We went to Vegas

We went to Vegas, and had a great time. A holiday in Vegas is like an outing to a large amusement park – a festive mood hangs over the city during the day that translates into a night long party. The major attractions, ofcourse, are the hotels themselves, which have gone beyond fresh linen and a clean bath - the most rudimentary need a hotel is meant to fulfill - but there is nothing rudimentary about Vegas – its opulent, lavish and every other similar adjective.

During our two day visit, we lodged at the sprawling MGM Grand – built around the theme of the Hollywood MGM Grand Studios.

Most of the hotels are built around a chosen theme – which have been executed innovatively. Though we did not tour every hotel, some of them represent their themes through striking exteriors.

In the morning we stepped out of the MGM Grand, to begin the Vegas sight-seeing tour – which is essentially a walk on the Vegas Strip ( the 4 mile stretch of Vegas where most of the attraction of the ‘Sin –City’ lies).

A few steps around the corner, we were facing the Hotel New York - New York. The façade of this hotel is built to resemble the Manhattan Skyline of New York– complete with the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Chrysler Towers, Brooklyn Bridge.

A walk further down led us to the Hotel Paris – well, as the name suggests, built along the Paris theme, with a replica of the Eiffel tower, cobbled pavement and a road side Bistro. I personally found the above two hotels very aesthetic in the way the theme was represented through the external architecture. Lovely.

The most beautiful and classiest employment of its theme was at The Venetian – built along the theme of Venice. From the paintings on the ceilings, to the branded souvenirs (consisting of the famous Venetian masks and little gondolas on cups, fridge magnets etc, the souvenirs were more Venice than Vegas) - Venice resides in the details. The ‘Grand Canal Shoppes’ – the shopping arcade of the hotel, is an expansive indoor arena – only that the way its designed and built, with a false sky, the ambient lighting, a canal, with gondolas, winding through (though, the water in the canal was uncomfortably swimming-pool blue). We felt we were outdoors.

The shopping area even has an ‘open’ market place with eateries and stalls (selling ‘Venetian’ merchandise)

Ofcourse, a noticeable activity in this entire hotel hopping was the occasional indulgence in the pastime this ‘Playground of America’ is best known for – casinos. Suffice to say, we lost, we won, we lost again and won again and had some good fun in the process – and at least, at the end, were not left in the negative. And also marveled at how profitable a venture like this would be - to dole out money, in a five-star ambience, with drinks on the house and still, at the end, still laugh all the way to the bank.

Vegas had some other interesting sights too, like this 'Elvis' pair we spotted, outside a 'Harley Davidson' Cafe.

There were some palpable disappointments though – the eagerly looked forward to ‘Vegas Shows’. This was one place where the slick 'Vegas packaging’ failed, and I am compelled to say that content simply did not match up to all that hype. The other was the Lion Habitat at the MGM Grand, which had been publicized something like this - ‘Separated from the lions by only one and a half inches of glass, visitors can watch as these majestic creatures feed, play, groom themselves and sleep’. What we saw, ahem, were two extremely bored lions sleeping in some obscure corner of the ‘habitat’ (a disappointingly small glass enclosure). Maybe we just caught the lions at the wrong time.

To sum it up, few hours into Vegas, and you realize that what is most fascinating about Vegas is the fact that it is a dazzling tourist spot built out of virtually nothing – no natural treasures, no culture or history to boast of. Its just the All-American entrepreuner spirit that packages some good entertainment and markets it just the right way, and a post WWII cheap, shoddy town in the middle of the desert gets transformed into the 'All-American Road' .