18/05/09

Was woken up by Helen at 10 past 6 so I jumped out of bed and packed the rest of my stuff in the dark trying not to wake up the other 2 backpackers in the room. We had a complete balls up with the taxi. I had booked a minibus yesterday that was supposed to pick us up at the front door at 0625, it got to 25 to and they still hadn't shown up so I got on the phone to them. When I got through to the woman I asked her where the cab was and she said she'd find out for me, she put me on hold for 5 minutes then hung up. I rang again and was told that they didn't have and minibus cabs in our area so I asked if she thought it would have been a good idea to reserve one for us as we had booked it yesterday, she said she'd have to send 2 normal cabs around. By this time we were all getting a bit worried about missing our greyhound. The taxi showed up and he let us all pile in the back. When we got on the freeway he blurted out something in what I though was Russian then a few moments later a cop car drove past, he was looking really worried about having 4 in the back. We made it to the greyhound terminal at quarter past 7 and luckily still had a place on the bus. The cab fare was $30.75 and the driver was asking for 35 because he had 4 in the back, I started telling him that it was is companies fault for not booking us a taxi and refused to pay any more that the fare. He followed us in to the terminal and wouldn't shut up so we just paid him $5 to f*** off. We got on the greyhound at about 8 and watched as some woman was told to repack all her bags because she had too much carry on luggage. When she got on the bus she got her phone out and literally spent hours on the thing chatting to someone really loudly, I felt like getting up snatching the thing out of her hand and throwing it out the window. As we left LA we soon ended up in the middle of the desert and could see huge dust storms dotted around us. One of the clouds covered the road and as we entered it the driver couldn't even see 1 metre infront so we were crawling along at snail pace for about 10 minutes before it passed.

When we arrived in Vegas and hopped off the bus it was so hot I started to sweat within a minute. The first person we spoke to on the street offered us a lift to our hostel, the Wild Wild West truck stop. The guys van had only a drivers and a passengers seat, I got the passengers seat and the rest had to hop in the back and sit on the wheel arches. I wound the window down to let some air in as it was so breathless and it felt like someone was stood at the window with a hair dryer on full heat blasting it in my face. The driver then picked up what I thought was a huge bottle of petrol, stuck a straw in it and took a huge gulp. We arrived at the hostel which turned out to be quite a fancy motel. We checked in and laid out on the beds for a bit to relax.

At about 3 we decided to go for a walk to the strip to suss out where everything was. Crossing the roads over here was a nightmare, we ended up walking the wrong side of the road to get over the freeway and had to cross the road 3 times to get to the other side. We were then laughed at when we didn't cross the road and waited for the white walking man to appear. We wandered down past New York New York and crossed over and ended up in the food court next to the giant bottle of coca cola. I got a subway and forgot about tax again so ended up forking out loads for it. There were free refills on all drinks though so I nicked Lauras cup and filled it up with lemonade before we left. We wandered back through some more casinos on the way back and all managed not to place any bets. It was so hot that we all had to have showers and had a kip when we got back to the motel.

We went back out at about 8 and found an all you can eat buffet in the Monte Carlo hotel/casino doing a 2 for 1 offer. Pat wasn't hungry as his taco from the food court earlier had disagreed with him. The waitresses wouldn't allow him to sit with us so he went in to the casino and played on a few pokies while the rest of us stuffed our faces. This was a seriously good buffet, they had everything on offer, with free refills on drinks and free deserts. The girls came back with 7 deserts while Rich and I were on our third main meal. Helen tried a bit of all the deserts and Laura ended up eating the lot. I went up for desert and came back with an apple pie and a cheese cake, I went back up again and came back with a huge chocolate cake and a plate full of melon. Needless to say I was absolutely stuffed afterwards. A guy came round at half 10 telling us to move on as they needed to close the buffet and I was worried that I would be sick if I moved anywhere. Standing up straight really hurt so I was walking around hunched over. This was the most full I have ever been, Rich and I promised to never have another buffet again. Laura was in the same situation, we were all walking around a little hunched and holding these bulges where our stomachs were actually protruding. I felt awful, I was in so much pain, I've never felt so full all my life.

We walked around all evening popping in and out of casinos. We visited the Belagio, caesars Palace, Treasure Island, O'Sheas, Flamingos, Bills, Planet Hollywood and the MGM Grand. It all looked pretty amazing lit up at night, everything is massive, shiny and just over the top. The place is huge, it takes 5 - 10 minutes to walk from one casino to the other even though their next door to each other. Also, all along the strip are men and women standing there with a bright T Shirt on and a wad of cards advertising call girls. They just stand there all night slappin the cards together to make as much noise as possible and thrust them in your face as you walk along. The floor is just littered with these cards, such a waste of time and effort.

We only found a few $5 minimum bet tables, these were generally in the smaller casinos like O'Sheas and Bills. I started with a $20 limit in on the roulette table in O'Sheas. My first bet was $5 on red which I won. I then used that 5 to go on the first 12 which also came in so I then placed 5 on red or black and dotted 5 randomly around some numbers. Number 19 came in for me and I then placed a few more bets and cashed in leaving the table $40 up. By the end of the night Laura was up $10 from the slot machines, Helen was up $20 from the Roulette table, Pat had broken even and Rich was down $20. The slot machines earned me another $10 as we were leaving. It wasn't until half 1, three hours after the buffet, when my stomach started to feel a little better and I was able to stand up straight without being in pain. We were all shattered by this time and decided we were ready to tackle the long hot walk back home. We arrived back at the motel and fell asleep while watching NCIS.

19/05/09

We woke up fairly late and I watched as Rich did 2 full laps of the fence circling the pool before having to ask how to get in. We all spent a few hours sun bathing and jumping in the pool when we got too hot. We walked back down the strip in the afternoon and had another buffet in Excalibur. This time we took our time and didn't over do it. I only had 2 full main meals and ate it nice and slowly allowing it all to go down. The girls picked up an assortment of deserts and tasted bits of each of them and then decided to go for a wander to check out the 'Mile of Shops'. The lads and I stayed in the buffet area to make the most of it. I ended up having a huge cookie and 6 and a half chocolate brownies, it wasn't until the 7th that I noticed the ammount of sugar on the bottom of it shining in my face. I felt nicely full this time as we had taken our time over it, this buffet was no where near as good as the one in Monte Carlo though.

We met up with the girls at the front of the Belagio at half 7 and watched the fountain show which was pretty cool. We wandered around the casinos again gambling here and there, I managed to lose all but $5 of last nights winnings so did Helen. I was nackered by 10 so Laura and I struggled to walk back to the motel with our feet hurting like mad from all the walking we'd been doing and then went to bed.

20/05/09

We were woken up at 0515. I quickly packed my day sack and we left the motel and headed for the back of Excalibur where we boarded the Vision Holidays Tour Bus. Our tour guide was a Mexican and the way he said everything was hillarious. We stopped off at Route 66 and the Hoover Dam on the way. Hoover Dam was pretty impressive, apparently it used enough concrete to build a freeway from San Fransisco to New York. The resevoir was quite low and we could see where they had had to use the sillway in 96 as there was white line running along the side of all the rocks.

Other that those two stops I pretty much slept the entire way. We arrived at the Grand Canyon at about 2pm and had 45 minutes to check it out at the first lookout, where we saw a couple of Condors. We then drove to Mathers Point where we had another look at it. It is very big, although we have been told by Greg from our Ayers Rock tour that it is not in fact a canyon but a gorge. We could see to the other side, 80 miles away. Once we'd stopped there for 50 minutes we boarded the bus again and drove all the way back to Vegas. One hell of a long bus ride, but kind of glad we did it. I attempted to sleep on the way back but had no luck. We were all shattered when we got back so went straight to bed.

21/05/09

Didn't wake up until 11, and found the others sun bathing outside. I noticed my skin had dried out badly due to all the air conditioning so I had to slap on some moisturiser. We packed our things away and just managed to make it in time for the midday checkout. We put our things in storage and made the long hot journey to the strip one last time to Pat and Rich could have one last gamble and the girls could pick up a few souveniers. It was so hot, I took a 2 litre bottle of water with me which I necked very quickly and then bought some more. I ended up having to go to the 'restrooms' every 20 minutes. We stopped off at the MGM Grand to check out the lions and then got a Jack in the Box each before we phoned up the guy that gave us a lift to the Motel and got him to pick us up at about half 3.

We were at the greyhound terminal at about 4, ready for our bus ride at 5, and were told that we needed to buy a $5 dollar pass to guarantee our seat on the bus even though we had booked and paid for our tickets nearly a month ago. They sell as many tickets as they like and if you don't manage to get on the bus you're stuffed and have to wait for the next one. One guy had already failed to get on 2 in a row. We lucked out and all managed to get on the bus. I don't see why they don't just stop selling tickets for the ride once all the available seats are gone.

I'm now starting to see why Americans manage to get so fat, the only places I've seen to get food the entire day are burger joints. Pat and Rich had had 5 burgers each in the past day and a half, it's ridiculous. We got in to LA at about 11 and got in the queue as early as possible to get a place on the bus to San Fransisco. I went to the toiets and waited for the cleaner to dissappear before I cleaned my teeth in there and then sat in the edge with my feet in the sink trying to wash the black marks off them. As I was sitting there the cleaner came back and scowled at me and wasn't impressed that I found it funny.