VEGAS: 25th August (General)

Day/Night 9: Thursday 25th August (General)

With 15 hours in bed and not due to a hangover, I reckon I really needed that sleep! Yesterday afternoon signalled a full week in Vegas consisting of 28 poker sessions varying between 30 minutes and 4 hours and an insane amount of walking. Yesterday, was also where I suffered my biggest loss in one day and although it wasn't a huge amount ($157) I figured that I just needed a day away from the felt. Today, then, was all about doing that non-poker stuff that just had to be done while I was in Vegas and while I had the chance:

11:30AM - After emailing home and reading that the missus really wanted me to go visit a show, I decide to zip across the street to The Mirage to book a seat to see the Cirque De Soleil Show: Love.

12:15PM - I jump on a Deuce Bus, outside the Venetian, with the intention of paying $3 to go to Fremont Street but am told that a ticket costs $5 for a one-way trip and $7 for 24 hours! (No prizes for figuring out what is the best value-for-money.) Consequently, I decide to jump off the bus at Riviera in order to finally pick up $1 chips from the 3 casinos in the north part of the strip before heading onto Fremont Street. (As the cost of riding the bus for 24 hours is so cheap, I'm now beginning to understand why the monrail is so quiet.)

12:20PM - After picking up a $1 chip from the fairly nondescript Riviera, I cross the street to Circus Circus and do the same over there.

12:30PM - I start the long hot walk up to Stratosphere and it's a lot tougher than you might think. The heat is incredible and apart from the ghostly view of the abandoned Sahara there is just not much to look at in this part of town at all. I'm surprised to see a homeless person, uncovered by any sort of shade, begging at the side of the road; with not many people out and about on this stretch it has to be one of the worst places in Vegas to beg.

1PM - I pick up the $1 chip from Stratosphere and then cross the street to pick up another Deuce Bus to do the Fremont Experience once and for all. At the bus-stop I get chatting to a strange woman who is visiting Vegas from Albuquerque, New Mexico, in order to work but is finding it very difficult to find anything but it's always a bit unnerving when you get chatting to someone and they suddenly ask you if you have any spare lose change.

1:15PM - I arrive at Fremont Street and, after looking up at the huge curved roof that covers the place with its thousands of light-bulbs, decide that to experience the experience properly it would probably have been wiser to have visited in the evening. Nevertheless, after visiting 29 casinos in a week, visiting 9 new ones just doesn't have the same appeal as when I first touched down and this ends up being a flying visit that just involves picking up $1 chips from each one - and I do this within the hour.

2:15PM - I grab a front seat at the top of the Deuce Bus to head on back to the strip and get to see a bit more of Vegas. There are plenty of dodgy looking establishments including a fair share of strip-clubs and cheap-looking bars. It's fairly characterless and all just a bit seedy and I can't see why anyone would ever come to Vegas on holiday to frequent these dives. The tower of the Stratosphere dominates the view and I look up and see the ride they call Insanity at the top. I tell myself that I really need to take that ride before I leave - but unfortunately, I chicken out and never get round to actually getting up there.

3PM - I get off at the Fashion-Show Mall and head on over to Encore to pick up a $1 chip but am disappointed to discover that it's exactly the same as the ones they use at Wynn. After then picking up a copy of Bluff Magazine from Wynn it's a walk back to Harrah's for a cool beer and relaxation.

4PM - I decide that visiting one show while out in Vegas is not enough. Quite a few people have mentioned Penn & Teller while I've been out here so I grab a shuttle over to the Rio to buy a ticket for the Saturday evening show.

4:30PM - While out at the Rio I figure it's an opportunity to pick up three $1 chips from Rio, Gold Coast and Palms. The casinos seem close together but just the walk from place to place as a round trip is an absolute killer in the heat. The wide open roads, car-parks and the driveway up to the Palms that you have to traverse really does mean the distance travelled between them is more than you think and it definitely beats the stretch covered from Circus Circus to Stratosphere for exhaustion.

5:30PM - I take the shuttle back to Bally's and take another rest at Harrah's.

8:00PM - After all that walking, I've built up an appetite and so set off to a place where I've heard they know how to feed their customers - it's the Hash House A Go Go at Imperial Palace. I am NOT disappointed. Prior to being served the biggest burger I've ever been served in my life, the waiter asks if he could tempt me with one of their special biscuits. This is no "cookie" but a delicious sponge-type cake complete with maple syrup and butter. After eating just half of the biscuit, and not wanting to ruin my appetite completely, the huge burger arrives acompanied by melted cheese and mushrooms. Now I've been known to eat large portions of food and even though I purposely hadn't eaten all day (to build up my appetite for this meal) I was struggling at the half-way stage, managed to eat another quarter but just had to leave the rest. I hate to leave any food after paying for a meal at a restaurant but I totally got my money's worth here. Oh, and the biscuit (delicious sponge-cake) was, indeed, complimentary - I wasn't charged a penny for this!

9PM - Stuffed, bloated and exhausted I'm out for the count as soon as my head hits the pillow.

---------------

Tomorrow, it would be back at the poker tables.