CARNIVAL HITS CLOUD 9; Rain can't cool festival fever on Caribbean paradise.

Byline: Iain Hepburn

AMY,Amy Amy.Visit Saint Lucia and there's one name you hear time and time again.A skinny,tattooed,drunken spectre hanging over the island.

Everyone has an Amy Winehouse story to tell. Good or bad, it seems, most folk on the island encountered her.

Visiting Saint Lucia just a couple of weeks after her extended holiday, it's like the aftermath of a conflict - an island full of veterans all with their war stories to tell about the crooner's time there.

We're even staying at Cotton Bay - the resort she made her base for much of her time on Saint Lucia.

But I'm not there to follow in the Elvira-lookalike's footsteps. No, I'm on Saint Lucia for something even more insane.

Gathering in a car park to throw paint at each other at four am sound like some kind of gang rivalry. Or at the very least, some kind of initiation ceremony. In fact, it's a part of the J'ouvret - the early morning phase of Saint Lucia's seemingly endless carnival weekend, which kicks off on a Sunday and runs... well, runs until everyone's just too exhausted to take part any more.

Which is why, with just a couple of hours sleep and a couple more since arriving on the island, I found myself standing on the roadside in Castries - the island's capital.

The party's in full swing, despite it being pitch black. Indeed, most of these revellers haven't been near their bed yet.

If you've ever been to Notting Hill Carnival, you'll have an idea what to expect from it's Caribbean equivalent. Most of the islands have one, although Saint Lucia cannily decided to chase the tourist pound by moving theirs away from Lent and into summer.

It's a noisy, raucous, raunchy but good-natured parade through the streets, intermittently dotted with flatbed trucks blasting out this year's carnival hits. There's only about five songs, so after an hour you've heard them all. But this is just the warm-up.

The main event is the Carnival itself.

And this year, I'm jumping with one of the biggest bands - Royalites Xtreme. Jump is the local dance style - a bizarre, terrifyingly energetic fusion of marching and dirty dancing. The costumes are interesting too.

Us guys get off quite easy - headbands, t-shirts and the sort of shorts Timmy Mallett would question.

The girls have it harder - big feather head-dresses, boob tubes and a dress which would probably break decency laws if you wore it out in Scotland.

And, terrible though this might sound, it tipped it down for the Carnival. Absolutely torrential - a prelude for a full-on tropical storm hitting the island that night. Not that I was complaining. I'm not a skinny bloke and trying to pull off a five-hour Jump in Saint Lucia's usual heat and humidity would probably have seen me coming home on a stretcher.

What strikes me is the friendliness of the locals during the Carnival. You might think they'd resent having interlopers among their midst for what's an annual ritual -and one they pay good money to take part in. But they're incredibly welcoming and encouraging. The Carnival spirit is infectious, taking in young and old, rich and poor.

Castries sits onthe north of the island. It looks exactly as you'd expect from a picturebook - all sunkissed golden beaches and sand.

You can take horse rides up and down Cotton Bay - or even into the water, should you be feeling particularly brave.

Orjust sit on the sands with a glass of Piton - a local lager named after the island's mountain range which, it turns out, is one of the finest I've ever drunk. Annoyingly, you can't get it back here.

But Saint Lucia's also an island of great contrast, so we travel south by boat to Jalousie, a hotel resort nestled between the two great looming Piton mountains, and surrounded by tropical rainforest.

Sweeping into the harbour, I can't quite decide what it reminds me of more - Bond film or Bounty advert. Either way, it's stunning.

Saint Lucia's resorts largely aim at the luxury end of the market, boasting top quality spas and fine restaurants, and being visited by the great and good of football and entertainment.

The nearby Anse Chastanet facility, for example, boasts $2000-a-night rooms with infinity pools and no walls.

Back at Jalousie, my private villa looks down on the beach from half-way up a hillside, the swimming pool boasting the sort of view that sparks "jammy get" comments when I send pictures home.

And it even comes with Gracious, a butler who greets us with cranberry cocktails as we arrive.

The island is volcanic and just a short drive form Jalousie is the Sulphur Springs, a natural mudpool heated by the volcano. For a nominal fee, you can ease yourself into the waters and lather yourself up with a warm, gritty natural mudpack which does wonders for your skin. Not far from that is a waterfall - the perfect way to wash the mud off.

It's easy to see why Amy chose here for her Rehab. It's impossible not to relax and unwind, no matter where you are. Full of friendly locals, beautiful scenery and a slightly otherworldliness, it's agenuine taste of paradise.

THE FACTS..

We flew EasyJet to Gatwick, then Virgin Atlantic to Saint Lucia. Prices at Cotton Bay start from around US$175 per night, and at Jalousie at pounds 1145 for a week's stay. For more details visit www.stlucia.org/Visit Dailyrecord.co.uk to see Iain's video of Saint Lucia

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STORIES: Amy WInehouse