What a crazy place! We hadn’t planned to go to Las Vegas but while in LA we thought why not. We booked ourselves onto a 2 night 3 day tour which included a day trip to the Grand Canyon.
What with us staying in Chinatown and booking with a local tour operator, it didnt really dawn on us what sort of a tour we had booked up on. So it was quite funny to be part of a Chinese tour package! Of course the guide spoke English as well but it was a kind of ‘translated’ English and the tour almost turned into a ‘Mickey Mouse tour part two‘ what with all the mix ups and stressed out guides!
A quick question: If you buy a bus ticket, should you have to tip the driver for the journey? It’s just we were a bit myth’d at the extra ‘tips’ that the guides demanded on a daily basis. We tried to explain to them that, to us, a tip was an extra gratuity based on service and shouldn’t be an obligatory expense. Of course this was all lost in translation! At one point the guide actually said ‘but this is America…’, to which we replied ‘…but we’re not Americans!’ Anyway we did tip the guide and driver on the second day after the Grand Canyon tour. This was partly due to them demanding the tip but also as they actually did something for it!
Apart from all that, the whole tour was thoroughly enjoyable. Vegas is a crazy place and at the same time really quite civilised! It’s a 24 hour city with no clocks (purposely??) and it is just way too easy to lose track of time, date and where you actually are! In the Venician plaza there is a permanent blue sky with little fluffy clouds. If you spent long enough here you could easily get disoriented. We were staying at The Riviera, hotel and casino. All the hotels are also casinos. The film ‘21‘ was filmed in parts of it and this is the film the tour bus showed on the way! Though it was hard to follow as the sound was turned down low and the subtitles were in Chinese!
Even if you’re not into gambling, which we’re not, there is still plenty to distract you including my favourite hobby, people watching! There’s so many caricatures walking around that it’s impossible to get bored. We’d definitely go back sometime as it’s one hell of a unique crazy place!
The Grand Canyon was amazing. We stopped at the Hoover Dam on the way, which really is a master feat of engineering. I’m fascinated by dams and their structure. In the middle of the hoover dam is where the border lies between Nevada and Arizona, so we were able to cross off another state on our short stop-over in the USA! After this it was about a 4 1/2 hour journey to the Southern rim of the Grand Canyon itself. It is truly massive and you have to really see it to take it all in. No picture could do it justice. The trip was really rushed and we only had 1 hour to have a look around before making the long journey back to Las Vegas. It was actually worth it but it would have been good to have time to do a trek or something. Maybe next time we’ll do a helicopter ride which was out of our budget for this trip.
Next up, Panama…
We went to a baseball game at the Petco park, San Diegos’ baseball team’s (The Padres) home ground. It was a good experience and I actually got asked for ID while buying a beer! Eventually the guy served me after admitting that I “looked like” I was over 30!! I think we’ll definitely go back to San Diego for a longer visit sometime, it’s a great to place to do as much or as little as you like, and you’re almost guaranteed good weather!