Glitz, Glamour, Movie stars and all the trimmings that go with them are what we and you probably expected from the world famous Hollywood and LA. Sorry to disappoint you but the truth is a much harsher reality.

Arriving in LA early morning around 8am thought it odd that there were few (meaning 4 maximum) around LA Downtown, or city centre as we know it. The main spread of hotels and motels was in the Hollywood area and then the pricey ones in Beverly hills. Hollywood is in between L.A. downtown and Beverly Hills, so we chose this as the best option as our base.

We drove around a few areas of Hollywood until we found what seemed to be the best area, we say the best as the everywhere seemed to be dirty and run down, you know the kind of place with bars on the windows and metal shutters over the shops covered in spray paint! We were tired though as we had driven through part f the night so we thought it may look better after a rest.

Once in our room we wanted some info from the web and proceeded to unpack the lap top to get this, but on doing so found that part of the screen had gone caput and put a black circle the size of a cup in the middle of the screen. Otherwise known as our day just went t*** up!!! The majority of that day was spent trying to sort the warranty out, which we had an American number for as it was world wide warranty, but we got through to India instead of America! We will let you work out how the rest of that conversation went! All that pretty much wiped out our day other than for a short trip to the supermarket for some food for the next few days.

Day 2 we went in search of a post office / shop / house, or whatever this Sate/ County decided to call them as we are getting confused now with all the places we have been. This again was complicated situation as they don’t have a sign outside, they just have it carved into the stone on the front of the building 3 LEVELS up! What an obvious place to look how stupid of us on the ground not to think of looking up there…….

With some hope of better surroundings we ventured off in search of the much famous ‘Beverly Hills’, mainly famous for the Eddie Murphy movies ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and maybe more so for the ‘Regent Beverly Wilshire’ hotel or ‘Rodeo Drive’ both used in the film ‘Pretty women’. Beverly Hills was a world apart from the Hollywood area we were in, it was clean and bright with rows and rows of nice streets and nice houses off of the main road. Rodeo drive as expected was pretentious but nice at the same time and a definite experience to meander down the road taking in it all in. The surrounds of Rodeo drive are also well kept shop fronts and streets but still not quite in the same league.

At the bottom of Rodeo drive is the ‘Regent Beverly Wilshire’, but unless you know its exact address or accidentally end up stood in the set back doorway looking at the sign on the door, you would have no idea where it was. That’s right it has no name, markings or anything flash about it to give a clue its there. Very nice as it is once you find it, it in n way resembles the outer of the one used in the film. We think they used a different one and sneaked the name in! Anyhow all in all Beverly hills is pretty nice and although pricey, not as pricey as we had expected. But that didn’t make us buy anything!!!

Now into the early evening we drove back down Hollywood Boulevard as this was where we were staying, which is also the street the with the stars and names on the floor. We had a brief wonder around one end just to get our bearings for when we came here properly to do the ‘Walk of Fame’ properly.

On our third day we had a day around L.A. downtown planned, we had to catch a tube into the centre as driving was proving to be a nightmare around here. When we got out of Union station in the centre there was noting around there than roads and freeways (motorways). The map we had indicated a fashion district and little Tokyo as the areas for shops and some sights of the financial district along the way. The walk was a bit of a distance but not too bad, along the way we went through several areas completely swarmed with immigrants mainly from Mexico. The shops were nothing but tat shops and we seemed to be the only English speaking people around, but hey that’s not a first! We ventured on until we found the Fashion District. To our horror this was worse than what we had just come through, the Immigrants had completely taken over the entire city centre! And no that is not an exaggeration, this place was horrendous. They were even fighting over the best spot on the pavement to place their trolley that had a bbq in it and lit cooking sweet corn to sell! When we say the best spot we are talking less than ten paving flag apart!! Here we spent little time before deciding to exit and return back to Hollywood.

After such a let down regarding L.A. centre which we are still shocked by we went back to the ‘Walk of Fame’ to find a few names and take some pictures. This area of Hollywood was correctly portrayed in ‘Pretty Women’ as much as that the Prostitutes, Pimps and Drug dealers all hang around in this area. Mix in most of the homeless population in L.A. a few gangs at every subway station, police cars on every side street and you have the real Hollywood. Not the red carpet you expected hey!?! The souvenir shops as have had there day and really need to get some decent goods in to sell, something that does the films justice. The Kodak theatre where the hand and foot prints of some stars are set in concrete is about the best area of Hollywood, and the nicest looking which it should be as its where some of the premieres are held.

We got some good pictures of a variety of names in the stars, but were surprised to see that ‘Julia Roberts’, ‘Clint Eastwood’, Elvis Presley’, ‘Richard Gear’, and a few others were not amongst the stars, but the ‘Simpson’s’ had made it in!?! Surely there is something wrong there??????

Our fourth and last day before we left America was the usual sort out and post day, we boxed up and posted anything we didn’t need for the rest of the trip along with any goodies we had bought. From here we took a near by road to view the ‘HOLLYWOOD’ sign which is actually quite difficult, made so because the city is so polluted that anything any sort of distance away is obscured by smog! We did manage to see it and get pics but you will see the grey colour when you look at the picture of the sign.

Having run the computer company again we eventually after three days and a lot of hours on the phone got to speak to an American on that American number about the Lap top, who in less than five minutes had the warranty sorted the answers given we knew what to do to get it repaired when we reach Asia. The less said about that the better as just writing about that experience is frustrating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something we have learnt about a lot of America is this place is very very complicated in so many ways that we are probably best telling you when we get back, but lets just say ‘Socially disturbed’ is a phrase we have come to know well.

So now we have shattered any illusions you and we had about L.A. and Hollywood, we are ready to leave America and head to Asia.

The road trips have been long, fun, interesting, but tiring and we are ready for a rest! But don’t worry we will keep it interesting so you wont get bored!