Happily watching nonstop jammin' and jivin' on Bourbon Street,I figure it's futile clockwatching. Enjoy the city which parties later than most and make do with snatched hours of shut-eye….

Meher Marfatia votes New Orleans on the Mississippi the most interesting US city - possibly as much as San Francisco - where she closely encounters its exciting antebellum and avant-garde faces, at every turn

It proves everything I've always expected - and, marvellously, much more. New Orleans glitters, jewel-like, crowning Creole Country. Every bit of this pulsating city, which has to be the ultimate entertainment experience and dining destination, suggests sensuous excitement. Frenzied throngs rock strictly adult casinos, Dixie diners, ragtime restaurants and jazz joints, showcasing the bold and the beautiful. Even the oyster bar at our hotel, the Royal Sonesta, superbly situated in the French Quarter's hedonistic heart, is teasingly christened Desire.

Once called Crescent City, located in a graceful bend of the Mississippi, then small-town New Orleans owed its growth to steamboat transport taking it from sleepy hollow to thriving seaport. Last year, New Orleans observed the 200th anniversary of arguably America's greatest diplomatic triumph: the Louisiana Purchase. In a memorably controversial deal in real estate history - more than 900,000 square miles for $15 million - the United States acquired Louisiana from France in 1803.

This year celebrates the romantic return of the streetcar, immortalised by Tennessee Williams' poignant play, A Streetcar Named Desire. Having just resumed plying after 40 years, the prodigal public vehicle's grand re-entry has been an eagerly awaited event. The Canal streetcar, rumbling round Victorian residences, is a true tourist's dream with loads of character, almost original fittings and air-conditioning to boot - how cool is that?

In a place that prides itself on leaving Bohemian bustle intact, tarot and palm readers set up shop right in the middle of leafy lanes barricaded as pedestrian plazas. At Jackson Square, hip amateur portraitists sketch amazing likenesses of passersby lazily drifting from nearby Café du Monde on Decatur Street. A familiar, much-loved landmark since the 1860s, this original French Market stand serves cafe au lait and coffee with chicory, washing down sugar-dusted beignets (doughnuts) 24 hours through.

Way beyond midnight madness, happily watching nonstop jammin' and jivin' on Bourbon Street, I figure it's futile clockwatching. Enjoying the city which parties later than most and making do with snatched hours of shut-eye, we're ready for Maddy driving us to elegant Plantation Country. Half expecting to be addressed 'Missie', I'm simply swept away into a wholly genteel Old South milieu, where period-clothed guides offer fascinating glimpses into the life of early 19th-century. Creole planters, their slave cabins and carriage driveways leading to antebellum mansions that are treasures, testifying to fortunes amassed in cotton, sugar, tobacco and indigo fields.

At an unabashedly touristy outlet where I pick porcelain gifts for Mumbai pals, a plaque reads, 'Free ride in police car available here if found shoplifting'. Another chuckle-worthy scrawl advises, 'Forget Viagra. Eat oysters. No prescription required!' chalked on blackboards at corner eateries.

Verve contributor, Meher Marfatia, is a Mumbai-based freelance writer with a special interest in the arts. She enjoys being bitten by the travel bug between penning books for children.