Something strange was happening the further south I went. I was finding it increasingly difficult to be understood and indeed to understand what was being said to me.

It really struck me at a little petrol station about 20 minutes after I crossed the state border into Louisiana.

"Can I have thirty dollars gas please"?

"Yerrr whaaat?" came the reply from the middle-aged lady behind the counter.

"Thirty dollars please."

Nothing...

"THHHIRTY dollars please."

"Fiddy?" which I assumed meant fifty.

"No, THIRTY", I say holding up three fingers and getting louder again.

Again, blankness - until the fingers register and we reach an understanding.

It is just one of the signs that I was in a different world.

Having left Little Rock in the morning it was mid-afternoon by the time I hit Louisiana, and with another seven-plus hours to New Orleans I needed to find a place to rest up for the night.

The solution literally appeared on the horizon. A city, with at least a dozen newish-looking skyscrapers, started to rise up amongst the flat sun drenched landscape.

I was arriving in Shreveport, Louisiana (pop. 200,000).

I literally drove straight up to a new-looking hotel, thought I may as well check it out and got a rate for the night that was only a few dollars more than I often paid on the road. Sometimes the stars just align.

Don't get me wrong, this was a real treat. But it had been a big day and my teeth still hurt so I figured enjoying a Starbucks in the foyer and maybe some room service was fair enough!

Firstly though I grabbed my camera and went for a walk.

Shreveport sits by the Red River, with a bridge connecting Shreveport to another city - Bossier. Effectively the two now operate as one, with a combined population of around 375,000.

The combined communities had experienced tough economic times in the last decade, with two major employers (one of them General Motors) shutting their operations. This had seen jobs go and people shift away.

In an effort to reinvent the town they are trying to turn it into a mini Vegas with five or six casino chains now operating there. So far this seems to be working.

Again the city was a mix of new, striking skyscrapers and great-looking government buildings mixed with lovely - but empty - older structures. It really was a lovely southern city and it was so sad to see it largely empty on this sunny afternoon.

If I was made President for a day, I think somewhere on my list of 'to do' items would be to make local councils and mayors focus on this. Using rate and cost incentives to get restaurants and retailers back into these lovely empty buildings should be a no-brainer, in terms of aesthetics and town spirit.

I sat at the hotel bar for an hour or so that evening and it certainly did seem to be a party town. There were a number of stag and hen parties kicking off, and friends who had travelled in from Dallas to Little Rock were preparing to party for the weekend.

I had meant to head off early and power down to New Orleans that day, but it didn't happen.

Instead I enjoyed the treat of breakfast in bed, and back-to-back episodes of The Next Iron Chef on the Food Channel. Enjoyable, but probably not that productive!

Someone I had spoken to the previous night had mentioned a pretty town called Natchitoches, and so I gave up plans of getting to New Orleans that day and went exploring.

Natchitoches was worth it, and I think became my first equal 'ideal' town (along with Eagle, Colorado for those who might have forgotten). Formed as a French fort in the early 1700's, and named after the local Indian tribe, it grew into a stunning little town by a little tributary of the Mississippi.

If you have ever watched Mystic Pizza then you will have seen the town, as it was filmed in Natchitoches.

It really was lovely, with stunning old brick two-storey buildings looking out on a sleepy river. Large trees draped over the town streets providing shade, and there was a walking track along river. Although this was still well before Halloween they had colourful pumpkin displays placed through the town. All in all it was a beautifully positioned and maintained town and I happily explored it for hours.

I drove another few hours and parked up at a motorway motel. Waking to another beautiful day, I headed off enjoying the green countryside around me.

I first crossed the Mississippi at Baton Rouge. I was shocked by just how big it was. It's amazingly wide and fast-moving, as evidenced by the spans of the bridges you cross.

In fact Baton Rouge looks like a harbour town as I drive through it, with a huge wharf and lots of freight-related infrastructure. It also is a town that has taken strip retailing to the ultimate extreme. For about an hour I drive past endless Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's and Targets before hitting open road again.

My first thought when I saw New Orleans was: size. It seems to go on forever as you pass over it on the freeway. The CBD is evident for miles and looked imposing against the late afternoon sun.

Now I would strongly recommend that you book accommodation before arriving in ‘Nola', as the locals sometimes call it. It's a big and confusing city, and you could drive stupidly around for miles in crazy one-way systems trying to find a place.

Having not heeded my own advice I was a little nervous as I realised just how spread out the city was.

I was, in short, incredibly lucky. As the sun began to quickly set I worriedly turned off the freeway at the second French Quarter sign, turned right into a one-way Street, then right again. I glanced at an open courtyard that was a car park for a place called Le Richelieu, stopped, popped into reception and checked in!

Because it was a Sunday I got a great rate for what I discovered was a New Orleans institution, at the quieter, residential end of the French Quarter.

Le Richelieu Hotel was a quaint, European-style hotel with its own little pool in a courtyard and a lovely breakfast area where you could get croissants and coffee served.

It had obviously been the place to stay in the mid-Seventies and early Eighties, judging by the photos adorning the owner's room. In fact Paul, Linda and some of the mini McCartneys had stayed there when recording a Wings album in the city.

Judging by the hotels décor, that was probably the time of the last big upgrade but it was super clean, intimate and had a lovely old-world charm. You can check it out at http://www.lerichelieuhotel.com/.

The star of the place was definitely the waiter who served breakfast, a 6'4" African American, probably about 60 years old, who had the New Orleans patois down pat. He called me (and I assume everyone) ‘Baby', in a deep baritone, at every opportunity. A slight shock the first time when you heard "here's your coffee baby", but deeply endearing after that!

The French Quarter is large, at least 10 blocks deep and 30 long. The half closest to the city is mainly restaurants, bars and shops, but the quieter half is mainly houses and apartments, along with the necessities of life, such as laundromats and drug stores.

It mixes French architecture of the 18th and early 19th centuries with the tropical realities of life in the Big Easy.

It is all very, very beautiful.

All of it is slightly run down, but maintained enough to feel totally comfortable. While some places looked as if they had not had a proper clean since Katrina, most looked safe, secure and very lovingly lived in.

Hurricane Katrina was of course the storm that nearly killed this city in August 2005. New Orleans is around 80 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, on the Mississippi River, but on a delta area where the wide tidal area meets the force of the river flowing into the sea. As the city grew over the years, it did so on reclaimed or less favourable land and some reports in recent years showed that parts of the city were sinking, as the water affected land underneath settled areas. In fact, one of the reasons the city is such a sprawl is because of the cost in digging down to secure tall buildings. Easier to spread out than up.

This of course has impacted on the local environment, and these factors, along with underspending in infrastructure, in levees and in drainage, created an accident waiting to happen.

While many managed to get out before Katrina arrived, many didn't, particularly those from the poorer communities.

The results, as we will all remember, were a devastated city with tens of thousands stranded in filth for days and then weeks.

Estimates are that around 40% of the population left the city for good, like the novelist Anne Rice who never returned. There are streets that are apparently deserted, with fast rotting buildings. I say apparently because I was advised not to go exploring these areas.

Others say some have since returned along with an influx of illegal Hispanic immigrants, thus minimising the impact. Until the 2010 census we won't know but the city didn't feel deserted or dying in any way to me. It was fun and vibrant and busy everywhere I went, and I loved it.

Equally, while the residents are sick of talking about Katrina, there is a strong sense of pride at having got through it and a determination to re-grow.

Having given my teeth a week to rest (see here) I decided to try a Nola speciality, a Po-boy, which is a sandwich of sorts.

With the exception of ribs it strikes me that the USA's key contribution to food has been taking recipes invented elsewhere, and sticking bread around them. The Po-boy is no exception. It's crumbed and fried oysters (or shrimps, prawn or fish) stuck in a bread roll with various dressings. It should be noted this doesn't apply to desserts where I think they have given us great contributions!

Anyway, the Po-boy is delicious, although my teeth were not quite up to it yet.

While the first day was spent exploring the lovely French quarter, the next day was focussed on the ‘American quarter', or the central business area. Again it feels prosperous and growing with a mix of late 19th century grandeur and modern size.

Late last year a CNN poll ranked all the USA cities under a number of categories. New Orleans came out a star.

According to the poll, New Orleans is the best US city for live music, cocktail hours, flea markets, antique shopping, nightlife, "wild weekends", "girlfriend getaways" and cheap food. The city also ranked second for gay friendliness, overall food and dining, friendliness of residents, and people watching. Not bad.

All in all I am so pleased I visited and in my view you would be crazy to miss it. By the way I was in t-shirts and shorts in mid-October, and with summer being hurricane season think about when you visit!

After two days I drove off to Mobile, Alabama.

The drive there was fascinating, firstly across vast bridges that take you over the Mississippi Delta, and then swamp land. Then you drive through lovely forests with the coast a mile or so to your side.

The coastline is pretty developed the whole way with casinos and holiday developments along much of it.

Mobile is in many ways a smaller version of New Orleans and in fact the cities share a pretty similar history. That's no bad thing though. Again, lovely architecture, mixing 17th century buildings with ultra modern, ‘big city' buildings. It was even warmer there; around 90 degrees and 90% humidity when I arrived at 4pm, so just imagine what it must be like in August!

The Mobile Botanical Gardens were beautiful, over 30 acres of tropical flowers and foliage.

Anyway, after a pretty quick look around it was time to move on, as I had one more state to investigate in this southern swing. The home of R'n'B.... Mississippi!

Until next blog!