Gondoliers at the Venetian

Tthe original Temple of Sin

Tthe Sphinx at Luxor

Vegas at dusk

Glitzy lights on the Strip

Bellagio’s dancing fountains

The old lady across our seat withdrew her prayer beads from her handbag as our airplane taxied for take-off from San Francisco airport. “Maybe she’s on the wrong flight,” my husband speculated, “a sweet old thing like her would be lost in Las Vegas!” However, on landing at Vegas’ swanky McCarran airport, we realised that the ‘sweet old thing’ really knew her way around. She directly made for the slot machines opposite the baggage carousel, and while we cooled our heels waiting for baggage, she got a good half-an-hour of gaming. “I won a hundred bucks!” she beamed at us, sprinting towards the exit with her bags. When last sighted, she was zipping off in a stretch limo while we were a hundred and fiftieth in the line for taxis outside.

It was Friday night, when the world came to Vegas to party. Even the airport was abuzz with manic energy. Inspired by the (geriatric) gamer — that’s what you call casino goers in Vegas, ‘gambler’ would probably be a rude word here — we decided to hit the casinos after checking in. Since the queue outside the hotel wasn’t much shorter than the one at the airport, we figured it would be quicker to just walk down the famous Las Vegas Strip — the boulevard with the brightest lights, best hotels and the happening crowd.

On the Strip, neon ruled. There was so much light, one couldn’t tell night from day. On either side were hotels, each larger and more fantastic than any we’d seen elsewhere in the world. Wynns had a huge mountain with a waterfall set in a rainforest, Mandalay Bay possessed an artificial beach, New York New York had a gigantic roller coaster for tourists to appreciate its façade from closer quarters. We passed real pirate ships, a half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and of course, a giant golden lion outside MGM Grand. Smaller casinos stood cheek- by-jowl with shops and restaurants, offering better betting minimums than the hotel casinos.

But we’d decided to go to the casino at the Venetian. Built like an Italian palace, it had canals and gondolas under arched bridges, painted ceilings and crystal chandeliers. The décor was simply no holds barred — the 25ft high columns lining the main colonnade inside were imported from Italy, the marble floor beneath was an exact replica of the floor of the Venetian chapel of Santa Maria del Rosario.

Other than the continuous ringing of the hundreds of slot machines, the casino was hushed, almost church-like — gaming is very serious business here. Hostesses were moving around with trays brimming with free drinks and smokes, but serious gamers weren’t drinking much. The slot machines were boringly like video games, so we settled down on a Wheel of Fortune table, and began to play. Gambling in a fancy casino is a funny thing — when you describe it, it sounds like a huge yawn, but when you’re there, placing your bets, winning, losing… you don’t want to leave. Calling it quits after dawn, we staggered out only to discover we’d taken a wrong turn inside the hotel, towards the Grand Canal. “Is it morning already?” I slurred to my husband, looking at the blue sky with puffy clouds above. Then we realised it was fake, but a better fake I’d yet to see. Come to think of it, I’d never imagined anyone would think of getting a fake sky inside a hotel.

The next few days, we were to see replicas of many famous and familiar sights from the world over. Most were stunningly accurate, except for the ridiculous Elvis impersonators posing for pictures with tourists for a dollar. As a rule, they were dressed as the King after he’d gone to seed — with unruly sideburns and jowls so heavy that he looked like he’d soon OD on mama’s spaghetti instead of drugs and alcohol.

Later I discovered that the Venetian is the annual venue of Adult Video News Awards (the Oscars of porn flicks). Conventions are an even bigger money spinner than award ceremonies and Las Vegas’ economy actually survives on year-round conventions. For unlike other resort destinations, Las Vegas works on the principle of charging rock bottom rates for rooms and food — thoughtfully leaving tourists with enough cash to gamble away. On the Strip, margaritas in foot-tall glasses cost as much as a regular coffee would elsewhere, while all-you-can-eat buffets in fancy restaurants cost only $20. On weeknights, the best suites in 5-star deluxe properties could cost as little as $100. And rooms in smaller hotels, or the ones off the Strip, are way cheaper.

Vegas wakes up properly only after noon, so whenever we stepped out in the morning, we’d be greeted gladly by scores of shifty looking gents shuffling cards on the pavement. I stopped only once to see — on the cards were pictures of ladies and gents so scantily clad that they made G-strings look decent. Billboards advertised beautiful women riding broncos, mud-wrestling, and doing other interesting things wearing no clothes at all. Sin was everywhere, but then the city has been known as the Temple of Sin long before its neon facades and super-sized hotels came up.

Although Vegas glitters at night like no place else, its gltiz looked a little faded in the unforgiving light of day. The Flamingo, one of the oldest hotels (its owner, Ben ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, is a rumoured mafia don), looked decidedly tacky, while Tropicana, which will soon be imploded to make way for a bigger hotel with a new USP and more rooms, had a brave sign up, saying ‘Thank you for the memories’.

In the evening, it was time to catch one of the fabled Vegas shows. Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian, Cirque du Soliel’s at Bellagio and Le Reve at Wynns, La Femmes at Paris… the list was unending. Le Reve, one of the hottest shows in Vegas, was an amazing exercise in stagecraft — combining swimming, trapeze and dance on a stage that began a hundred feet above us. From here performers on ropes descended to a pool below which had cunningly concealed ramps that could move up and down. Le Reve cost us a packet (tickets were $150 per head) but the prettiest sight in Vegas was free. The Dancing Fountains at the Bellagio (where Ocean’s Twelve was shot) were so spectacular that every half hour, when the fountains foamed up to dance, huge crowds would gather near Bellagio’s lake.

Another show was really creepy — called Bodies, it was advertised as a ‘tasteful’ exhibition of dead bodies and dissected body parts. Incredibly, the show’s doing really well, but I just didn’t have the stomach for it. So that’s Vegas for you. To merely call it excessive is an understatement: you have to experience it to understand what the word truly means.

Our last night in Vegas, I dreamt of a fabulous bet that would unfailingly beat the Wheel of Fortune. But when I awoke, I forgot it instantly, a chimera that I just couldn’t recall, much as I tried. In a way, Vegas is like that dream — an adult Disneyland where you can indulge all possible fantasies, yet so unreal that at the end you’re left with nothing really tangible to remember. It shows you exactly what money can buy (which, I reckon, is practically everything in Vegas), and that once in a while, chasing your chimeras can be more fun than you’d imagined…

Photographs by the author