If you’re like me, a trip to Fiji largely means a long stopover on Fiji Airways. That in turn means Nadi (pronounced Nandy) on the western coast of the country, an area famous for warm waters, small islets in the coral reef, sunsets, and resorts. Sounds pretty great.

But if you’re like me, a week at a tropical resort can lead to a feeling of disappointment. That doesn’t come from what the resort has, but in what it lacks: true local culture.

So if you’re like me, you might find yourself searching on Google for cultural attractions in the Nadi area. Those searches basically all yield a single result (outside of a cool colorful Hindu temple for the local Indian population): Fiji Cultural Village.

The experience (which can be booked directly with them or through your hotel) offers two options: a day visit with lunch, and an evening visit with dinner and fire dancers. Not wanting to lose a beach/pool day, I opted for the evening visit, which picked me up at my hotel at around 430pm and had me back around 9.

On a Monday evening in May, the group that met (there seemed to be two bus/shuttles picking up people from various resorts) at the main entrance was pretty small, maybe thirty or so. We were greeted with a song, and asked to find our assigned seats at tables, some communal long ones and other low tables facing a performance area. Once seated, we were walked through what the evening would look like.

First would be a tour of the village itself, which has been created as a model of what a village in Fiji might have looked like. There is no actual village here; this is a created prop for tourists. More on that in a moment. Then we would have buffet dinner, followed by the show, before being transported back to our hotels.

The tour basically covered some aspects of life in a Fijian traditional village (almost certainly in the past and not in a village today), and through several different sorts of traditional crafts. We had a guide who took us from place to place, and either did the demonstrations himself or narrated for those who do. He also provided commentary about village life, about Fiji, and any other questions the group might have.

There is a lot to like about the tour. We learned that village life in Fiji revolved around dynastic chiefdoms, with not only each village having a chief, but then each region as a sort of “superchief.” Chiefs owned everything in the village, and controlled every aspect of village life. It’s sort of a feudal lord-serfs relationship, with villagers not seeming to have had freedom of movement, of choosing their occupation, or of the ability to deny their chief to fight or marry or anything else. Fascinatingly, we were told that never in Fijian history was a chief overthrown violently, something I find difficult to believe personally, but have no way to verify.

We learned that Fijian village temples are always the tallest buildings, with sloped thatch roofs that extend skyward. Fijian ritual was typically done with human sacrifice (and yes, cannibalism was practiced here). These days the overwhelming majority of the local Fijian population is Christian, with large Hindu and Muslim minorities from one of the largest (percentage wise) Indian expat communities stemming both from indentured servitude and from more modern immigration.

We were treated to demonstrations of crafting techniques from wooden (there was no metalworking here until colonial times) weapons to plant based textiles, from pottery to fire-making.

In all, the tour had probably a dozen or so “stops,” ending with the traditional earthen oven where much of our dinner was being prepared.

While our guide was fairly thorough in explaining things at each stop, there were also a couple things I didn’t love. First, he loved to talk. That’s both a positive – learning more – and a negative, as it was dark long before the tour ended, with sunset being around 630. So by the last few stops, it was harder to see, both in terms of the demonstrations (there are lights but they aren’t spectacular) and where we were walking over uneven ground. It also led to the dinner buffet portion being rushed before the show could begin.

Our particular guide also expressed what seemed like nostalgia for some aspects of traditional Fijian life that have gone away in the modern era, things like beating one’s children (he specifically said that it doesn’t happen anymore “in public”), ownership of one’s wife (wives, traditionally), and such. That didn’t sit well with me, although I can’t say if others in the group took those things as jokes. They didn’t sound joking to me.

Finally, it was time for dinner. It was a much larger and more diverse spread that I had expected. From chicken, fish, and vegetables made in the earthen oven to salads, fresh fruit, sausages, and more, it was easily enough to satisfy basically any diet. I might have wanted seconds, but as I said, timing meant that as I was finishing my first plate, the buffet was being put away for the show to begin.

The first portion of the show was the traditional Fijian kava ceremony. Kava is a communal drink that supposedly doesn’t taste very good but is the national beverage here. I didn’t opt to try it for sanitary reasons, as the guests lined up to drink it out of a communal vessel. This was a huge miss for me, and I wish that it had been offered to people in individual small cups. In a post-COVID world, there is no excuse for something like this.

The show was the absolute highlight of the evening, and the reason that I’d recommend the evening experience over the daytime if you decide to go to Fiji Cultural Village. The fire dancers alternated with “normal” Fijian dancers to give them breaks between sets. Some of the dances included asking for volunteers or encouraging the entire group to participate. That was cute, but the fire dancers were the stars.

And then the shuttles took us back to our resorts. It was a fairly simple evening. As I look back at it, I am glad to have had a more cultural experience than just hanging out at the resort. Parts of it felt fairly authentic, I liked the food, and the fire dancers were awesome.

Was Fiji Cultural Village worth it? That’s hard to say. If you want that dash of culture in your trip, sure. It’s expensive, but so is dining at your resort. Was it a must-do, something I’d absolutely recommend? No. I could take or leave it, and wouldn’t do it a second time.

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