I went to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas expecting to hate the place but ended up falling for it, despite the tackiness and materialism gone mad.
We’d chosen it as the first stop of our American adventure because we love a gamble, but we’d also booked a trip to the Grand Canyon and Vegas is where our helicopter flight to one of the planet’s great geological formations would start.
The desert city would be our home for just a couple of days, before we travelled on to Santa Barbara and San Francisco. Arriving early evening on a British Airways 747, it didn’t take us long to discover what Vegas is all about. We dumped our bags at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and went out for a few drinks, fighting our way through the crowds parading up and down the famous Strip. Vegas that night (and probably every night) meant noise, crowds, colour and spectacle, making it resemble something like New York’s Times Square on speed. Around us, the largest collection of obese people I’ve seen anywhere in the world plodded to and fro.
What else? Skyscrapers, ads for escorts, a fake Eiffel Tower amid the numerous copies of world-famous monuments, the sound of fruit machines taking money and spilling out winnings. In places Vegas resembled a giant toy town, or Legoland on steroids.
Few cities can claim to be as insane as Vegas. And few attract such a wide range of people, from the super-rich who fly in to gamble away their wealth, to budget-conscious trailer trash on stag and hen parties. It’s a city where the hotels are as much a tourist attraction as they are a place to stay, where cheapo takeaways sit nextdoor to Michelin-starred restaurants.
Shopping malls are two a penny and, when we visited, a Mecca for smokers. Where they were, the overwhelming, rather caustic smell was of air freshener. But at least the malls, like the hotels, provided an air-conditioned haven from the intense heat outside, a heat we were totally unprepared for. Back indoors, as we looked out from the window of our swanky room in the fabulous Mandarin Oriental hotel, Las Vegas exploded in neon in stark contrast to the arid desert beyond.
We only had a few days to experience what the city has to offer but we did the obvious. Of an evening we had to gamble. It’s what the place was invented for after all. We tried the casino at New York New York but much preferred Bellagio, partly because it offered lower minimum bets, fewer surly croupiers and great people watching. The Black Jack table was our destination of choice and we somehow managed to make our cash last much longer than expected (all that practice on an iPhone app worked). The free drinks were very welcome and, overall, I ended up with only small losses, Graham with slightly more.
During the day we visited the hotels, which vary from the grim to the extraordinary. The Venetian, with its recreation of the historic Italian city, is ludicrous and audacious and I couldn’t help but be impressed by what they’ve created there. Luxor looked tatty and dated on our visit but we popped into a fascinating Titanic exhibition and stayed for a few drinks. We made a point of stopping at the Bellagio for their famous musical fountain shows. Huddled along The Strip, the big themed hotels are more like small towns – with queues to check in that were at times as bonkers as the architecture. I was more than grateful that we were staying elsewhere.
We headed up The Stratosphere, Nevada’s tallest building, on a sweltering morning. It’s located on Las Vegas Boulevard, looks gloriously retro but was actually built as recently as the 1990s. It offers expansive views from the top, where white-knuckle rides hurl brave visitors into thin air. Back at ground level we travelled on to older Vegas, beyond the glitz and glamour of The Strip. And there was dereliction too, signs of the post-credit crunch depression that had hit Vegas particularly hard.
The older Downtown district is centred on Fremont Street a couple of miles north of today’s big hotels, the original heart of the city. In Diamonds are Forever, James Bond races his car through the streets but these days it’s mainly pedestrianised. We went during the day, found those famous old Vegas neon signs clinging to the oldest of the casinos but missed the spectacular night-time light show.
At night we ate well – if expensively. We had stunning steak and roasted brussels sprouts with bacon at Mastro’s Ocean Club in the modern CityCenter development and the next night dined at Olives at The Bellagio, handy both for the casino and the dancing fountains.
Our couple of days were up and it was time to move on, but I’d been won over to Vegas’ curious charms. I like the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, celebrates its tackiness and is brave enough to do things that most cities around the world wouldn’t dream of doing. And I wouldn’t mind returning one day with gambling chips in hand…