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RI Lanka’s biggest exports are tea, rubber and coconuts.

This fact was something I was proudly told by a local shortly after landing at Bandaranaike International Airport.

My hosts were trying to familiarise me with the local culture, but feeling extremely tired after a long flight I merely nodded along politely behind thick sunglasses thinking of tunes from Moana (my in-flight movie of choice).

Tea, rubber, coconuts. It’s one of those facts that you will either forget seconds after you hear it, or it will stay immovably lodged forever in a corner of your mind next to piles of other useless trivia.

Clearly I, despite my jet-lag fuelled malaise, was in the latter camp.