New Orleans – The Big Easy.

I’m not religious but even I must admit to feeling a bit sorry for the three guys propping up a weighty looking wooden cross whilst dishing out high fives and Bible verses to the drunken masses on Bourbon Street at 2am on Saturday morning. Despite what i’m sure were their very best efforts, I couldn’t help but get the impression they were fighting a losing battle.

To quote the influential philosopher Obi Wan Kenobi, “Mos Eisley Space Port, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany. We must be cautious.” He was basically talking about Bourbon Street, New Orleans. I don’t think the locals would care all that much though, that’s how they like it.

Bourbon Street is the main drinking/partying street in the city. Like Time Square in New York, Broadway in Nashville or Beale in Memphis there’s always something going on at all times of day. Take a leisurely stroll from one end to the other and it’s just bar after bar after bar. ‘Hole in the wall’ bars serve take-out regular beers, ‘Big Ass Beers’ (actually just a pint to you and I), ‘Huge Ass Beers’ (two pints), ‘Hurricanes’ and ‘Hand Grenades’ (pretty average cocktails that come in novelty green grenade shaped beakers). Tourists mingle on the balconies above, offering to throw down Mardis Gras beads to girls below in street, in exchange for a badgers at the ‘merchandise’, so to speak. (You can also buy the beads in shops).

You have to keep your wits about you as well, especially if you’re on your own. On one occasion i’d just left the busy area of Bourbon Street and was heading to another area of the city. A skinny looking white guy starts walking along side me,

“Hey man, you know where the Phoenix is?”

“No, sorry, not from around here, i’m heading to Frenchman Street” I say as we carry on walking.

“They have some good bars down in that area, you walking all the way there?”

“Yeah it’s only a few blocks” At this point i’ve decided I don’t want to talk to him and so have accelerated slightly. We’re now in this awkward conversation where he’s walking two paces behind me, yet still talking at me. Please go away.

“I like those gay clubs, you know?”  Not really.

Oh deary me. Nothing wrong with liking gay clubs obviously, but I wasn’t born yesterday and think I can see where this is going.

“Hey if you’re going to walk all that way, I can give you a ride if you want, my car is just down that street..”

“Actually you know what” I improvise, hoping he wasn’t paying all that much attention to what I said before “I’m meant to be meeting some people first, over there actually” I point back down the street we just walked, “so yeah, i’d better go and meet them”. I get out my phone, which is off, and proceed to make a mock phone call. You’re never alone with a phone.

“You sure man? Cos I can give you a ride if you want” I bet you say that to all of them..

“Positive thanks, you have a good evening sir” I say, heavily engaged now in my phone call to no-one.

“You look good..” he says in a valiant attempt to win me over.

“…thanks”. Cue the quickest walk away you’ve ever seen.

Away from the sexual predators and everywhere is decked out in black and gold and the phrase ‘Who Dat?!’ can be seen everywhere. These are of course the colours and catchphrase of 2010 Superbowl winning New Orleans Saints. People zig zag from one bar to the next clutching their hand grenades, stopping occasionally to add to the vomit that collects in the gutters before soldiering on. Mum, Dad, forget the lake district, i’ve discovered an ideal place for a quiet weekend break.

Actually if you keep on walking past Bourbon Street there are some really very nice places to be found in New Orleans. The city’s signature musical genre in this case, is jazz and these clubs are to be found on the slightly more reserved Frenchman Street. I went into one such club one night where some jazz trio were playing a few ‘songs’. Shortly after entering I remembered that I don’t actually like listening to jazz all that much, I don’t think anyone does to be honest. The musicians are all very accomplished and i’m sure it’s fun to play, but looking around the room I was pretty sure that even the guy in the beret sat near the front was secretly hoping the pianist would step up to the mic and say “Ok guys, this next one is by Culture Club.” It didn’t happen.

The other nice part of downtown New Orleans is the French Quarter. Same type of nice Parisian architecture as on Bourbon Street minus the hand grenades and vomit.

The city is surrounded by  swamps that contain alligators, snapping turtles and snakes. Being a bit of a nature lover I booked myself onto one of the many swamp tours that are advertised in the city. Basically they drive you out to the swamps, cram you into a swamp boat and ferry you out into the undergrowth.

Not a whole lot was going down in the swamp when I was there. The snakes were off at a convention or something and the boar were getting some kip. It was however, chock-a-block full of alligators. You were up to your eyeballs in ’em. This is a good thing because, let’s face it, this is the reason you’re on a swamp tour.

Despite being ferocious killing machines with enormous jaws that could rip your face off, the tour guides, fed them marshmallows and hot dogs. Me and the Swedish bloke I was sat next to got the impression that one particularly big alligator, named ‘Al’, (naturally), was growing a little fed up of marshmallow and processed meat and would instead much rather being chewing on the fat little American kid leaning precariously over the edge of the boat. My mind wandered in the direction of possibly giving him a helpful nudge in the direction of the water. It probably would have resulted in some better pictures than the ones I got and swimming because his life depended on it would’ve been some good, much needed exercise for the kid. Next time.

The other thing the Big Easy is famous for in recent times is bad weather. A few years back it rained quite a bit, picnics were ruined, washing had been left out on the line, it was pandemonium.

In all seriousness i’m sure we all remember the pictures on the news of the hurricane Katrina aftermath and the complete and utter devastation it left in it’s wake. Huge areas of the city and surrounding Louisiana were basically written off and thousands of locals were made homeless, having to spend weeks living in the Louisiana Superdome with the rest of New Orleans.

Since 2005 the city has made an unbelievable recovery. Downtown looks pristine these days, mainly due to the fact that most of it was completely rebuilt, tourism seemed to be booming and as previously mentioned, the Saints were NFL champions last year inspiring the city’s hardy population to new heights.

Out of town and damage and rebuilding work is still visible in parts. The buildings in the swamps still have the markings that the US army put on each building to signify the date the property was searched and the number of dead bodies found inside each one. Occasionally you’d get to a spot where the wooden foundations of a building were sticking out of the water, but the building itself had been washed to a resting place hundreds of meters down the river, still fairly in tact.

Some of the buildings on the outskirts that did survive the flooding have had to be condemned due to structural damage. On many of these you can see what’s known as the Katrina tattoo which is basically the mark made by the flood waters and shows how high the water got in parts. On most buildings it’s on the second floor.