a country you can walk around in 3 hours

 

Nauru is apparently the least-visited country in the world; according to their tourist office (who are involved in processing the visas) most years see around 100 visitors.  Although it would surely be a useful source of income, they don’t do much to help this situation – the only island country in the Pacific for which a visa is required, and this the state of the swimming pool at our hotel (the best hotel on the island).

We did though get given a tour of the parliament building, including into the debating chamber itself, where we sat down in the MPs' seats and idly flicked through the draft bills in front of us.  Until someone came into the chamber in a panic, telling us that we shouldn't have been allowed access to those seats ... very unprofessional but quite interesting!

The country was first sighted by a European in 1798, and was named Pleasant Island.  It has a total land area of just 21.2 square km, with a circumference of some 19km – a few of us walked all around the edge of the island in less than four hours.  The population is around 12,000, having been as low as 500 at the end of World War II as the Japanese had taken many people prisoner (using them as forced labour during the war); few returned to the island afterwards.  Japan occupied the island for four years during the war and you can see many rusting remnants of this war around the island. 

Phosphate deposits (basically accumulated bird droppings) once covered nearly four-fifths of the total land area of the island.  Mining began in 1906, and the revenue from the export of this mineral – used as a fertiliser – gave Nauru the second highest GDP per capita in the world (behind Saudi Arabia) in the years following its independence in 1968.  However, the money was not well invested, and in 2014 the country went bankrupt.  & the removal of the phosphate has left a land of spiky rocks, meaning that only small pockets at the coast can now be cultivated.

This means that almost everything required has to be imported (including most of its drinking water).  Despite the island’s vulnerability to climate change, there is no public transport so another import is motor cars.  & when something goes wrong with the car, it seems there are no spare parts (or no-one capable of repairing cars), as the island is littered with abandoned vehicles. 

It's also full of fat people, with apparently some 95% of the population overweight, and diabetes a big problem.

At the time of my visit, Taiwan was an important partner to Nauru, assisting them in fields such as clean energy, health and agriculture, but a couple of weeks later Nauru announced a switch to backing China, reportedly in response to a promise to pay them A$100m (£52m) per year.  They also receive A$350m a year for the immigration processing centre for Australia – even though there are currently no inmates…

Overall it was a fascinating visit, albeit not a destination I could recommend to the average holiday-maker!