Las Vegas

Las Vegas is like catnip for bogans. Thus spake Kip, and worryingly, it seemed to be the case. Dumped in the middle of the desert where there should rightly be little more than a few tumbleweeds, Vegas sits like a wart on the sparse and unforgiving landscape.

There seems no better symbol of American excess than building here a place named 'meadows' and subsidising it by draining water from all available sources at a terrifying rate and peddling sleaze, debauch, and endless filth while the sum of these parts is self-destructing at an alarming rate, yet not slowing down or even recognising any problem.

Moreover, this very same grotesque essence has an even more unspeakably vile exterior, plastic imitations of some of the world's most recognizable icons garishly reproduced for entirely pointless consumption, as any history, significance, elegance or cultural import is lost in their tawdry imitation. Baudrillard would have a fit. The Rialto Bridge, Eiffel Tower, Brooklyn Bridge, Trevi Fountain - it goes on. More depressing was not the fact that these paltry imitations existed, but the way in which they were peddled; stereotypes extrapolated out into hideous themes such that each great history was rendered as insipid and institutionalised as a McDonalds playground.

As a story of decay and impending fiscal failure, however, I doubt I'd have noticed the signs; mainly, the stalled construction of several buildings, were it not for our particularly excitable cab driver who gave us a 20 minute history of Vegas, detailing its rise and fall from grace, as well as that of his own; farm owner, neighbour of Mark Twain, gold prospector, real estate magnate - now cab driver, 200k in debt, and hunting down his Czechoslovakian bride from the internet.

Indeed, given the traffic around the place, the constant stream of old people whittling away at their pensions, families sending Dad off to win big while they took in the 'sights', the odd high-roller and a lot of bro-typical gentlemen looking for the infamous good time, I can only imagine quite how vulgar the place must have been in its heyday.

You might have gathered by now, that I was not a huge fan of Vegas. Indeed, simply walking around made me feel dirty. The place was coated in grime and desert dust, bankrupty billboards, and people walking around in parody t-shirts strained around their engorged paunches and just generally consuming at a rate only America could have conceived. Small Mexicans flicking cards and looking like they lost their souls many years ago offered flyers for women who could arrive in 20 minutes and around every corner was another strip club, fast food chain or Casino - not that the strip has any corners.

By far the best part of Vegas was downtown where our hostel was (but still only about 5 minutes from the strip). Downtown was home to some actually quite enjoyable eateries, desert-vibe, and all the pawn stores one could want to get those last few dollars for the ever-imminent win on the slots.

Speaking of which, in the grand tradition of manly-gambling, Otto embarked upon the slots with a humble dollar our first night in Vegas. This dollar soon turned into $40, which was then turned into $80 on the roulette table. Winnings pocketed and Vegas 'beaten', we embarked upon a pawn-store hunt in search of an $80 guitar so he could vent his poet's soul and hopefully win over some comely fellow travelers. While the latter is yet to eventuate, in our search of the perfect guitar we stumbled across the pawn shop from 'Pawn Stars' and I insisted we go in search of Chum-Lee. While we got inside, Chum Lee was not around, nor was there an affordable guitar. Downtrodden but glad to be able to claim to have queued to get into a pawn store - FROM TV (I think this is called living the American dream), we eventually found a guitar and all was well.

One of the stranger pressures of traveling is the urge to properly experience where ever it is that you are visiting. Given my lack of enthusiasm for Vegas, I feared that I would fail to get this experience, turned off as am by the vulgar excesses that seem to inform it. This made me sad.

I need not have feared, however, as hosteling absolution was at hand.

As Kip and Otto chose to catch up on some post-Coachella sleep debt, I opted to can-on with some other hostel mates. We were led by the mysterious Itai, a man who we discovered, after he led us around Vegas not going anywhere in particular for a good couple of hours, was not actually employed by the hostel. Rather, he was a party-enthusiast from Israel who'd been in town for a week. After not being allowed into a place full of high-rolling bogans and prostitutes because we had failed the dress code, we managed to get into a place full of low-rolling bogans and prostitutes. Hmmm.

Realising the doomed quality of our venture, a small splinter group left to enjoy some carousing else where. This was far more successful, with particularly notable our venture into the basement of the MGM casino for some authentic beer pong.

While not quite a Vegas experience, it was still ample fun, but the dream eluded me.

Thankfully there was still time.

Indeed, the Vegas experience finally came to pass the morning after the next day, when with a large and painful bump on my temple, no money in my wallet, no pants on, still drunk and in someone else's room, I awoke full of evils and with no recollection of half the night. I put this mainly down to traveling around in the back of a van with an illegal amount of people, stopping at 7-11 for booze and buying 'Loco', a vast can of 12% poison that tasted like the diabolical spawn of Donaghy Estate champagne and cold medicine. Simply evil.

Fleeting recollections have Otto being re-dressed by a dancing bar maid and Kip falling asleep on a bus until he was at the ass end of no-where in downtown Vegas at 4am in the morning.

Vegas, baby.