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Background: Fiji became independent in 1970, after nearly a century as a British colony. Democratic rule was interrupted by two military coups in 1987, caused by concern over a government perceived as dominated by the Indian community (descendants of contract laborers brought to the islands by the British in the 19th century). A 1990 constitution favored native Melanesian control of Fiji, but led to heavy Indian emigration; the population loss resulted in economic difficulties, but ensured that Melanesians became the majority. Amendments enacted in 1997 made the constitution more equitable. Free and peaceful elections in 1999 resulted in a government led by an Indo-Fijian, but a coup in May 2000 ushered in a prolonged period of political turmoil. Parliamentary elections held in August 2001 provided Fiji with a democratically elected government and gave a mandate to the government of Prime Minister Laisenia QARASE.

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By MichelleandLuke
May 15th 2008

A Tribe is Wanted

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Sun Set on Vorovoro

Bula ! Walking on to our Air Pacific flight and seeing that all of the air crew were wearing brightly colourful flowery shirts we got the feeling we were really going to enjoy Fiji. We have been to lots of places since leaving home but no where have we met people like the Fijian's. They are so friendly and welcoming. Our first stop was the Sky Lodge in Nadi where we spent two nights before heading off to Tribewanted. We used the time to catch up with some other tribe members and get all our stuff organised for the island. We [View Full Entry]

By genevievez
January 19th 2008

Tribewanted me

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

HEy Guys ok so i'm alive and back! i'm back in Nadi.... just came back from voro voro i have so much to tell everyone but with limited internet i can't write too much right now....it was absolutely amazing tho the BBC will have a 5 part documentary on it starting on monday...you can either go to the website... www.tribewanted.com and get a link to it or check the satellite if you get bbc... love you all talk to you soon..(probably when i get to oz!) ps can someone find out if steve is gonna pick me up at the airport...if [View Full Entry]

By genevievez
January 11th 2008

Fiji me up!

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

fiji from plan

Hey guys... so i made it over ok to Labasa...this is pretty much a non-tourist zone so i'm already starting to feel like a local (in an internet cafe! hahah)....anyway...i'm really excited i've met ben who is the coordinator for tribeswanted... it sounds really exciting...when i told him about my studies in public health he was really interested to hear about it and has encouraged me to discuss with some of the tribe members about some of their health histories and that kind of thing just to get an idea of what type of issues they deal with here (from what [View Full Entry]

By Divey Spidey
August 12th 2007

Vanua Levu

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Cute lorikeet
Obligingly sat still for a photo session.

The ferry trip to Vanua Levu was quite good as they played movies to keep us entertained. The first was a good one, "Catch A Fire" which was about Aparteid. The second, called "Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever" was an awfully bad action movie starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas, who both seemed awfully embarrassed to be part of such a plotfree monstrosity. After landing, we waited for a bus north in the village of Lao. It seemed that tourists didn't stop here very often and half the village came to talk to us and ask questions about where we'd been etc. [View Full Entry]

By Scary Israel
August 8th 2007

And on to Vanua Levu

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Geothermal activity on the beaches at Savusavu

Today was a travel day. Taxi early in the morning to Somosomo, followed by a trip on a car ferry across the strait to Natuvu on Vanua Levu. There were two movies playing on the ferry, which was a bit of a surprise. Both were black-market DVDs, which wasn't a surprise. Everywhere you go in Fiji there are street stalls selling illegal copies of the movies playing at the cinemas (at the present time for example The Simpsons Movie, Die Hard 4, The Bourne Ultimatum...). The two on the ferry were "Catch A Fire", a very good apartheid movie starring Tim [View Full Entry]

Turquoise tree skink (Emoia mokosariniveikau) at Waisali -- look closely!

By Barbzzz
June 30th 2007

Be Prepared for Olivia

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Preparer a la vie fijienne, on l'etait. Mais preparer a un acceuil d'Olivia, on l'etait moins... Mere poule en manque d'affection, Olivia possede une grande maison, en plein coeur d'un petit village, dans laquelle elle adore recovoir des touristes afin d'en prendre... Grand soin! Car apres nous avoir repeter au moins 100 fois que nous allions aimer l'endroit, elle nous fait une tournee guidee de son village en nous prennant quasiment par la main, en nous encadrant comme des petits enfants de 12 ans, bref. Elle etait bien sympathique mais peut etre un peu trop pour nous. On a tout [View Full Entry]

By DR Drea AKA Ted
June 19th 2007

Fiji

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Fiji Raintree Lodge
one of the best meals i had on my RTW. chkn mexican. absolutely gorgeous !

Fiji Australasia » Fiji » Vanua Levu By DR Drea AKA Ted June 19th 2007 Paul Michael James Drea Well, i had never been on such a little plane.Propellers! in flight meal was two sandwiches wrapped in cling film! only stayed in two places.Raintree lodge near Suva which had the park next to it and was just gorgeous.had a [View Full Entry]

By Going Global
April 14th 2007

Maka Na Leka and the Butterfly Effect

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

My posessions for the year...
That's it?

Maka na leka = "No Worries" in Mali dialect of Fijian. "I'm sorry sir, your flight has been canceled" ...and so it began. I went into this trip with the mindset that no plans are solid and I expected some unexpected twists and turns in the road. However, I didn't expect it to begin within seconds of getting out of Melvin's car at O'Hare. I'll do my best to give the compressed version of the travel details so I can get to the good stuff (Fiji). In short...I was supposed to fly to LAX and then on to Fiji (Nadi - [View Full Entry]

By andrewandlara
October 1st 2006

Would you swim with 2 species of man eating shark...we did!

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Yes, you have all your teeth

In the words of the Kaiser Chiefs...."Oh my god I cant believe it, i've never been this far away from home!" Well, we are now officially the furthest we have been away with a whopping 11 hour time difference and a mental 13000 miles from home. Weird, considering last week when we were in Indo we were comparitively close - just a direct flight from Singapore in fact. To get to Fiji we had to cross into New Zealand briefly, just for a few hours and long enough to get a warning for joking about bombing planes. Suffice to say Lara [View Full Entry]

By Leebee
November 22nd 2004

Fiji 2

Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu

Setting Sun
1st night on Robinson Crusoe island.

After returning to Nadi from the awesome feejee experience, i had 4 days to kill, so i decided to head to beachcomber island, it reputation is the backpacker party island and it is heavily advertised in Nadi, but i found it to be quite trashy untidy and too touristy being herded onto the island along with the other 60 visitors they get everyday!!! you kind of feel like a sheep, 100+ bed dorm room and its numerous shaggers & snorers. The nightlife is probably the best thing about it (apart from the amazing sunsets) but after being on Robinson Crusoe island [View Full Entry]

Travel Blog » Oceania » Fiji » Vanua Levu