Fiji Beyond the Water

On Viti Levu, it is easy to begin with the utopian version of Fiji. The coast near Nadi gives you exactly what you thought you were coming for: palm trees, sandy lagoons and water so still it seems to behave itself. It is beautiful. It is also a very controlled kind of beauty. That is why Viti Levu is such a good place to write this story from. The island gives you the familiar Fiji first, if you want it. I did some snorkelling before spending more time around Suva, and it was exactly the sort of scene that makes people think they have understood a country because they have admired it.

The coast at Nadi, Fiji, a Pacific Paradise

However, Suva is where the postcard image starts to fray.

It is neither unattractive nor grim. It is just less interested in helping you pretend Fiji is a paradise. Wetter, busier and more official, the capital city is also more useful if you actually want to understand where British colonialism settled itself in the country. Britain annexed Fiji in 1874, and by 1882 the capital had shifted from Levuka to Suva, moving the centre of colonial power onto Viti Levu, the largest island. That was not a minor change of address. Rather, it was the moment power planted itself more firmly in the island that still carries it now.

You can feel that in Suva without needing to search for it. The city has the look of a place that was meant to administer. It is not just the government buildings or the old colonial facades, though those are there. It is the wider feel of the place. Offices, traffic, ministries, even the port remind you that a country is more than just its scenery. It is also a place of administration, where ordinary people spend their lives dealing with systems they did not design.

Suva doesn’t feed into the postcard image of Fiji

That is where the colonial story becomes more interesting. British rule in Fiji was about organising land, labour, and authority in ways that outlasted the empire itself. Independence came in 1970, but cities do not suddenly forget what they were built for. Suva did not stop being an administrative capital overnight. The British had already shaped the machinery of the state, and that continued into independence, even as iTaukei (native) land ownership remained central to Fiji’s political and social life. The empire ended, but many of its structures and much of its influence did not.

What makes the picture more interesting is when you backtrack to Levuka, the former capital.

Levuka matters culturally in a way that Suva does not quite replace. It was Fiji’s first colonial capital, and in 2013 it became the country’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site. That status is not just a tourism badge - Levuka holds a particular kind of memory. Its low seafront buildings, old port structures, and preserved townscape make it one of the clearest surviving records of how colonial Fiji first took shape. It is also full of firsts in the national story: early schools, early institutions, early newspapers, the first rough sketch of what colonial urban Fiji would become. Levuka seems like a place where history has stayed close to the surface.

Levuka is remembered, while Suva is lived in. The former still seems to carry the feel of first contact between a Pacific town and British colonial rule. But it had little room to grow, hemmed in by the sea and steep ground. The new capital offered space, and empire tends to like space when it plans to stay.

Thus, Suva is not where Fiji stops being beautiful. It is merely where it stops being simple. The country’s abundant reefs and lagoons matter, of course, but Suva provides one mandatory reminder. That Fiji is a country first, and a holiday destination second.

Photography: All photographs accompanying this piece were taken by Dawud during the trip described.