"Cajun" New Orleans by Ramonq

click: Nawlin's Jazz music

The toe-tapping rhythms radiating out from the smokey jazz halls onto the Hispano-French colonial streets was unmistakable. The musically festive parade of black minstrels which turned out to be a macabre funeral of a fellow comrade was another clue. The eerie hocus-pocus of a voodoo priestess and the aroma of Cajun food wafting from al-fresco cafes prompted my inebriated memory, that I was in New Orleans or "Nawlins" as locals pronounce it. As if someone had cast a nocturnal spell on me, I loitered around the city's French Quarter ( Vieux Carre) completely mesmerised by the whole Nawlins experience. This city on the mouth of the Mississippi River is unique amongst the large American cities because New Orleans has had a personality transplant that separates it from the usual Americana of hot dogs and apple pies. Colonised by the Spanish in the 18th century and then taken over by the French, Viewx Carre appears more Latin than Anglo in appearance.

streetcar named Desire

New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisianna. Its semi-tropical humid weather, especially during the summer months, can make even the most active traveller feeling languid and pine for a stiff cool drink under the cool shade of a hotel verandah with lacy wrought-iron, lounging like one of those manor-born southern lady or gentleman on the porch overlooking the cotton plantation. This city is nicknamed "The Big Easy" because it's a laid-back party kinda town. The weather and the architectural style of New Orleans gives the city a certain kind of mystique about it, and that's why this is one of the most popular southern city to visit in the United States of America.

But the main reason for the city's popularity is music, specifically, jazz music. This is New Orleans' most famous trademark since the city gave the world this celebrated style of music. The syncopated rhythmic music is a fusion of earlier styles of mainly blues and ragtime, which came together in the early 20th century in this city to spawn a fresh musical expression called Dixieland jazz, named after a New Orleans band who did the first recording of jazz. Jazz is a lively Afro-American musical expression, borne from the drudgery of slavery in the southern plantations, but it uses Euro-American musical instruments such as the piano, banjo, clarinet and saxophone,with great agility . So catchy was this music, that it easily spread around the world and jazz now known as the quintessential American music. Millions of jazz afficionados make pilgrimages to New Orleans that gave birth to this great music

But other travellers come for the food, Cajun food. Cajun comes from the word "Acadian" which is the southern region of Louisiana. It's a food derived from the Creoles, descendants of the French people who once colonised a large swathe of land around the vast Mississippi River in the late 18th century but was later sold for $15 million inside the Cabildo to the United States by the representatives of the beleaguered Napoleon called the Louisianna Purchase of 1803. Cajun food is a variety of dishes, mainly seafood and vegetables, cooked in a pot and spiced with cayenne pepper, sea salt and different herbs, for that extra zing. It's served with rice, which, together with seafood, is my staple food, that's why I like it very much. Famous Cajun dishes are gumbo, jambalaya and oysters rockefeller. Yummm!

Music, food, and the city's historical ambience are what makes the Nawlins experience unforgettable. However, the Vieux Carre whose buildings are mostly Spanish colonial and not French, is but a small part of New Orleans. Past the main Canal Street, the city appears like the any other American city of large superdomes, convention centres, highrises as well as homelessness, drugs and poverty. The ride on the old streetcar through the city and its inner suburbs gives a glimpse of this bewitching city. You'll see charming Southern mansions and ramshackle wooden homes, a wake-up call to remind you that New Orleans is not just all about Bourbon Street and the Mardi Gras, it's a living city with real challenges.

• Pros:Music, food, architecture
• Cons:Hangover
• In a nutshell:Big Easy