I don’t know why i chose that name for the post. Google tells me it is Spanish for either “live the Vegas” or “Long live Vegas”. I prefer the latter. Long live Vegas long live Grand Canyon.
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the state of Nevada U.S. Las Vegas is internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for gambling, shopping, fine dining and night life and is leading financial and cultural center for southern Nevada. Well I think we all know what Vegas is known for so let me just get straight to my little story (‘ll try to keep it short, and I’ll try my best to give tips wherever possible).
Short history: I was working on something amazing, and I was to display that to a limited group of people in CES 2014 (a.k.a Consumer Electronics Show). So I got my visa and left for the USA on 29th Dec 2014. I was in California for about a week and then I left for Vegas on 3rd Jan 2014 (just 1 hour flight from SFO airport). I will write about whole trip in may be another post, this is specifically for Vegas and Grand Canyon. I stayed there for about a week.
So I landed on Vegas McCarran Airport by about 4:30 PM. My obvious feeling was “OMG it is Vegas. OMG it is the sin city of the world, hope I don’t commit any sins on the way to my hotel. OMG what if there is strip joint on the way?”. I controlled the feeling, took my luggage off the belt and went outside. I was all alone, my colleague left Santa Clara one day early, I was there all alone with address of my hotel. Believe it or not the first girl I saw in Vegas was working in the airport in orange dress, covered from neck to toe. Mental note, stay the heck out of stereotyping, not all the girls you see in Vegas are exotic dancers, I had this whole other notion of girls in Vegas. I moved on. So there I was standing outside the airport, all by myself. There were so many strange faces, not strange exactly, different, different is the right word. Well this is my first trip out of my country, so basically every other face is different. Some faces with same complexion as mine looked at me like I was some sort of sex addict, “I am here for business” I told one of the guys. He replied sarcastically “Yeah we all are”, what the hell?, I came here for attending CES? God I hated that. But I was too busy processing the information like new place, new airport, new roads, new taxis, new ambiance etc. to be even thinking about other things. Unlike other U.S. cities I visited, smoking is allowed almost anywhere in Vegas (don’t know if it is legal). I have been craving for a drag for almost 8 hours, finally I got to. Heaven.
After I gained consciousness, I looked around and saw like hundreds of pretty faces and a long queue for taxis. I saw a prepaid sharing cab booth with rates chart. Just about then a women probably in her early thirties walks to me and says “I know the rates are off the charts, wanna share a cab? Is this your first time in Vegas?”. my subconscious responded “yes…”. She said “great, I am Jenny by the way, where are you headed ?”. I remembered some lessons from old schools about not talking to strangers and I have seen Liam Neeson’s Taken 1 and 2 (not that I am pretty enough to be kidnapped or something, but still new place so extra precaution). “I meant yes this is my first time in Vegas but no thanks I am waiting for a friend here”, a straight lie, a white one though. She said “oh okay, nice meeting you” and left. She was probably not what I thought she was, damn you stereotyping mind. After about 30 minutes I hopped in a cab for MGM grand hotel. The cabbie was a nice guy, he told me some places of interest in Vegas (really interesting places of interest, commission I guess).
Vegas from The Venetian
After struggling for about 30 minutes at the reception I was finally given a room (some mishap with the paperwork). The hotel is so big that they should announce it a city, first at the reception there is a huge queue 24/7, then there is hardly any place in the ground floor as it is full of people with cigarettes in one hand and poker chips in the other and thirdly there are 2 theaters and about 25 fancy restaurants on the ground floor for heaven’s sake. The room was nice, but nothing compared to my room in Santa Clara, CA. Who cares, I am in Vegas. I freshened up for the next exploratory walk in the land of sins.
After about 2 hours of official meeting and dinner, I started to look around inside the hotel. It was like a shopping mall with almost everything in it, a food court, a couple of fashion stores, a souvenir store, couple of Starbucks, McDonald’s, a wedding chapel, a very significant amount and variety of restaurants (from Italian to Mexican to European to Chinese). All inside my hotel, that was huge. I couldn’t explore much as we planned to visit Grand Canyon the next day. I have no idea who planned the Grand Canyon tour, but I didn’t wanna go, I mean just think about it, you are leaving Vegas to visit some other tourist place? Vegas is the biggest and fanciest tourist place ever, why go to some Canyon which is like a 6 hour drive? But I had no say in the decision, so I tagged along. I had to 😦
Grand Canyon is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. After we reached there, I thought when would I ever get a chance to visit this wonder of nature? my unwillingness to take part in the trip abated gradually, plus this is in that movie called DUE-DATE (Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis). It was chilly there. First time in my life I experienced negative 10 degree Celsius. Thank god I brought some warm clothes. The view was mesmerizing. It is literally more than a billion years old. Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long with width up to 18 miles (29 km) and depth over a mile (1.8 km).
Grand Canyon 001
Me in the center with my team
Me at the viewing area of Grand Canyon
Sedimentary rocks I guess
A different view of the grand Canyon (those white patches are a week old snow)
The Colorado river view at the canyon
The Colorado river creek at the canyon
A small natural crack
One of the many info plates at the canyon
I was half archaeologist by the time I finished reading all such info plates (pic above). We stayed at a motel in a small town called Williams in Arizona. Got high, watched an awesome Bollywood classic, discussed some intellectual stuff and… well passed out 😉
The next morning I saw some traces of the stale snow in the motel vicinity. That was great, although it wasn’t fresh, it was the first time I ever encountered snow, so a pretty big deal for me. We had some breakfast and left for Vegas. On the way back we stopped at Hoover dam. That was classy.
Hoover dam once known as the Boulder dam is concrete arch-gravity dam in the black canyon of the same river (Colorado river). It is at the Arizona-Nevada border. It was built in early 1930’s. That was another wow addition to the trip. The whole way we listened to Bollywood music. Here are some snaps:
The Hoover Dam
at the Arizona-Nevada borders
another view of Colorado river somewhere near Hoover dam
The way back was superb, party because of the awesome experience and partly because we were going back to Vegas. As soon as we entered Nevada we saw a hotel cum Casino, no surprises there. We had some Mexican (most probably) for lunch and after like 2 hours of shopping at bestbuy we went straight to the hotel. That was once in a lifetime trip. Trusting the instincts works sometimes.
Now CES was scheduled from 10:00 AM-06:00 PM 7th-10th January, being an exhibitor I had to be there by 9:00 AM which means leaving the hotel by 8:00 AM. So getting up by 6:30 AM. This was pretty tough (Staying up till morning is easier than getting up at 6:30 AM). First day was cool, I displayed my product to like a pro (at least, I think I did). But enough about work, I don’t really know if I am allowed to talk about it. After that We wrapped up by 6:00 PM. Work, Work, Work all day long. I think I am not doing justice to my interest and my work, let me rephrase, for me it was cool. Loved mine and my team’s work. But for now let me just say work, work, work, blah blah. That’s what other story tellers do, don’t know why. I stayed in Vegas for a week, I was busy almost all day. Even our evenings were full.
A few pics from inside the Venetian. This hotel is where I was working.
Vegas is one of the costliest cities I have ever visited, costlier than Williams, Arizona and Santa Clara, CA. What the heck, I said and continued to roam around my hotel. You can literally buy almost anything inside the hotel. I watched many games in the casino, some I understood, some weren’t allowed to watch. Singles, group of singles, couples, a couple of couples, gangs from around the world, all under one roof, for one purpose, entertainment. The definition of entertainment may differ from person to person (if you know what I mean). The city never sleeps not even at 4:00 AM. I crashed into my bed soon after.
The next morning I headed towards the food court for breakfast as decided. In the elevator, this woman says hello and starts talking to me for no clear reason. People in US are kind of friendly. She said stuff like “it’s cold so beware of static shocks, this walkway reminds me of inception the movie, I am here for business but I think I am gonna stay a little longer etc.”. I responded with single words “great, awesome, yeah etc”. I never had this kind of chat with strangers so I wasn’t really up for any conversation, she took me by surprise “you talk so less for a young man” were the last words I remember. She briskly walked in the other direction. I was preparing myself for any such encounters when I heard “YO!!! You in tights”. Shocked. I looked at my pants, and they were pretty damn tight. I turned around and saw two very pretty, extremely hammered girls, in their pajamas. It’s 7:30 in the morning. I said “excuse me”. The tall girl replied “shake you booty for me baby”. This was new, “what?” I questioned. the short one said “booty, you know booty as in hips, shake them baby, shake them like this” and started dancing in circles around me in the middle of morning crowd. I couldn’t hide a smile, I looked around and saw people staring at me like I have some sort of superpower. “Stop, what are you doing? who are you?” I asked. “It’s Vegas, what a rhetorical question, shake ’em come on”. “May be later” I said and got the hell out of there. Boy, that is too friendly, over friendly, more than I can digest. I finished my breakfast and headed for the exhibit with my teammates. The short girl was passing by and said something in very unclear, drunk voice, I gave her a thumbs up and went in my direction. One of my team mates gave me a very questionable look. can’t blame him.
After the exhibition, we did some usual shopping, had dinner, hopped into monorail and went to our rooms. The next day almost the same. If you are buying a monorail pass, make sure there are no grand events happening in Vegas, or else there will be a huge queue, and you will waste you 28$ 3 day pass. That was it. The exhibition was over by 9th Jan 2014 evening. I had the evening and the next day to explore Vegas. Now the original plan was to get drunk and visit some places that showcases exotic female dancers. Step one was over as we had booze in our possession. But everybody ducked out, and I was on no mood to visit such places alone, this is my first time after all. So around 2:00 AM, I stepped out of my room and went to the casino area, I wanted to play some blackjack. I took a cup of coffee from starbucks and was enjoying my coffee next to a blackjack table. In the next 15 minutes or so, 10 hookers approached me. “Looking for a date are we? wanna have some fun sweetheart? Want a good Vegas story to tell your friends back home?”, good thing there was security, that kept a check there. at around 3:00 AM I stepped out of the hotel and went to this club sort of thing called…. something ugly, it was in New York New York (yes the replica in Vegas). Had a good time there, came back and slept at around 5:30 AM. A piece of advice do not take your fiancé or girlfriend to Vegas, you are definitely gonna regret it. It’s not me its the whisky and experience talking.
Next day we explored the streets of Vegas. There are many characters there, you pay them a tip and have a pic with them. Wonder woman, Spiderman, Batman, Alvis presly, Mettalica, minions, transformers bumblebee, slutty cops, sex bunnies, Captain America, toy story guys, Alan from Hangover the movie and many more. I took some snaps. Here:
Me and Captain America
woody buzz and me
2$ gone, totally worth it. Then there is Paris Paris, New York New York. Harley Davidson Cafe etc. some more pics.
Paris Paris (inVegas)
Harley Davidson Cafe
New York New York (in Vegas)
a minion (Dave I guess, near Caesar’s Palace)
There was this beautiful water show in hotel Bellagio. We watched that water show, that went on for like half hour, worth it, totally worth it.
My return flight was on 11th Jan (LAS-LAX-DXB-BLR), I came back to India by 13th Jan 3:00 AM. Awesome trip. I have been to many trips, this was once in a lifetime trip. If I ever get a chance (and sufficient amount of money and time), I would love to go to Vegas anytime. Las Vegas is truly amazing, not just for the reasons we see in movies and television shows.
For me it was like a rainstorm in a desert, never been out of my country, and in first trip I saw Vegas. Sounds so made up. Except it is not.
There is no best time to visit, you wanna go to Vegas, you go to Vegas, do your research later. Good Luck.
Long live Las Vegas, Long Live Grand Canyon.
– Kaushal Dhruw
heavenly.devil09@gmail.com
A Quest Called Life 