---
type: Place
title: Suva
description: Fiji's capital, which almost no tourist visits — kava bars open at any hour, a spearfisher selling to five-star resorts, 50-cent milkshakes, and a city Harry says is nothing like as bad as its reputation.
tags: [suva, fiji, kava, markets, rugby, colonial-history, safety]
coordinates: {lat: -18.1416, lng: 178.4422}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Suva

The capital of [Fiji](/countries/fiji.md) and its business hub, and a city
tourists skip entirely — they go to Nadi, which has the better weather and the
international airport.

Harry has been told it is the worst city in Fiji and that it is dangerous. Having
been there several days already when he starts filming, his position at the top
of the video is that he doesn't think it is, and he doesn't change it.

## What it's actually like

- **Clean**, which is the first thing he says about it.
- **Not the nicest city in the world and definitely not the worst.** He is
  deliberate about giving both halves.
- **His comparison is an English town**: a bit dirty, rough around the edges,
  mostly Indian, and a few homeless people.
- **Not dangerous**, in his assessment, and he says openly that the people
  calling it dangerous are chasing views.
- **Cargo ships and building works** are what give it the bad look — a working
  port city rather than a resort one.
- **Old British Empire-era buses** still running, which he stops to film.
- **Cumming Street**, the Chinatown, is full of gold and jewellery shops, and he
  is told — with the caveat that he can't verify it — that none has ever been
  broken into.

## Kava

The reason to come, and Harry gets into it before he has done anything else
because the answer to "is it too early?" is that it is never too early.

The first session is a taster: $5 Fijian dollars, a numb tongue within minutes,
then numb lips, and six people sitting around with no music and just talking —
which he says is exactly his kind of night out.

**The second session, later and at full strength**, is the one that matters. It
is entirely communal: one basin, everyone sharing, and applause every time
somebody drains a cup. He is told it was once reserved for chiefs and is now for
everyone, women included.

The running joke he builds with the drinkers is exporting it — a rival to Fiji
Water called Kava Water — which founders on the fact that it looks like dirty
water. Their own point is better: it costs $5 here and would cost far more abroad
once taxed, and there are already Fijian communities in Australia and New Zealand
drinking it.

He mentions in passing that he hasn't had alcohol in two months.

## The shoe clean

**$5 Fijian dollars**, which he suspects is the tourist price and pays without
comment.

The conversation while it happens is the substance:

- **Seven- or eight-hour days for around $40 a day.**
- **His son is a soldier at Buckingham Palace** and plays rugby.
- **On the British**: Fijians didn't want independence at the time, and in his
  view Suva and Fiji would be better today if it hadn't happened. Harry's
  response is that he couldn't say that himself but is happy to record someone
  who can.

Harry pays him somewhere between $30 and $50 — he admits he isn't sure, being new
to the currency — on the grounds that manual work in that heat deserves it and
$40 a day isn't much.

## The market

One of the biggest in Fiji, and proper local life rather than anything laid on.

- **A spearfisher** selling his catch at **$40 a fish**, shot the night before.
  He **free-dives to 30–40 metres with no scuba gear**, and sells to the five-star
  resorts. Harry asks to go out with him.
- **A baby stingray, $10.**
- **The largest sweet potatoes he has seen**, which he puts down to being near the
  equator.
- **Hindi on the signage**, which is where the Indo-Fijian history becomes
  visible.
- **A strawberry milkshake for 50 cents**, which he rates highly and which he
  notes has an enormous amount of sugar in it. On the standard warning about ice:
  he thinks Fiji is fine.

## Football and rugby shirts

Found in a shopping mall rather than the market, which he half-regrets.

- **Fiji shirts from $200 down to $109.**
- **The one he buys: reduced from $119 to $79**, and he puts it straight on.

## The other side of it

Harry meets [Kieran](/people/kieran.md) in the afternoon and asks him for a
brutally honest verdict, which he gets: the people are nice, but there is visible
hard-drug use in the centre of town and Kieran's opinion of the city is
considerably lower than Harry's. The bundle records both because the video does.

What follows is a group of women who approach them, and whom Harry declines to
film once it is clear they don't want it and that the encounter is a solicitation
rather than a chat. They do supply the afternoon's most useful piece of
information: where the best kava bar in town is.

**One concrete warning**, from a bar worker: near the nightclubs at night, people
will try to rob you. Harry's own comparison is London.

He also has a seller press a carved ornament on him as a gift before asking for
payment — he declines the object and gives some coins anyway.

## Harry's tips

- **Drink kava, and drink it properly.** $5 for a basin, shared, and the
  communal part is the point rather than the drink.
- **Don't write Suva off.** The city he was warned about was clean, friendly and
  fine.
- **Buy the fish at the market, not the resort.** The man who dives for it sells
  to the resorts anyway.
- **Ask the price before anything is handed to you.**
- **Avoid the nightclub area after dark**, which is the one specific warning he
  was given.
- **Say bula to everyone.** It is the greeting, the toast, and apparently most
  other things.

## Source

- [The Side of Fiji The Media Won't Show You 🇫🇯](/videos/8SNiM7V0dYE.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SNiM7V0dYE