Nauru- not really THAT bad, is it?

LP's online summary of Nauru seems overly pessimistic. Either conditions there have significantly deteriorated since I was there in 1998, or whoever wrote it has far higher standards than I do. Granted, there's probably only about a week's worth of things to see there, but I found it worth it.

I don't know where they get their meal costs; those prices are rediculous! About the most expensive meal you could eat on the island was like A$20, and that's a deluxe gourmet meal at Hotel Menen. There were plenty of small restaurants (mostly Taiwanese style that incorporated local ingredients, especially pork, tuna, and coconut) where a meal ran about A$5. Bottled water is always expensive, since it has to be shipped in, especially during the drier months when there's frequent water shortages. There's only two hotels on the island, the more deluxe Hotel Menen, which was A$60 a night, or the close to the airport Od'n Aiwo which was A$30 a night (pretty basic rooms, but had hot water and air conditioning.)

The mined areas aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be. You see a lot of weird pinnacles in the mined-out areas, but the environment around them has actually started to recover a bit on their own, with mostly scrubby vegetation.

Can wander around on unmarked semi-trails all over the island, a lot of times finding the remains of Japanese bunkers and equipment. Nice shade from the sun. A lot of the recovered Japanese equipment is in a museum there, as well as a lot of the old German mining gear.

If you follow the trian tracks can find your way to some of the mining sights, and eventually to Command Ridge, which gives you a great view of the whole island; can see ocean in every direction, makes for an impressive sense of isolation.

Beaches were very rocky, and unfortunately pretty garbage strewn. Riptides made swimming unsafe at most of them. However some of the cleaner beaches were a good place to watch crabs and birds.

After about 5 days you can see pretty much everything there is to see and do all there is to do, unless you want to try sport fishing for tuna. But it's worth a short visit on your way to somewhere else, and if you go there you'll be one of the few people in the world who can claim to have done so. I'm not sure if Air Nauru still has their Nadi to Nauru flight still going, but I think Air Naura still connects to Tarawa, Melbourne, and Brisbane. At one time they had a connection to Manila too (actually pretty popular for some Chinese workers in Fiji to get back to Asia when I was there).

Very interesting. Thank you. I do not think we have ever had anybody give an account of time spent in Nauru before. Aloha

In 1998 the island was much richer - they are essentially broke now due to poor investments made by them (aided by dubious advisers). Nauru exists on aid now plus payments from Australia for housing refugees. From being one of the richest nations on Earth, they are now poor.I guess that locals cant buy much of what you saw in 1998 but back then that they could.

Lived on Nauru for nearly 5 years and left there 2002. There were at the time big issues that affected expats like myself living there. Much petty crime, expats being evicted from government housing by angry landowners, very limited daily electrical power and therefore water availability. I could go on and I'm not being cynical about this. Its just the way it was. Word is not much if anything has changed. Air Nauru (now Our Airline) lost the rights to fly the Nadi route some time ago to Air Pacific. They also lost the Manila flights several years ago and with this went Guam and PNI. To me, a documentary made by the Cousteau society back in the early 90's remains a very stark forecast on Nauru's future which seems to be dead accurate so far.

Well apparently Nauru's just not in the same shape it was when I visited 9 years ago... glad I saw it then. However it doesn't seem to make much sense for them to make visas more restrictive... you think with the shape their economy's in they'd welcome all the help they can get, and make it very easy for any tourist who wanted to see the country to do so. A negative attitute to expats contributing to the economy makes little sense either. Can only imagine in desperate times people need an external force to blame despite lack of any logical reason to do so.

How did they lose the Nadi-Nauru flight? Could they just not afford to maintain it? It's not like they had any competition, no other airline flew that route. Same with Nauru to Manila, Hagatna, and Pohnpei.

Now that the phosphate has pretty much petered out the only natural resource Nauru has is itself pretty much. If they can restore the place and clean it up a bit, they might be able to attract some tourism, and their airline was once a very conveneint and cost effective bridge between Asia and the South Pacific. That's probably Nauru's best hope of regaining self-sufficeincy.

Even in 1998 most of the Nauruans I met were suprised that someone would actually visit Nauru for its own sake. Can't imagine they get too many visitors now. If anyone cares to take the effort to visit try to have an optimistic attitude... and don't feel guilty visiting it in that state, you'll be part of the solution.

Part of the reason they lost the air route was that they actually had their only plane repossessed and sold after Air Nauru defaulted on the lease payments ( and even then it was one of the world's most unreliable airlines, frequently leaving passengers stranded while the President took or sent it on a jaunt somewhere.

They now derive a considerable income from acting as "jailers" for unfortunate refugees trying to reach Australia. Our Govt sends them to Nauru for detention until it works out where to send them, r whether to accept them - some have spent up to around SIX YEARS in limbo while we decide! Nauru has certainly been reluctant to let in Aussies who they think might be critically looking at how the "Pacific Solution" is being conducted, but outr election is being held soon, and we should get a long-overdue change of Government - perhaps things will improve then, but I've no idea what Nauru will do when they lose this income too!

Rob

#4
From what I hear from Samoans who work in Nauru to help re-establish an administration as well as a political and judicial system, conditions are so bad that even tourism is not an option yet (certainly later though). You need at least some kind of reliably functioning water and power supply, a minimal variety of food and such. But this is not the case yet. There was famine in Nauru, believe it or not, where once lived the fattest people in the world ....

I am not sure Nauru is even issuing tourist visas these days - they stopped allowing tourists in when they took in those Afghan refugees shipped to them by Oz.

I am not even sure the LP author actually bothered to visit... ;-)

I think they became wary of letting "tourists" in after a few human rights activists and concerned lawyers tried to fly up from Australia to find out and tell the world what was going on.

Not sure how big their tourist market was before though - when I flew on the route (98 & 99), we went through customs & immigration just to sit in the transit lounge for an hour or so en route to Tarawa - I assumed that was because there was an important funding allocation made on the basis of "arrivals" rather than "transit" passengers!

#7 To be fair, I don't have any proof that he didn't, but the Nauru chapter in the South Pacific book seems like it doesn't contain any more info than can easily be gleaned off the internet. I can recall several things from my trip to Nauru that would seem to merit mention even in a basic travel guide. Most of the about 3 pages dedicated to Nauru seem to be a lament of the ecological and economic problems they've been having, and a big section on the refugees that are being housed there.

I can understand travel is difficult and somewhat restrictive, and there's not a huge amount of sights there, but you think they can come up with more than 3 pages for an entire country. Even the Afghanistan section in the Central Asia book is longer, and Nauru's not an active war zone.

A bit more on the refugee issues and the "Pacific Solution"

Sri Lankan Refugees - The Age

Rob

OP - Thanks for your post, Troodon. So little information on Nauru is available that it's great to hear insight from someone whose been there. As everyone's already pointed out, 1998 was a lifetime in the past, before the economic collapse and the political instability. Though in hindsight Nauru's prosperity back then was a false prosperity.

I understand that traditional Nauruan culture has been all but wiped out. Troodon, did you at least see some examples of Nauruan culture when you visited? They still speak Nauruan at least. Anyone still remember traditional dress, diets, religion (Ejiebong?), music?

Maybe you can find a way to revisit Nauru and compare and contrast current Nauru with the Nauru of a decade ago. You yourself could write the Nauru section in the next Lonely Planet book. :-)

At least for now Nauruans seem O.K. with the Ludwig Scotty government. There's talk of Nauru being rehabilitated starting this year. Don't know how they're going to pull that off. I'd love for Nauru to be able to develop a tourist industry, but I'm not sure what that would be based on. I heard the sport fishing was good, but they had to close down that industry because tourist travel on Air Nauru was so unreliable. Maybe if Our Airlines can grow again sport fishing can be revived. Actually, I thought someone had the idea of making Nauru an airport hub for Central Pacific destinations. Could that still be possible with a revitalized Our Airlines? Also, maybe they can make the gym where the world class weightlifters train into a tourist attraction.

BTW: I found these interesting videos on Nauru here and here. The latter dates from Troodon's time.

"A lot of the recovered Japanese equipment is in a museum there, as well as a lot of the old German mining gear."
Well everyone needs something to look forward to!

The small museum was stripped bare once the land leases were allowed to expire. I resided near the NPC hospital and often walked past the ruins of what was an interesting place to visit. The fellow that set the museum up now lives in Pohnpei and continues to restore WW2 relics. Without meaning to sound too pessimistic I doubt very much if Nauru will ever become a tourist place to visit. Our Airline apparently is no more reliable than their former namesake Air Nauru since they can/do change flights at a moments notice to undertake more lucrative charter flights which earns more money than regular passenger flights. The one asset that Nauru does have though is its airport and jet capable runway.

How bad is the petty crime situation? (see Temakin 6 Sept) Are we talking Moresby-style or something less dangerous? Are all expats targeted or only white expats?

How deep does the division run between Nauruans and outsiders? (In my experience, in all cultures there is an understandable envy and possible resentment of outsiders who are priviliged relative to locals.) I guess I'm wondering if Nauru is any worse than other pacific island countries?

Since it looks like we have at least one person who has lived on Nauru checking this board, I thought I would ask a rather random question (sorry about that)...can someone confirm what the usual way to say "thank you" is in Nauruan?

I've searched the net, but Nauruan language resources are pretty scarce.

Thanks!

Here is a great source - an English - Nauruan - German Dictionary on-line:

Delaporte's Nauruan Dictionary

Located through the often reliable Wikipedia

How bad is the petty crime situation? Nothing like PNG and I found the island quite safe to live on. At the airport check-in counter in Australia for flights to Nauru, it amazed me the amount of televisions, videos, stereo's and other forms of entertainment that were being lodged for travel. From my experience on Nauru, these items did grow legs and eventually walked no matter how good your locks were.

hi slipping, lived in nauru for 7 years when i was really young so i can understand and speak a bit of nauruan. if you still haven't found out how to say 'thank you' - it's 'tubwa kor'. pronunciation is 'twoba kärrr'. hope that helps.