In the 1950s it was renowned for exclusive hotels which boasted Diana Rigg and Hayley Mills on the guest list – and cultural exports such as limbo, an old funereal tradition in which dancers would represent the soul of the departed passing under a gradually raised board, as if moving from the lower region of Limbo to Heaven Not any more. The hotels have bowed to the advent of all-inclusive packages in which no one dresses for dinner, and the limbo dancing is little more than a tourist sideshow.After my calamitous ride, we went in search of limbo at the Turtle Beach Hotel, where dozens of phoney bamboo fans whirred in a deserted lobby chock-full of sofas and smoked-glass windows "No limbo tonight, sorry," said the receptionist "Tonight we have bamboo dancing. You know, hoppin' in and out of poles." Haunted by images of Dick Van Dyke doing "Me Ol'Bamboo", we decided to find something more contemporary.We'd missed the bacchanal of Sunday School, the vast weekly beach party at Buccoo village, so instead we went to a concert at the Shaw Park football pitch. In the open-air auditorium, hundreds of Tobagan teenagers resplendent in white lipstick, brocaded jeans and serious amounts of gold jewellery were awaiting a big night of Calypso singing The national anthem started and everyone got up.

Pathetically focused on my bruises, I stayed sitting until I caught the eye of a young man, who crossly demonstrated that I too must rise. And although the night was ostensibly a contest, Calypso singing is a broad church; the programme included Toni Underwear, who sang about the dangers of wearing thongs. Then there was the political Exposer, who encouraged the audience to "get serious and take a look at the business community! Black man! You are in the minority! And that puzzles me!". And Rachel Price, a Trinidadian comic who dresses up as Rastafarian male pop idols, to gales of laughter from the crowd.After the concert, we heard a Tobagan night-time specialty: steel pan bands practising by the side of the road.

The pans are kept in locked halls and wheeled out at night on to the pavement for hours of rehearsal. It's a serious business – a single pan is worth about £80, and bands practise furiously for inter-island trophies and contests against the national leaders from Trinidad.In the small town of Montgomery, the Redemption Sound Setters were rehearsing for the Panorama, the most important competition in the steel pan calendar. Fifty musicians, aged from 14 to 64, played into the night with only the huge, yellow moon in attendance. The tune, "Music For The Soul", was a 90-second verse and refrain which had been extended into a 10-minute extemporization Waves of music reverberated in the warm air. The tune was picked up, abandoned, and harmonized throughout a huge orchestra of pans, from thin, tinkling treble to huge, drumming bass.Meanwhile, down the road at the port, the overnight ferry chugged off to Trinidad. The ferry doesn't reach Port of Spain until dawn, although Trinidad is only 26 miles away. There was once a disastrous experiment with high-speed transport in which the entire boatload of people got seasick.

So now the ferry, in tune with island life, keeps it slow.TRAVELLERS' GUIDEGetting there: British Airways (0845 77 333 77, ) flies from Gatwick to Tobago and back on Wednesdays and Saturdays. From 28 October an additional flight will be added on Mondays. The lowest fares, through discount agents, are likely to be around £500.If you are prepared to change planes along the way, you should be able to find a fare of around £450 on BWIA. From next May, Virgin Atlantic (01293 747747, /atlantic) is due to start flights from Gatwick to Tobago.Where to stay: the writer and her family stayed in Tobago at the Villa Being. This can be booked through ITC Classics (0870 751 9300, ).