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If you are French, or hail from a similar mainland European country, you’d better watch yourself. Mothers of young children and pregnant women will viciously assault you with handbags, or at the very least glare at you fiercely and mutter among themselves, if you light up a cigarette in any public space. Yes, it’s just like California. And everywhere else in the civilised world. Europe is the last outpost of the indoor smoker.

Smoking is illegal in just about any public space in South Africa, except in rooms specially designated and equipped. That includes public transport and hotel lobbies. As a rule you can light up anywhere with bar (as in the actual counter over which alcohol is served), but if you are a first-time visitor then don’t risk even that. If there is a roof but no ashtrays, and no other smokers, then just don’t do it. Even if you don’t get fined – which you won’t – you’ll soon discover just how much support the ban has. Even if you’re outside in the cold and the rain, don’t think you’re safe. Blow your exhaust in the general direction of a non-smoker and see for yourself.

However, procuring cigarettes won’t be a problem. Almost all advertising is banned but all the major brands – Marlboro, Camel, Dunhill, Stuyvesant, Gauloises, and the usual cheap stuff – are available at all the 24-hour garage shops and from vending machines or over the counter at just about any drinking establishment.

If you are a cigar smoker then you may have more trouble finding your favourite brands. The stuff you can buy in general retailers and at bars is usually cheap ‘n nasty (except for the upper-class steakhouses and the like); though there are still specialist tobacconists to be found in the big cities.

Just keep in mind that sin taxes are high, so if you are coming to South Africa for a short stay, bring in a carton of duty-free.

South Africa used to be a decent, God-fearing kind of place. Shops closed on Sundays, there was no swearing on the airwaves and scarlet women hid their shameful acts behind closed doors. We like to believe that this was a situation engineered by the most regular clients of these night walkers – clergymen and politicians – as a form of demand-side management to keep price inflation in check.

Things have changed a lot since those days. The toppling of Apartheid and its puritanical mores brought a flood of pornography, titty bars and other awesome stuff. And yet the whores stayed in hiding.

In other words, all things are allowed except the exchange of money for sex. South Africa has a famous chain strip club, Teazers, which operates openly and is known to serve decent food. Smaller competitors at both end of the spectrum supply all your booty-ogling needs at various other levels of safety and hygiene. Retailers like the famous Hustler shops and a franchise called Adultworld will supply pretty much everything else related to man’s insatiable hunger for woman: XX-rated magazines, inflatables, insertables, whips, chains, masks, DVDs, and other equipment unfit to mention on a family(ish) website.

But the low-class prostitutes still let it hang out on street corners, the mid-class hookers ply their trade in hotel rooms and the high-class courtesans are guarded behind high, anonymous gates. There are no red light districts and no licensed brothels, no safety mechanisms other than pimps, no legal protection for either party and no contract in the eyes of the law.

Now, for a strictly theoretical user of the services of a sex worker (which is our preferred politically-correct term in South Africa), there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One, prostitution is illegal in South Africa. Two, our police have bigger fish to fry and nowhere near the resources to run American-style sting operations with decoy hookers stationed as lures. Three, HIV/Aids is rampant in this country – be safe or acquire an incurable disease. Four, vice and crime (the real kind, the violent kind, not the victimless kind) go together like a horse and carriage and horny tourists are especially soft marks.

Like any non-Muslim country that isn’t in Asia, finding a prostitute is by one of three primary means: online, dead-tree classified sections and hotel concierge. After that you are on your own. Don’t get caught with your pants down.