Nadi: Hindu temples and hot springs

Fiji's main tourist gateway, Nadi reflects in its religious architecture the history of Indo-Fijians brought as laborers by the United Kingdom over a century ago.

The various attractions are scattered outside the city: a taxi or organized tour is advisable.

Built in Dravidian style, the Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple is considered the largest Hindu temple in the entire Southern Hemisphere.

A few minutes away, the Nadi city market sells spices, kava, and local products under crowded awnings from morning onward, with stalls run by Indo-Fijian and indigenous Fijian families side by side.

Outside the city, the Sleeping Giant Garden, an orchid collection founded in the 1970s by actor Raymond Burr, takes its name from the profile of nearby mountains that resembles a reclining figure.

In the afternoon, the hot springs of Sabeto offer a bath in warm volcanic mud, set in a small valley outside the center.

The large Indo-Fijian community, descended from contract workers brought by the English between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries for sugar cane plantations, has made Hinduism one of the most practiced religions of the archipelago.

The hot mud of Sabeto dries on the skin in just a few minutes under the sun: many visitors wait precisely for this phase, before washing it away in the adjacent cold-water tanks.