Las Vegas

I disliked Las Vegas when we first visited it eleven years ago and I still dislike it.  On the surface it has a glittering, glamorous image but it's all artificial.  Every hotel is pretending to be something else - Caesar's Palace, New York New York, Mandalay, Circus Circus - the list goes on.  We're staying in the Luxor which is built in the form of a huge glass pyramid, with a sphinx and Cleopatra's needle in front of it.  The amount of money spent on these facades is obscene.  The Wynn and Wynn Encore which opened in late 2008 cost $27 billion!

We walked through some of these hotels today (Sue had read in the guide books about some gardens!).  We went to Wynn's, The Bellagio and Caesar's Palace.  The front of each of these is absolutely stunning, beautifully coordinated floor tiles, wall hangings, carpets, glittering chandeliers.  Yet behind this is always the casino - banks of electronic gambling machines, countless roulette wheels, blackjack and craps tables, each one labelled with its minimum and maximum stakes - $10, $500; $300, $10,000.  Then you pass packed tables of serious looking men playing poker - "No Limit Texas Hold 'Em".  Every one of these casinos is the same, no matter what the hotel attached to it is pretending to be!

Gambling totally permeates the whole city.  You go into a pharmacy and there are half a dozen gambling machines next to the hair products aisle!  You call for some gas and there are gambling machines just inside the door!  There don't seem to be any ordinary hotels, every one seems to come with a casino!

It seems to epitomise materialism at its worst.  Every aspect of the place is concerned with the pursuit of money, either by the capitalists or the punters.

But it is pretty at night!