Nine things about Sri Lanka that are awesome

Yes, 'awesome'.

1. It's hot. It's sunny. It's so humid I barely have to moisturise my legs. My hair is returning to its rightful shade of blonde, my skin has sufficient colour so that I no longer look like I have some kind of wasting disease, and my stores of vitamin D are no doubt being replenished. The tropics are a thousand times better than any chemical drug. I am actively NOT thinking about how people start wearing shorts when the temperature in the UK climbs to a mighty ten degrees, because really, that is horrifically depressing.

2. Everyone-everyone!-waves and says hello and much of the time, they don't even want to sell anything. My suspicions are that the vast majority of the country is so chilled out because of the tropical weather. It's even more amazing just how friendly and smiley everyone is when you think about the decades-long civil war and the tsunami that recently hit.

3. There are monkeys everywhere. I know, I know, they're annoying, vicious, thieving pests, but in the same way that visitors ooh and ahh over the wild garden-destroying deer that live in Northern California, I find the monkeys wonderfully entertaining. We spent a good two hours watching a troupe of them swing from vines and chuck coconuts at our heads. Prepare yourself for a lot of pictures of monkeys. The other thing is that they look so ridiculously human. It adds to their odd and novel appeal, but they look so human as to be kind of revolting. The babies all look like little old men, and monkeys of all ages have those unnervingly human little hands and fingernails.

4. All the tropical fruit I dream of when I watch the rain lashing my window is spilling out of fruit stalls just waiting to be bought and eaten. There are the ones you just don't find in the west, like mangosteens, rambutans, custard apples, soursops, durians, and Chinese guavas, which are ridiculously delicious. And there are the ones you can technically buy in your local Waitrose-pineapple, bananas, mangos, papayas-but the ones here are so sweet, juicy and ripe that the ones you can buy back home seem like a different species. When I die, entomb me in a giant coconut. I actually love tropical fruit so much that if people knew the full extent, I would be deemed mentally unstable.

5. The rest of the cuisine here is actually spicy enough to put a bit of colour in my cheeks. It has been a long, long time since that has happened, and the burn feels fantastic.

6. Is it insensitive to mention that it's cheap? Well, it is. It's rather great to dine for about three pounds a head. The only exorbitant prices I've seen were for a box of cornflakes (530 rupees, about 5USD or three quid) and, oddly enough, a pack of spiced cashews.

7. Even though Sri Lanka lost the cricket World Cup to India last night, people were still celebrating by chucking firecrackers around and having dance parties on the beach. When I offered my condolences about the match this morning, no one really seemed terribly distressed. The most dramatic reaction I got was (wait for it!) a shrug. It's hard not to love a place like this.

8. The crows are for some reason very sleek and robust. Much better than crows elsewhere. I have no idea why this is.

9. The beaches of the southwest are exquisite. If I believed in intelligent design or God or any of that, I would say that he had a soft spot for this island, because the golden sand and turquoise water of Unawatuna are dreamlike in their sheer perfection. It is utterly unsurprising that the people here seem like they're in such good moods all the time.

You might have asked yourself, 'Why nine things?' That is because I wrote down nine things and then, to be honest, felt like drinking mango juice and reading my book. Oh, tropics, you beguiling thing, you.