intoxicating brew.

It might have been the Big Easy for Dennis Quaid, but my touchdown in New Orleans was anything but. Thanks to Veronica. "Next time, I'm gonna get out an' pick ma own customers,'' the cabbie snarled, ignoring us completely as she gave her C-B buddies an earful. "Hey Poppa Stoppa, just wavin' a hand. You wouldn't believe where I gotta go - all the way down Magazine ... might as well go right on home!'' she groused.

Our Garden District guest house was a half-hour's ride from the airport, and that was the boondocks as far as Veronica was concerned. My boyfriend and I shifted uneasily and stared at the grungy truck stops, public housing blocks and neon-washed motels zipping by on the highway. South of the Superdome, she navigated around lazy mongrels and ramshackle neighbourhoods, which soon became Tara-style mansions, moss-strewn oaks and magnolia blossoms.

Veronica's mood, with pay time at hand, brightened considerably, "Now don't you go walkin' 'round by yourselves, y'hear,'' she clucked. "Take a cab.'' She hardly qualified for Louisiana's welcome-mat-of-the-year award, but it didn't matter. Sometimes, you don't need even a lukewarm reception to be enchanted by a place; the soul of New Orleans had seduced me already.

The city, dubbed "N'Awlins'' by the locals, is an intriguing potpourri of Deep south splendour, urban decay and small-town whimsy. Not to mention a nirvana for jazz fiends, leftover hippies and bacchanalia-seekers. More laid back than New York, wackier even than San Francisco, New Orleans is one of those mythical, must-see American cities that actually outdoes its reputation.

It's the kind of place where a first-time visitor, sipping a mint julep or watching a street clown, gets the impression anything can happen - and it usually does.

Logistically, the city is like an onion: its various neighbourhoods are arranged in layers peeling away from the core of the funky French Quarter, or Vieux Carre. Sitting on a curve of the Mississippi, this grid of quaint, history-seeped streets is the city's true heart, throbbing with lively goings-on 24 hours a day. Fanning out east or "uptown,'' beyond the Canal St.

barrier, is the Garden District, the once exclusive domain of Southern socialites who pooh-poohed the raucous Quarter. Today, it's still choc-a-block with mammoth antebellum mansions ogled by passengers aboard the wheezing Charles St. streetcars.

Downtown, bordering the Quarter north and east, lies the business centre with its chic waterfront, shopping plazas, voguish stores and high-rise hotels. But wending north up Canal St., the glitz slips away to comfortable shabbiness.

Here, among mom-and-pop dimestores, barber shops, cinemas and diners, it's easy to imagine you've backtracked 50 years. Wandering further north, however, can be a lesson in culture shock for anyone not used to the sharp racial and social divisions of US cities. Guide books and locals unanimously warn against wandering around at night and even during daylight hours, visits to the city's historic cemeteries and other secluded sites are deemed a no-no.

Hordes of conventioners hole up in the hotel district, but the truly charming places to stay lie in the Quarter. Book early - most rooms in hotels and guesthouses are claimed several months in advance. There are two big advantages to staying here. First, you can walk everywhere, even late at night after too many whisky sours. Secondly, you meet more locals, as this is a residential district too.

Music is the lifeblood of New Orleans - and in the Quarter, it's everywhere.

As you stroll by antique stores or linger over a chicory-brewed coffee, melodies massage your eardrums from every direction Jazzy riffs float up from Jackson Square, where street bands jam Dixie for donations alongside tarot card readers, and old-time bastions like Preservation Hall on Bourbon St. are hopping every night. Notably, the jazz and R&B clubs that attract today's revellers were also thecradle for New Orleans' impressive list of home-grown musical talent. Virtuosos like Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Wynton Marsalis and the Neville Brothers all began here, and their influence still holds strong. If music is the proud heart of New Orleans, zaniness is its soul. You don't have to spend five minutes in the quirky metropolis to realise this. Cowboys, be warned.

"No matter where you're from, I can tell where you got your boots,'' boasts a cocky Bourbon St. shoeshine. The challenge is too tempting - even for cynical scribes who should know better. "Ten dollars if I can say where you got your boots,'' he taunts, before we accept. "I don't mean where you bought your boots,'' comes the quick disclaimer. "I mean where you got 'em.'' The suckers blush. "Better than robbin', better than killin', this is how I make my living','' he sings merrily. "You're payin' for the lesson.'' The tutoring didn't end there. Nicky - our second cabbie of the trip - told tales of voodoo and black magic while waving a Magnum pulled from the glove compartment.

"I do martial arts and I'm a good shot - target training,'' he explained jovially, speeding us into the Quarter. "Plus, I do magic.'' He became sombre. "My grandmother taught me. every Saint's day, I make an offering - for strength and power. But for the important stuff, you've got to have an expert do it.'' We nodded, before leaping out to gulp down the nearest Hurricane. (After one of these rum-based concoctions, sanity levels don't count anymore).

Voodoo, for anyone who missed Mickey Rourke and Robert DeNiro in "Angel heart,'' is the spooky current running beneath New Orleans' perky, tourist-trodden facade. An estimated 15 per cent of the city's residents are strong believers.

A visit to the Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter confirms this. Inside the cramped, wooden building, a sprinkle of voodoo dust is complimentary with your $5 admission. The front room is stacked with voodoo dolls, gris-gris, incense, and sundry good-luck charms to ward off whatever hexes may be haunting you.

A middle room has been turned into a candle-lit shrine, decorated with skulls, bongo drums, more gris-gris bones and stick dolls galore. In the back room, a human skull sports a top-hat and glass cages hold two sleepy rattle snakes - used in voodoo ceremonies. A psychic counsels an elderly woman behind a curtain. "I feel some bad influences,'' she complains. The seer blames the vibes on her sister-in-law, then prescribes a "cleansing'' bath.

Visitors get a brochure touting the powers of Mother Muslima, a voodoo priestess who's director of the museum. It says she's available for "swamp tours in English or French.'' We pass.

The morbid sorcery of the voodoo museum is disconcerting - but nothing a plate of blackened catfish, crabcakes and whiskey pudding won't fix. Basically, food is a religion in New Orleans - and residents are devout worshippers. The guru of Louisiana cuisine is Paul Prudhomme, the ample-girthed owner of K-Paul's - a landmark Quarter eatery where a vigil of gourmands lines up for rich gastronomic delights daily.

We pay a visit to Petunias instead. Perched on Rue St. Louis, a stone's throw from gaudy Bourbon St., this classy little restaurant sits in a converted 19th-century home. Eating amid its dark-melon decor, you feel as if you've been invited into someone's lamp-lit living room. Jambalaya, cajun catfish, gumbo, crepes and andouille sausage - these are menu staples in New Orleans.

But also worth savouring are the indigenous vendor specialties like po-boys and muffaletas - monstrous sandwiches of Italian bread soaked in olive oil and piled high with every deli delight imaginable.

People-watching is a refined art at the Cafe du Monde, a Forties-style coffee shop at the waterfront near Jackson Square. It's an eye-opener just to watch the white-clad waiters heaving trays of sugar-powered beignets (French doughnuts) and cafes au lait among the maze of tables - something they do 'round the clock.

Nearby, the French market sells fresh seafood, vegetables, Zulu coconuts, homebaked fudge and spices. For the culinary-challenged (like myself), a footnote: creole and cajun dishes are lumped together under "Louisiana cuisine,'' but they have different roots. Creole comes from the city and refers to a mish-mash of French, Spanish and Native American influences.

Seafood, game andtomatoes are king. Cajun originated in southern France and was brought to New Orleans from Canada by the Acadians who settled along the Mississippi. It's one-pot cooking using seafood, sausage, herbs and plenty of spices.

Two attractions worth a visit are the Aquarium of the Americas at the foot of Canal St. on the riverfront and the Audubon Zoo, across from Loyola University in the park-dotted Garden District. The aquarium is billed as one of the best in the US and provides a modern, hands-on spectacle showcasing flora and fauna from four regions: the Caribbean, the Amazon, the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. We arrived at feeding time, when divers in the Caribbean tank answered viewers' questions through speaking devices while handing out hors d'oeuvres to a frenzied ballet of sting rays, angel fish and turtles. There's even a mini lab where young zoologists can get their hands wet.

The Audubon Zoo, with its African Savannahs, alligator swamps, lion pit and snake collection is equally impressive. The zoo sits in the lush grounds of Audubon Park, named after naturalist and painter John James Audubon. Tourist sights aside, one of the best parts of New Orleans is the Quarter's back streets. Here, you can roam along cracked lanes lit by gas lanterns, chat with stoop sitters and admire iron wrought balconies dripping with spider plants.

There's even a touch of the Caribbean in the wooden shutters and gingerbread facades that reveal the eclectic evolution of the city - first French, then Spanish, French again, and finally American.

This is a world away from New Orleans' frontline attractions like bar-peppered Bourbon St., where a sea of party-goers flows between clubs, drinks in tow.

But peek down an alley at a silent courtyard garden, and you sense the private New Orleans. This is the Big Easy's true mystique, far from the fake alligators, paddleboat paperweights and Mardi Gras T-shirts. It's not for sale, it doesn't try to woo you - but you fall in love all the same.

GETTING THERE: January, February and March are the high season in New Orleans.

It's party time! Carnival starts on Twelfth Night (January 6) an wraps up with Mardi Gras, a 24-hour extravaganza on Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent. Delta Airlines flies daily from Bermuda to New Orleans via Atlanta. Round trip, 14-day advance purchase fares are from $369 midweek, or $409 on weekends.

Nightlife on Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter.

RG MAGAZINE MARCH 1993