Las Vegas
Las Vegas is known as "Sin City", quite a formidable reputation gained from the the gambling, prostitution and violence that occurred throughout its history. Now it likes to promote itself as the entertainment capital of the world. With its large casino hotels, lights and shows and year round sun that draws millions of visitors each year. We transited through Las Vegas throughout our holiday a couple of times and were lured to stay there, mainly by the cheap motels on offer. We opted to stay at the Stratosphere hotel and casino. It was cheap, had parking and was at the start of the Las Vegas strip.
On our first evening we decided to take a stroll along the strip to see the sights and especially the famous fountain outside the Bellagio Hotel and casino. We opted not to see a show as there was nothing on at the time we really fancied. The Fountains outside the Bellagio were impressive as expected, but the strip itself was very busy. It was an interesting mix of people, with advertising cars driving up and down the strip displaying phone contacts of prostitutes and men on every other street corner having a quiet whisper in your ear to see if you need any hash or coke?
Walking down the strip in the evening is quite an experience, there are large crowds of people milling about, people being propped up or being stick in the street, obvious prostitutes touting for business and the shows spilling out into the streets. We walked down the strip taking in the sights and witnessed a man being removed from a 7/11 store, he promptly picked a rock up from the street and threw it through the front window, shattering it into thousands of pieces. We continued on until we reached the Fremont Street, a large mall with the largest LED lighting canopy in the world.
Again Fremont Street is full of an eclectic mix of people, along with the obvious presence of prostitutes. There are plenty of stores and casinos all tempting you to part you with your money. The lights are dazzling and there is a zip wire that runs the length of the mall across the underside of the LED screen. People are dressed in provocative clothing, there are performers and free live music. As we had walked down to Fremont Street we decided to get a taxi back to the Stratosphere Hotel. However the taxi driver decided to take us out onto the freeway, adding probably 4 times to the distance to the journey and of course quadrupling his fare!
We also spent a short amount of time in the Stratosphere Hotel casino, however we didn't realise that you were still allowed to smoke inside, coming from the UK this has been banned for years and we found the whole casino smelled of stale cigarettes, and was full of smoke, this wouldn't normally bother us, but in the Stratosphere it was particularly bad as people were spending hours stuck in front of slot machines with a packet of cigarettes their only friend. The rooms in the Stratosphere were good though and very cheap.
I will have to stress however that this is only our experience of the Las Vegas strip and millions of people love this city and visit many, many times. It lives up well to its reputation of Sin City as gambling, alcohol, drugs and prostitution seem to be on tap. I certainly wouldn't want to take my children there any time soon. We did however call into a couple of the outlet malls and were amazed at how reasonable the prices were and how good the offers were. The North Face, Calvin Klein and Levi stores especially. We reckoned you could fly to LAs Vegas with an empty case, go on a shopping spree, save the money for the flight and at least the same amount again compared to prices in the UK and get a few night in Vegas for free!