Las Vegas

The Greyhound station in Vegas was no different from any other,in that it was in a bad area of town and not terribly close to where I wanted to be. Hopefully not close to where anybody wanted to be. There were taxis waiting outside but I didn't want to take a taxi, if anything I would take the bus. I started to walk in the direction of the Strip, using the Stratosphere tower as a landmark, it was fairly straightforward. I walked to my hotel, Circus Circus and then had to walk half a mile to get to the check in desk which was at the end of the building furthest away from Las Vegas Boulvevard,a.k.a the Strip. I got checked in and went up to my room, it was a decent size, the view was terrible and the bathroom not amazing. Pretty much what you would expect for $30 per night, including taxes. However it was all mine, I would have my own space for a couple of days, then I would make the switch to a nice hotel for my last night in Vegas. I was debating between the Bellagio and the Venetian hotels.

I am still having an issue with sales tax. Why isn't it included in the listed price? Every time I get to a check out and I have to pay more than I'm expecting it freaks me out. I don't like it, I think it's a bad system and if I could I would only travel in states that don't have a sales tax. It's also another reason why I haven't bought a netbook yet. I don't want to pay sales tax and whenever I ask about getting the tax refunded the sales assistants never seem to know how I do that. Some of them suggest that I should do it when I leave the U.S. but I don't understand why. It's a state sales tax, not a country wide thing so I think that I should be able to get the tax back when I leave the state. Actually I don't think I should have to pay it at all, but there you go. What you gonna do?

I headed out of the hotel and took a walk up the Strip. The part of the Strip that everyone wants to see is about three miles long, the rest of it is an ordinary street, with convenience stores and sex shops etc.. It starts with the Hilton Residences and then ends with the Mandalay Bay hotel. The high end hotels are concentrated in the middle, the ones on either end of this range have lower room rates and tend not to have free attractions outside for people to view. So for example Treasure Island has a pirate show on their "lagoon" at the front of the hotel, four times a night. The Bellagio has it's fountain show every fifteen minutes, every night, it's less during the day. Circus Circus being a low end hotel had free circus acts, but you had to go into the hotel for these. I went towards the high end hotels.

I hadn't got too far when I reached a shopping mall, I wasn't going to go in but I saw an Apple ad and figured that there was an Apple store inside. There was! So I was able to get online and check my email etc., I love Apple stores. There are "internet cafes" in Vegas, but the ones I saw were charging $10 an hour and you were limited to what you could do, so in most places I couldn't hook up my camera or external hard drive.If I am paying for internet access I expect to be able to do all I need to not half of it. By the time I got back outside it was dark so I went up to see the Bellagio fountain show. It's free and amazing, I totally enjoyed it and of course, being the sad person I am thought of the Oceans 11 movie. The last scene was filmed in front of the Bellagio with the fountains as a background, just in case you haven't seen the movie. I took a few pictures and then headed back to my hotel for a bath and a night of rest.

The next morning I spent wandering up and down the Strip, looking in a few hotels. In the MGM Grand hotel they have a lion habitat, I guess because their mascot is a lion.The lions have a temperature,humidity controlled, sound proofed green house basically. They also have a couple of handlers sat inside there with them, not quite sure why. The lions actually live on a ranch outside of the city, there are about forty of them and two of them are trucked in every day and put into the habitat for tourists like me to gawk at. It's another gimmick to get people into the casino. The hotel also offers free screenings of new t.v. programmes, you go, watch and comment. I didn't bother. I had watched enough t.v. in my room the previous night, I didn't need to watch anymore right then.

Las Vegas is a sad place in the daylight, it really reminds me of Blackpool, in northern England. It's a place people come to try and realise their dreams, the dream of a big win or maybe a job in a show or even be the top show act yourself. Terry Fator, the winner of "America's got Talent" is playing in Vegas at the moment.When the lights aren't on it's like reality has returned to the city and it shows the hopelessness of those dreams for the majority of people. Of course some people do make it big here and that is the fuel for everyone elses hopes. Vegas is not a place to come to alone, you should at least be with a friend,husband / wife etc. but even better come with a group of friends and have a wild Vegas weekend. The alcohol is cheap and plentiful and you don't even need to go into a bar, they'll sell it to you on the street. That's how I had bought mine the previous night.
After a few hours of walking I headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap. There were a few things I wanted to do that night and I wouldn't going to bed early. The nap did me the world of good and saved me a few hours of wandering around aimlessly. Vegas is not the most pleasant place to walk around, the pavements are congested and to cross some of the roads you have to over a pedestrian bridge, some of which will dump you out inti a casino that you then have to work your way out of.And when you do have to cross the road at street level it can turn into the hundred metre dash. The roads can be five lanes each way in some places and they don't give you an awful lot of time to cross the road. It is a bit of an extreme sport.
When I was ready to face the world again I bought a bus pass for 24 hours and went down to Fremont street. Freemont Street is the old part of Vegas, where the Golden Nugget casino is. The road has been closed to traffic and covered with a mesh screen that they project laser shows onto. It's a famous spot for pick pockets, every one is looking skyward and not paying attention to other people. I was a bit early, the shows are every hour, so I watched a free musician show and then a band was playing. The laser show is not the same every hour, I ended up watching three! It is excellent and really does bring people into the down town area. There are no swanky hotels in this part of town and if it was for the Freemont St experience people would have no reason to visit this part of Vegas.
When I finally managed to get onto a bus I went to the Stratosphere tower and bought my ticket to go up and ride on one of the rides at the top. I originally bought a ticket for the "X-Scream", this is a short ride that hangs you over the side of the tower. I saw some people on it and just knew that there was a chance hell of me getting on it. I changed my ticket for the "Big Shot", this is a ride that shoots you up the spire on top of the tower. I went to the boarding platform and I was the only person there other than the staff. I got on and off we went, I did look at the view, which was amazing, once. After that I closed my eyes and kept them closed until I was down again. The ride lasts all of thirty seconds but it was a long thirty seconds! I took a look at the ride photo, I was so tempted to buy it. I was wrapped around the ride harness, my eyes closed and my head tucked into my shoulder with a lot of total terror on my face. I am so brave!!Not!!! I didn't want to let my fear of heights stop me from doing too many things. It had already stopped me from riding the "X-Scream" and when I went to Australia from climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge. After getting a photo of the scenery I headed back to the hotel.