Evette, Deborah, Kelly, Anne, meet me at the bus-stop. Which one? The one with your name, of course.

Little tin-roofed shelters from the Caribbean sun, and each lovingly signed with a girl's name. Waiting at Katherine for the 40p bus ride to wherever (one stop costs the same as a trip to the terminus). This is how public transport should be. But, then again, this is Barbados, where many things are how they should be. The majority of the people are friendly; the majority of drivers are courteous; the weather is glorious; the food is excellent... but, sadly, there's always a downside. "They'll ask you for a dollar (about 25p in English money). You say no and..." he makes the motion of a knife being pulled and inserted into a very tender place.

The speaker is an elderly Bajan. "I was born on Barbados; lived here all my life," he says. "Down in St Lawrence Gap (a long street of bars and hotels and shops fringing the perfect Caribbean beach, all white sand and palm trees) there's all sorts going on. It's the Rastas," he says. He is retired and it's obvious that he never worked for the Barbados Tourist Board, who would have you believe that this little jewel of an island in a semi-tropical sea is a small piece of paradise. And it is, but our Bajan pensioner has a point. Even in the Garden of Eden there lurked something a bit unpleasant.

As a tourist, you are fair game throughout the world. And in Barbados it is no different. You will be approached by strangers; some are down-at-heel, with gap-toothed smiles. They'll ask for a dollar for their bus fare. Others are decked out in designer shorts and shirts, with gold-encrusted dentistry and enough bling to pay off the debt of a small Third World country. Want a taxi? To sail the vermillion waters? An unusual cigarette? No? Well, have a nice day, man.

And that's normally that.

While Jamaica can boast 1,400 murders a year, Barbados is, by West Indian standards, a safe place to visit. It's a mixture of the very good and the occasionally bad. But it's a mixture set in blue skies, incredible seas, great swathes of bright bougainvillea and illuminated by light so clean and clear that a photographer would think he was in heaven. No need for filters or fancy settings – point the digital and capture the perfect picture every time. Barbados doesn't come cheap, but it needn't come expensive either – unless you want to rub sun-burned shoulders with the ultra-rich at Crane Bay or Sandy Lane or exchange pleasantries with the polo-watching moneybags at Lion Castle.

Of course, if you're a professional sportsman, particularly an England Test cricketer, you've probably already bought your own pad somewhere like The Royal Westmoreland Estate, an exclusive villa community and golf club, with luxury homes and holiday villas to rent or buy. But all life is here on this small island – from the cheapest, smallest room in a tired but colourful wooden shack, to the multi-million-dollar mansion with views over the surging Atlantic or calmer Caribbean. You pay for what you get.

So just be laid back and talk cricket, the island's national sport, where some road roundabouts carry the names of the men who found fame with bat and ball. Garfield Sobers, Everton Weekes
and Frank Worrell live on surrounded by traffic.

In Bridgetown, the Kensington Oval hosts Test teams from around the world, as well as matches which are the equivalent of England's county championship. Spend a day, and a mere £2.50 entrance fee, soaking up the atmosphere, the sun, the food and the conversation from fellow supporters.

Visit Bridgetown itself if only to join the throng in the streets, to shop and to spend a few minutes in the calm of the cathedral. Very English, but without the English weather. Hire a car and get lost in the island's maze of lanes, many of which (and this is something I never thought possible) are in worse condition than West Yorkshire's roads. But in Barbados, you don't have to hurry because time is to be savoured, not rushed.

Around every corner is something new – another empty white-sand beach; another little village of wooden homes, as colourful as an explosion in a Dulux factory; another very English church; another landscape of sugar cane. Was that a mongoose that just sauntered across the road? Is that a green monkey watching from that tree?

Have the colourful birds been bathing in the same paint with which many islanders daub their homes? How many ways can you cook and serve a frying fish? All questions that don't really need an answer because this is Barbados. Just enjoy.

David Overend stayed at the Bougainvillea Beach Resort, in Christ Church, Barbados www.bougainvillearesort.com. He flew direct from Manchester on bmi, www.flybmi.com