Fancying a change to the norm I got the Megabus to New Orleans - or if you are saying it like a local 'N'awlins'. Aside from being one of only two white people on the trip and getting surreptitious looks from the other passengers, this trip has made me a lot more sympathetic to how people must feel when they are a minority, but for the duration it was a stress-free ride. The journey itself had one of the more interesting window views I've experienced, driving through swampy regions where the road supports seem to have been sunk into bogs for miles along makes for a slightly nerve wracking experience, mum would have had a fit! We drove through real True Blood country - little towns with rickety wooden cladded homes, shutters, porches and rocking chairs outside, railway tracks running through and a lot of churches.

New Orleans itself was a surprise - I suppose I expected Katrina to have had much more of an effect in the city centre but you couldn't tell anything had ever happened. Obviously the most devastated areas were further out of the city in the suburbs, and they are still uninhabited in many cases, but the city centre was being done up for the forthcoming superbowl as well so it was all shiny and clean, and a lot bigger than I had visualized.

At this juncture in my trip I feel I need to stand up for the British and the unfair assumption that everyone has bad teeth - many Americans I've met have expressed surprise that I have nice teeth. Talk about being patronizing! Anyway, pots and kettles, as I've gone through the Southern states the number of people I've met without any teeth at all has been very disconcerting. It leaves the mouth area of the face looking shrunken and flat and just generally adds to that redneck stereotype you get so often round these parts. As someone did say to me, if it's a choice between food and dental insurance, they go for food, that is perfectly understandable but the American media can shut up about ours!

A few too many late nights and early morning for transport had left me feeling like a cold was on the way so after chatting with some other people round the hostel for a while a took myself off to bed quite early in the hope some real sleep might fight off whatever might be coming along. For some reason hostels here are big fans of having a plastic cover over the mattress - this makes for a somewhat rustly nights sleep but I was so knackered I could have slept on a bench. I just try not to think about what has happened on the beds that they need to have got these sheets in the first place! The hostel I stayed at was called India house and it was one of the more interesting places I stayed at out here. They have obviously tried to make it a little bit spiritual and as a result it has cartoons of Ganesha on the wall, quotes and sayings of a spiritual bent, and a bit of a hippy vibe. In stark contrast however is that it is also a party hostel, so there are beads hung all over the shop from Mardi Gras, shelves full of empty liquor bottles as decoration in the kitchen, posters for music concerts hung around and a general air of slight neglect, even though it's clean enough. I did wonder if it was affected by Katrina or if it just had a leak from the showers as the roof in the living area was all water damaged. Oh and one other thing, it was right on the edge of the ghetto so we had to make sure to exit the porch on the correct side otherwise we'd end up in potentially dodgy territory. Although being from K-town I'm sure I could handle it!

A good nights sleep later I felt right as rain and a day sightseeing was on the cards, starting with the French Quarter, probably the most famous area of the city and thus an excellent start to see what's on offer. New Orleans has a handy tram system which drives up and down from the city park and Metairie cemeteries down to the riverfront, and I definitely got my monies worth from the day tickets they had on sale. I'm getting to the stage where walking miles just to get to one place is tiresome and have been giving in and buying day passes for the public transport, plus I manage to see more rather than spending all my time in the heat tramping around.

St Louis cathedral is the central point of the French Quarter, and my tour began there to get a feel for this city where religion is an important part of life, but voodoo practitioners also jostle for believers of a different system. Marie Laveau was the most famous voodoo priestess of them all and there are all sorts of trinkets bearing her likeness for sale, which I find kind of strange, especially when you can buy voodoo dolls and stuff like that. All part of the charm of the city though. Back to the cathedral, it towers over the rest of the French Quarter and has this large square in front of it - a square where people sit offering tarot card, crystal ball and palm readings, which again I find in huge contrast to the organized religious building they are toting for customers in front of. Besides those there is one of the best things about NOLA - live jazz brass bands playing. I saw one particular band where the trumpet player was dancing at the same time, and it's frustrating when you don't have change to give them a bit of something, as they were extremely entertaining.

A quick stop off at the tourist information took me to my first real stop off of the walk, and a NOLA institution, beignets at the Café du Monde. For the uninitiated beignets are a type of French doughnut, which is served dusted with icing sugar. They are square and have a gorgeous crispy outside and light flaky inside (almost like a cross between a doughnut and a croissant) and are basically diabetes on a plate, but delicious with it! That oh so difficult task over with I was ready to face the rest of the French Quarter. There is no point giving a blow by blow account of everything I looked at but suffice to say it is a beautiful area of the city - I mean Brad Pitt has a flat there so what else do you expect. And, as the name suggests it has a very French feel to it - lots of balconies with detailed ironwork, trailing plants, arched windows and pretty coloured walls. As I learnt later Louisiana was bought off the French by Thomas Jefferson and I suppose that's why New Orleans has such a French feel about it.

My afternoon was spent in some of the city cemeteries, or 'cities of the dead' - now you may be thinking 'well why would you want to do such a maudlin thing?' but the cemeteries in NOLA are like none I've ever seen and again are a big draw to visitors. The one I visited was the Metairie cemetery which has the largest number of tombs of all the cemeteries and was only a quick tram ride away. The dead outnumber the living in New Orleans 10 to 1, and since it is built on a swamp they have to build these amazing tombs, since otherwise the bodies would get washed out of the graves on a regular basis. As a quick side note it seems to me that more Americans are buried than cremated, or at least the number of graveyards I've seen would suggest so. But that's beside the point, the graveyards are in much better nick than any at home, made mainly of white stones so they are a lot brighter and less depressing than ours, it seems to be much more a celebration of life than the oppressive atmosphere ours have. I don't know, maybe some of it is to do with the weather as well but there was such a soothing atmosphere there that seemed to encourage contemplation and reflection and made it a much more pleasant place to be than you'd expect. I swear as well that some of the family tombs are bigger than my house, it's all very grand. At least until you realise that the tombs here basically cook the bodies so they decompose within about a year, then the bones are swept through a hole in the floor ready for the next occupant; perhaps not the glorious burial people were hoping for!

I'd gone to the cemeteries with a guy called Tim who I'd met the night before in the hostel, and was from Salisbury. He had a strange thing for hipsters so wanted to go somewhere 'real' that evening, rather than down Bourbon street, which is basically where all the old people with empty nest syndrome go out on their week holidays. This in mind we decided to go to the Maple Leaf with a few others from the hostel, which had a well known local band playing who were meant to be amazing. There was a cover charge to pay so it suggested that they would be worthwhile. As is often the case with hostels, the booking of a taxi to pick us up went totally wrong so when only one turned up for seven of us we were stumped. That is until the taxi driver just said 'you can all fit in it's fine'! Well that was unexpected and I can't see it ever happening anywhere else out here. We managed to pile in - two in the front seat, five of us in the back, with me pretty much lying over the top of everyone's laps. If that weren't hilarious enough the taxi driver was a bit mental and kept braking to the music, beeping his horn and generally driving like a madman. Looking back I'm surprised we survived but it was hilarious at the time.

The band we were going to see was called Rebirth brass band, and they were more than worth the money we paid to get in. The pub we went to was tiny, maybe the size of the Wuthering, and it was packed. The band didn't play any songs I knew, it was more just extended jazz songs (sadly no jazz flute) with a few words shouted here and there and lots of clapping and general fun - I was particularly mesmerized by the lead man's trumpet playing, I have never seen anyone's cheeks go out so far, he looked like a bullfrog. One thing I particularly loved about New Orleans was that music is such a central part to everyone's lives, wherever you went there would be some kind of musician or band busking and it made for a really vibrant atmosphere. This was hugely juxtaposed with the more run down areas of the city that we went through in the taxi though - I can only assume they were affected by Katrina as several were boarded up and going derelict, where others were lived in but seemed to be on their last legs - it's a shame no more is being done to help but I suppose the city council is cutting its losses and concentrating rebuilding on the more touristy areas. On a happier note I had the most amazing cajun chicken in homemade bbq sauce at the end of the night from a little street vendor cart, if only I knew how to make it myself that way. Yum yum yum.

Being in Louisiana and not going on a swamp tour is almost illegal so the following day I hopped on a minibus and was driven to the bayou to hopefully see some alligators. On the way I met Jimmy, a lovely Irish fellow, and since we were the only people on the bus not already with a friend we stuck together for the day. I had lathered myself up with mosquito repellent in preparation for the attack I was sure would happen so was ready for anything the swamp trip might throw at me. I wasn't, however, prepared for the alligators to be fed marshmallows. Apparently they think they are eggs, but I thought they were supposed to be bright and since so many boats go that way each day they are either a) not as clever as people think or b)actually like the sugary snacks. Just to be safe I'd recommend you all carry bags of marshmallows to distract any alligators you may come across next time you're out in a swamp. Just a tip for you. There were loads of the little beasties about, some of them not so little in fact. I think there was one that was 14 foot long, and as the boat captain was feeding them hotdogs (I do worry) we got to see some real close ups of those powerful jaws and teeth. You can tell they are the closest ancestor to the dinosaur, they just look so ancient and definitely deserve our respect, I'd like to keep all my fingers and toes! The swamp itself wasn't as creepy as I had envisioned, maybe I've seen too many films, but it was quite beautiful, lots of dragonflies flitting about, and birds zooming through the trees. I suppose the cypress trees are a bit weird but I've seen stranger.

It was only a half day tour so I took myslf off to the art museum with a girl from my dorm in the afternoon as it was free entry that day. Once again there was nothing ridiculously exciting there, but there was some filming going on, some woman in a wedding dress kept walking down the stairs to a man in a suit. Never did find out what they were doing though. It was annoying actually as some of the galleries were shut because of it.

The States has been somewhat of a food tour and I felt it foolish to miss out on the opportunity to have some real Creole cuisine so, dragging Jimmy along with me, we went down to Bourbon street. We parked our bums down at Pat O'Brien's, the home of the hurricane cocktail, and tucked into a delicious feast of alligator bites (we figured since we'd seen them we might as well eat them), gumbo, jambalaya and crawfish etouffe. To confirm, we had taster plates and didn't eat full portions of each of these, now that would have been an impressive feat! It wasn't a late night, I was starting to feel ill again, probably a mix of heat, dehydration and lack of sleep; so after a couple of bars, including the highlight for me of a zydeco band replete with washboard player - who decides their instrument is going to be the washboard?! - we made it back to the hostel, narrowly avoiding being hit by flying beads that people throw from the balconies. I can only imagine what it's like at Mardi Gras!

With one day remaining in New Orleans I decided to do a last blitz of the remaining things I wanted to see. This mainly consisted of the garden district, which is where a lot of the big colonial houses are and is meant to be very beautiful. Well true to its name there were some pretty massive gardens, and some of the houses were just unbelievable and so striking. If you can imagine being in Benjamin Button, that's what all the homes looked like. I did manage to do a bit of celeb stalking and find Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Anne Rice and Nicholas Cage's homes. In typical Cage fashion his house is some kind of old convent - it looked a bit crazy! Whether a result of Katrina or not I'm not sure but the roads and pavements were horrendous, they made the roads at home look fit for a king! How Sandra copes I do NOT know!!

The Garden district has the Lafayette Cemetery #1 which is one of the older cemeteries in NOLA. Apparently Nicholas Cage has a tomb already booked there but I couldn't find it despite walking around for ages and even loitering suspiciously behind a tombstone to listen to a tour guide who was wandering round, but he was with a group of old people and I don't think they were interested in the funereal plans of the star of Con Air. Since there isn't much you can say about a cemetery I'll let you look at my photos to get a feel for the place.

Final stop was the Louis Armstrong park, in honour of Satchmo, the jazzy son of New Orleans. It was nice enough, by yourself there isn't much you can do in a park so I had a quick stroll through then made my way back down to the riverfront to walk back to the tram via the scenic route. Well let me tell you, this was a huge mistake! I was happily walking along minding my own business when I stubbed my toe on a loose paving slab. Now usually this would be no problem but I was wearing flip flops, and as the blood pooled all over said footwear I hobbled to a raised flowerbed and sat on the edge of it. Being a bit of a wimp I didn't really want to look at my toe which was bleeding profusely, but I had to do something about it so I could get back to the tram so gingerly wiped at it with a tissue. A massive flap of skin had been gouged out and was flapping in the wind so I attempted to wrap it up with a bit of tissue. At this point a builder stuck his head out of a little window looking concerned and asked me if I was alright. I waved my toe around at him and said I was fine but he said he was going to go get something and disappeared momentarily. Only to come back outside with a big roll of red gaffer tape. Bless him he proceeded to wrap my toe up in it so it could stay covered whilst I walked back to the hostel. I popped into the tourist information spot on my way to ask if there were any first aid places nearby, surprise surprise there was nothing, not sure whether that's because they don't have a national health service or if they are worried about being sued - probably both! By this point I thought it would be fine so made my way back to the hostel to clean it and wrap it up properly. Crisis averted!

Since I was now feeling a little sorry for myself I caught up with Jimmy and we decided to go out with a group of people who were in the hostel. I'm glad I did as it was a hilarious night, including lots of live music, singing the rap to Usher's 'yeah' with an Irish guy from our group, and the same Irish guy knowing every word to 'baby got back' and proceeding to sing it really loudly to a bar. This was the only night I went out properly in Bourbon street and I managed to catch some beads which was fun, although one set almost took out my eyes as it dropped onto my head! The only downside to Bourbon street is that it is the tourist area so it is full of parent aged people being embarrassing, but then maybe that's part of its charm. I tell you, they say what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas but judging by some of the people I saw New Orleans should have the same tagline.

Becca