and later sugar cane. Early settlers camped on the beach until the land, densely covered with vegetation, was cleared to build their Fijian-style huts. One settler described the ordeal:

Our women folk bore themselves bravely, and lived up to the traditions of our race, but it was dreadfully trying to them and the children. They were devoured by mosquitoes, terrified by the hordes of fierce land crabs and drenched with rain when the fine weather broke up. Most of us had come totally unequipped with mosquito curtains, and I shall never forget how those fell insects punished us…I tried everything I could to dodge the little beasts.

Ironically, the efforts that went into cultivation were in vain because the land itself was not suited to the crops. The agricultural venture in Suva failed and the planters were ruined. However miserable things were for the fledgeling community, land speculators knew that if Suva could be made the new capital, business could be coaxed there, real estate values would soar, and they would be rich.

The old capital, Levuka, which had long been the metropolis of the Pacific, was a brawling, prosperous town, but its days as a capital were numbered. Although it was a garden spot, the old capital was hemmed in by 600-metre cliffs which left no room to expand. It became apparent that a new capital was needed.

In the meantime, land in Suva was purchased by two major parties who did their best to promote the area as an ideal spot for a new capital by giving the government ample real estate to build their offices. Thus, in spite of the wet climate, the local government had incentives to establish the new capital in Suva, and in 1882 they did just that.

The New Capital The plan of modern Suva is credited to Colonel F E Pratt of the Royal Engineers, appointed in 1875 as surveyor-general and director of works; and to his assistants W Stephens and Colonel R W Stewart. Despite well-intentioned plans for the capital, Suva’s early days saw only gradual improvement – roads were poor, water supply was tenuous at best and not all construction adhered to the city plan. Gradually these deficiencies gave way as the town grew. A few years past the turn of the century Suva was actually a tourist attraction in its own right. The editor of The Commercial Directory & Tourists’ Guide to the South Pacific Islands observed:

Why Fiji is visited by such a small number of tourists is a puzzle to the writer, for there is not a more interesting or enjoyable trip on the globe. The climate is particularly healthy, and the white settlers being mostly from Australia, vie with each other in extending hospitality to visitors, while the natives, particularly those who live away from the large centres of European population, always extend a cordial welcome to the turanga papalangi (white gentleman), or the marama papalangi (white lady). Suva is the capital of the colony, and situated on the shores of a fine reef-protected bay of the same name, whose opposite shore is backed by imposing looking ranges of verdure-clad mountains, rising peak after peak until an altitude of probably 1200 meters is attained – they look truly grand, particularly at sunset or during an approaching storm (a frequent occurrence), or better still when the storm has passed and the white clouds cover their feet, and the picturesque-looking peaks…stand boldly out against the dark-blue horizon, ‘tis really a sight to be remembered.

Some things never change.

Where to Get Online

You can also check out Alpha Computers near Cumming Street at Honson Arcade, the Government run Fiji Telecom, Cyber Station on Usher St. and Networking Solutions Shop 7, Harbour Terminal.

Nightlife

Nightlife in Suva is famous throughout the South Pacific for its nightlife. Clubs range from seedy dives to posh discos. Cubbing is a popular recreation for urban, single Fijians and is socially quite acceptable – many charitable and social organizations use the clubs as places to hold fund-raising dances.

Golden Dragon is also one of the most popular nightclubs in Suva, more so with locals than the tourists. It’s frequented a great deal by University of South Pacific students. There is no shortage of singles seeking companions. It’s on Victoria Parade, opposite the Fiji Development Bank. Admission is charged.

Birdland is a hip, subterranean lair on Carnavon Street in downtown Suva. Operated by a jazz fanatic and adorned with posters of Miles and Bird, they have live music on the weekends but mostly rock. The only jazz you’ll hear will be played on tapes and CDs. Nonetheless, this smoke-filled dive is the next best thing to the Village for miles around. Admission on weekends.

If there is one place that can be classified as the scene in town is Trapps on Victoria Parade. Loud, smoky and more crowded than the Tokyo subway, it’s the bar to be seen in Suva. Great place for singles seeking companionship.

Attractions North of Suva

Nausori
Only 19 km north of Suva and 270 km from Nadi Airport, Nausori grew as a city around Fiji’s second sugar mill (1881-1959), now the site of the Rewa Rice Mill. The golf course and some of the old colonial homes constructed for expatriates are about all that remain of Nausori’s days as a sugar-mill town. (The post card at right from Dame Jane Resture’s collection depicts pay in Nausori in 1906.)

The end of the sugar mill marked the final attempt at growing sugar on the eastern side of Viti Levu. Today Nausori is much like Ba, a working-class town and agricultural center. The airport, which serves Suva is in Nausori, a 20-minute drive from the capital. The most famous landmark in town is the Nausori Bridge, which everyone who lands at the Airport must cross to get to Suva. The bridge was immortalized in this 1979 postage stamp).

Near Nausori are three landings from which you can hire punts or ‘water taxis’ to explore the Rewa Delta, visit snorkeling areas or visit Toberua Resort. The landings are Nakelo, Wainibokasi and Bau. Buses leave frequently for these points from the bus station in Nausori.

Bau Island
Bau Landing is a few meters from tiny Bau Island, to this day the seat of traditional power among Fijians (see the History section in the Facts about the Country chapter). The island is not a place where visitors may casually drop in – it is in fact against the law to visit Bau without permission from someone who lives on the island or from the Ministry of Fijian Affairs. This applies to locals and visitors alike.

Bau has the oldest church in the country, a fascinating cemetery for chiefly families, and an impressive stone nearby that was once used to crush skulls in the days of cannibalism.

If you really want to visit the island, the best way to go about this is to try and befriend someone on the bus ride to Bau Landing in hopes that the person may offer to show you around. Make sure you take a large bundle of kava root (waka) with you and dress conservatively (this applies especially to women). At certain times all non-Bauans are forbidden on the island, so don’t attempt to reach it without permission; and if by luck you get there, never walk around unescorted. Some tourists reportedly have tried this but it is a grave insult. Getting on the wrong side of a high Fijian chief is akin to getting on the wrong side of the law. In many remote parts of Fiji the chief is still the one who lays down the law. Even the courts have ruled that a chief’s word can in some cases take precedence over the law books.

Naililili Mission
Naililili, 272 km from Nadi Airport, is the largest church in Fiji. It was built at the turn of the century by Father Rougier, who later left the priesthood to become a trader in Tahiti. Apparently Father Rougier accidentally inherited a tidy sum from a down-and-out convict from New Caledonia who was in reality heir to a fortune. At that point he left organized religion to seek a more worldly life. To get to his church take the first left at the junction past the Nausori Bridge. Water taxis are available to cross the river to Naililili.