Dan Sloan via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Suriname
The smallest country in South America and the most Indian — where Hindostanis are the largest group in the census, Holi Phagua and Divali are national holidays, and a wooden Dutch colonial capital sits at the edge of untouched rainforest.
A Dutch colonial capital
with a Hindostani majority
Suriname is the smallest country in South America and the least like the rest of it. The official language is Dutch. The capital is a wooden colonial city on a river. And at the 2012 census the largest single group in the country was Hindostani — 148,443 people of 541,638, or 27.4 per cent — descendants of indentured labourers brought from India from the 1870s, ahead of Maroons, Creoles, Javanese and everyone else. Holi Phagua and Divali sit on the national holiday list alongside Emancipation Day, Indigenous Day, Maroon Day and Id-Ul-Fitr.
That mixture is legible on a single street. The Historic Inner City of Paramaribo was inscribed by UNESCO in 2002 — a quarter of white-painted timber buildings with steep roofs and green shutters, built by the Dutch and rebuilt by everyone since, laid out around Onafhankelijkheidsplein and the Presidential Palace and running along the Suriname river at the Waterkant. Within walking distance you will pass a mandir, a mosque, a synagogue, a cathedral built almost entirely of wood, and a Javanese warung selling food that exists nowhere in Java.
Behind the coast the country essentially stops. Around four-fifths of Suriname is forest, and the Central Suriname Nature Reserve, inscribed in 2000, covers a block of it larger than several European countries with no road into it. This is a three-World-Heritage country with nothing on its tentative list — a small, dense, surprising place where an Indian traveller will find both something entirely familiar and something entirely new, usually in the same afternoon.
Two wet seasons,
two dry ones
Suriname’s Third National Communication to the UNFCCC sets the pattern precisely: the movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone gives the country two dry and two wet seasons. Average annual temperatures run between 24.0°C and 30.9°C, with only 2.4°C between the warmest and coldest months.
How long Suriname actually needs
Less than most South American countries for the essentials, because the capital holds so much of it — and considerably more if you intend to go upriver.
How to Explore Suriname
5 ways into Suriname — drawn from this guide, not from a list that could describe anywhere.
Paramaribo · The Hindostani coast · Jodensavanne and the coast — the parts of Suriname this guide covers, each with its own reason to go and its own time of year.
The most Indian country in the Americas · Paramaribo’s wooden inner city · Central Suriname Nature Reserve · Jodensavanne — what this country does that its neighbours do not, and the reason to choose it over them.
Early Feb – mid-Apr is the strongest window — the short dry season. The rest of the year splits into Mid-Aug – early Dec · Mid-Apr – mid-Aug · Early Dec – late Jan, and they are not interchangeable.
Walking Paramaribo · Hire car and taxi · Rivers · Light aircraft — how people actually move around here, which decides how much of the map a trip can hold.
eVisa required. India sits on Suriname’s eVisa country list for Tourist, Business, Transit and Short Stay up to 90 days.
Suriname entry — eVisa, 90 days
India sits on Suriname’s eVisa country list for Tourist, Business, Transit and Short Stay up to 90 days. Diplomatic, service and official passports are exempt; ordinary passports apply online in advance.
Suriname runs entry through an online system operated by an official and authorised partner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Business and Cooperation, and that system publishes four separate country lists — an Entry Fee list, an eVisa list, an eTourist Card list and a CARICOM list. Which list a country appears in is the entire answer, and India appears in exactly one: the eVisa Country List. Its row reads "India — Visa exemption for holders of Diplomatic, Service, and Official Passports — Tourist / Business / Transit / Short Stay, 90 Days". Read against a neighbouring row such as "Afghanistan — All types of Passport — Tourist / Business / Transit / Short Stay, 90 Days", the structure is clear: the middle column records who is exempt, and the right-hand column records the categories and the period. So Indian diplomatic, service and official passports need nothing; ordinary Indian passports take the eVisa, for tourism, business, transit or a short stay, up to ninety days. India is not on the Entry Fee list and not on the eTourist Card list — those two lighter routes are not open to an ordinary Indian passport, and it is worth knowing that before someone tells you otherwise.
India appears on Suriname’s official eVisa country list for "Tourist / Business / Transit / Short Stay, 90 Days". Diplomatic, service and official passports are exempt.
India is on neither of those two lists. Only the eVisa route is open to an ordinary Indian passport.
Entry is administered online by an authorised partner of Suriname’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fees and any processing time are stated there.
India’s Ministry of Health lists Suriname as endemic. A valid certificate is required to and from; without one, arrival in India can mean quarantine of up to six days.
A yellow fever certificate takes effect ten days after vaccination — and is then valid for life. Book the vaccination before you book the flight.
For all Suriname journeys we design, we prepare your complete visa documentation package — the forms, the supporting documents, the sequence of submission. Our visa specialists help travellers prepare complete applications with careful document guidance. Final visa decisions always remain with the relevant authorities.
Suriname, practically
A small, easy country to be in once the paperwork is done. The paperwork is the part to start early.
Suriname — common questions
What Indian travellers actually need settled before booking.
Four ways to travel Suriname
Most of Suriname’s visitors never leave the coastal strip, and a good trip can be built entirely inside it. The interior is a separate undertaking.
The wooden inner city on the Suriname river — the World Heritage quarter, and the most concentrated cultural mixture anywhere in South America.
Wanica, Commewijne and Nickerie — the districts where indentured Indian settlement concentrated, and where rice and the culture that came with it still define the landscape.
Inland: the Brokopondo reservoir, the forested hills above it, and beyond them a reserve the size of a small country with no road into it.
The two ends of Suriname’s stranger history: an early Jewish settlement upriver, and a turtle-nesting coast at the Marowijne mouth.
Tell us whether this is four days of Paramaribo and the Hindostani districts, or a longer trip up the Suriname river — and we will set the eVisa and the yellow fever certificate against your dates before anything else is booked.