This conversation reminds me of a German backpacker I met in Cambodia on my 2013 trip to Southeast Asia. We were crossing the Thai-Cambodian border together and all I remember about him is that he continually talked about fruit. He was saying how good the fruit in Southeast Asia was, he was naming all the fruit he ate on his trip, and he would ask us questions about which fruit we've eaten, was giving us fruit tips, etc. The other people in the small group crossing the border were a Singaporean and Japanese exchange students. None of us seemed to really care that much about fruit really, we were more fascinated with the border crossing and the chaos around us. . It wasn't really that annoying really, but it was almost over the top enough for it to seem like something out of a sitcom and not real life.
As soon as we crossed the border the German bought a basket of fruit and shared some of the spoils with us. He was very passionate about fruit and I guess what he enjoyed the most was being able to buy fresh fruit for so cheap. I bet most of this type of tropical fruit would have been a lot more expensive in Germany and not nearly as fresh.. and some of it probably not even available. So I can definitely understand somebody being so excited about the easy availability of cheap & fresh exotic fruit. I was myself blown away at how amazing the avocados tasted in Peru. The ones we get in Canada are basically inedible in comparison and cost an insane amount more..
The thing is that I am not really big on sweet things overall, and most fruit tends to be sweet and sticky. It's a lot easier for me to get excited about something like a bowl of pho or noodles. But yeah, if you are into fruit, you would probably love backpacking through any one of the southeast Asian countries