A Dreadlock holiday

The beach at Negril is a natural wonder, 11 km of pristine sand and water.

The placid Negril River is as good a place as any to moor fishing and tourist boats.

Jamaica is not only known for Bob Marley, the world's fastest sprinters and Blue Mountain coffee.

Tym Glaser tells us why he loves the tropical island and Negril, in particular, so much.

'What you want, mon? Ganja? Coke? Women? I know lots of pretty girls," says the man on the motorbike upon seeing me wandering down to the main store in the Jamaican beachside haven known as Negril.

Projecting my best patois, I reply: "Nah mon, every ting kris." And, by and large, everything is good in Jamaica as life just rolls along at a leisurely pace in the sunlit Caribbean island nestled under Cuba and a mere up-and-down flight from Miami.

"The Rock" or "Jamdown", as locals like to call it, has a severely bad reputation for violence, and more than 1,000 murders per year in a population of about 3 million tends to justify that call. But, that is primarily gang related and rarely, if ever, affects tourists - the lifeblood of a country with a strained economy, to say the least.

Hit the 11-km long Negril beach, which crosses the borders of the western parishes of Westmoreland and Hanover, grab a beach chair, a Red Stripe beer or rum, gaze out at the multi-tinctured blue Gulf of Mexico waters and you are immersed in paradise.

"Froooot, froooot?" says the woman with a large wicker basket full of multiple varieties of mangoes, pineapples, bananas and even the unbelievably pungent but sweet jackfruit, balanced on her head, as she walks past my hotel.

Then comes the patty guy with his chicken, beef and vegetable pastries on a chainless pushbike being, well, pushed along the sand.

"Don't need no patty yet, thanks."

"Where you from, mon?"

"Australia, but I live in China now."

"Yah, mon, good cricketers. That Steve Waugh, 'im da best. You want patty later? Me soon come back."