Day 4
31st Dec, Saturday
Day of Las Vegas. Till date everybody asks me how your Las Vegas trip was though it was just included in the itinerary just because it was so close from Grand Canyon. We started by 10:00 after a brunch at Mc Donalds. Me and Nikhil observed a truly international integration family there with Black dad, Hispanic mom, chinki looking daughter and desi looking son. Whatever, after a small stop to Kingman, (our return destination after las vegas for the night as hotels in las vegas were too costly for 31st night.) we went to Hoover Dam. It is the most famous dam in the worls (that’s what people say). The construction of dam is huge, but the catchment lake was real small, may be it was deep. But I was a little disappointed as I will never forget the beautiful Maithan dam in Jharkhand. Well this also separated two states. On one side of the river is Arizona, and Nevada on the other side. And to make it even more funny, they had different times. It was Pacific Time in Nevada and Mountain Time in Arizona. And theer were two adjacent clock towers to put finger in your eyes and show you that. I know I am sounding a bit negative here, but that’s what my opinion is though everybody differs. For everybody else, may be the 1000+ people there, it was the best that they had seen. Surely it was an architectural wonder.
We started toward vegas again and in an hour we could see the glittering lights of the city. It was awesome. I was stuck by it. The lights, the hip hop, the buzz I was totally in it. Finally we reached the city. By this time we were tired of Mexican, American or Italian food and were craving for some desi thing. So we found out a restaurant “Gandhi” from the yellow pages and went there. Don’t know why they named that but it was an out and out non veg joint. They had thalis with the names delhi thali, Bombay thali, Calcutta thali, madras thali etc. Who named them I don’t understand but he/she am sure has never seen a Bengali in his/her life. Calcutta Thali was vegetarian. I thought not even the vegetarian Bengalis of Bengal are pure vegetarians. Haha. Whatever, there was no way I was going to show my regional love and eat that veggie food. I took delhi thali instead though most of my friends faithfully stuck to their Bombay thali. Delhi thali was surely the best, because I ate it. It had chicken tandoori, freshly taken off the oven and mutton palak. It was truly very good. The dessert was mango custad which was equally delicious. Finally the thing I was craving for, and miss here daily : Saunf. I took a handful of that.
Then we were off to see the town. I bought a small bell (like we use for puja) but only thing is that it had full las vegas written and painted on it with roulette, dice, cards pictures on all the sides so that If I start praying to goddess with that, I am pretty sure that next year you will find me in place of mahishasura in all the durga puja pandals.
Now started the problems. Traffic was moving at even slower than snails pace and there was jam everywhere. We decided to park our cars at famous casino Aladdin’s parking lot. The parking lot itself was 8 storeys so now you can imagine what the hotel is. Google and find out. After going till 4th floor, we here hushed away saying the parking was full. One car got place there. Now began the hotch potch. We got parking around a mile away at MGM’s parking lot. And thus we got separated. We decided to enjoy in the divided groups only and me parag and mugdha did some gambling at MGM’s. Obviously, how can I ever be lucky. But it was just 2 $ we gambled for.
Then we started off to their place. They were at aladdin’s. After around 2 hours of searching, inspite of the mobile phones, it took so long. As there were 3 similar looking entrances and there was total confusion. Finally we got together in aladdin’s. It was wonderful. They had created a full Arabic town inside and they had cycle rickshaws to travel too. And who else, but a sardarji was sitting on it. We came out to the road, where there were some crores of people. They were having beer in all weird shapes of bottles u could ever see. Eiffel tower, football, hookah, beakers etc etc. All sort of wired make-ups and clothing was common and we were feeling out of place. But slowly it didn’t matter anymore. Opposite to us was the famous Bellagio hotel where ocean’s 11 was shot and next to it was Caesar’s Palace, where Celine Dion, my fav singer was performing that night. I was happy to see it from outside itself.
Racism again: I saw 4 afro Americans in black clothes taking a snap against the black road as background with even their mouth shut. Why can’t they take a blackboard photo instead? J
It was the 100th year of las vegas. And finally at the stroke of midnight, people started shouting like crazy and I saw the best ever fireworks display in my life. I am in love with the place and I am already planning my next trip there.
After that, there was again traffic jam and it took us 1 hour just to get from 7th floor of parking lot to
First floor. Finally after 2 hours we were out of the town and were heading for Kingman, our night halt, at around 2:30 am. We lost another hour at the state border and finally when we reached the pre booked hotel at 5:30 am local time, they said, they thought we won’t come and gave it away. We gave them the worst of shouting. And yes, I shouted too.(Unlike me though). But then we started searching for another hotel. Thankfully, we got some motel, and good gracious, it was an Indian patel uncle ka motel. He agreed to extyend the checkout time till 1:00 pm in afternoon instead of usual 11 am. That’s what Indians are for. He was a great help and inspite of the helplessness, he charged very nominal rates.
Oh I forgot, it was 1st jan 2006 already. But better keep this with the 31st.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Day of Las Vegas. Till date everybody asks me how your Las Vegas trip was though it was just included in the itinerary just because it was so close from Grand Canyon. We started by 10:00 after a brunch at Mc Donalds. Me and Nikhil observed a truly international integration family there with Black dad, Hispanic mom, chinki looking daughter and desi looking son. Whatever, after a small stop to Kingman, (our return destination after las vegas for the night as hotels in las vegas were too costly for 31st night.) we went to Hoover Dam. It is the most famous dam in the worls (that’s what people say). The construction of dam is huge, but the catchment lake was real small, may be it was deep. But I was a little disappointed as I will never forget the beautiful Maithan dam in Jharkhand. Well this also separated two states. On one side of the river is Arizona, and Nevada on the other side. And to make it even more funny, they had different times. It was Pacific Time in Nevada and Mountain Time in Arizona. And theer were two adjacent clock towers to put finger in your eyes and show you that. I know I am sounding a bit negative here, but that’s what my opinion is though everybody differs. For everybody else, may be the 1000+ people there, it was the best that they had seen. Surely it was an architectural wonder.
We started toward vegas again and in an hour we could see the glittering lights of the city. It was awesome. I was stuck by it. The lights, the hip hop, the buzz I was totally in it. Finally we reached the city. By this time we were tired of Mexican, American or Italian food and were craving for some desi thing. So we found out a restaurant “Gandhi” from the yellow pages and went there. Don’t know why they named that but it was an out and out non veg joint. They had thalis with the names delhi thali, Bombay thali, Calcutta thali, madras thali etc. Who named them I don’t understand but he/she am sure has never seen a Bengali in his/her life. Calcutta Thali was vegetarian. I thought not even the vegetarian Bengalis of Bengal are pure vegetarians. Haha. Whatever, there was no way I was going to show my regional love and eat that veggie food. I took delhi thali instead though most of my friends faithfully stuck to their Bombay thali. Delhi thali was surely the best, because I ate it. It had chicken tandoori, freshly taken off the oven and mutton palak. It was truly very good. The dessert was mango custad which was equally delicious. Finally the thing I was craving for, and miss here daily : Saunf. I took a handful of that.
Then we were off to see the town. I bought a small bell (like we use for puja) but only thing is that it had full las vegas written and painted on it with roulette, dice, cards pictures on all the sides so that If I start praying to goddess with that, I am pretty sure that next year you will find me in place of mahishasura in all the durga puja pandals.
Now started the problems. Traffic was moving at even slower than snails pace and there was jam everywhere. We decided to park our cars at famous casino Aladdin’s parking lot. The parking lot itself was 8 storeys so now you can imagine what the hotel is. Google and find out. After going till 4th floor, we here hushed away saying the parking was full. One car got place there. Now began the hotch potch. We got parking around a mile away at MGM’s parking lot. And thus we got separated. We decided to enjoy in the divided groups only and me parag and mugdha did some gambling at MGM’s. Obviously, how can I ever be lucky. But it was just 2 $ we gambled for.
Then we started off to their place. They were at aladdin’s. After around 2 hours of searching, inspite of the mobile phones, it took so long. As there were 3 similar looking entrances and there was total confusion. Finally we got together in aladdin’s. It was wonderful. They had created a full Arabic town inside and they had cycle rickshaws to travel too. And who else, but a sardarji was sitting on it. We came out to the road, where there were some crores of people. They were having beer in all weird shapes of bottles u could ever see. Eiffel tower, football, hookah, beakers etc etc. All sort of wired make-ups and clothing was common and we were feeling out of place. But slowly it didn’t matter anymore. Opposite to us was the famous Bellagio hotel where ocean’s 11 was shot and next to it was Caesar’s Palace, where Celine Dion, my fav singer was performing that night. I was happy to see it from outside itself.
Racism again: I saw 4 afro Americans in black clothes taking a snap against the black road as background with even their mouth shut. Why can’t they take a blackboard photo instead? J
It was the 100th year of las vegas. And finally at the stroke of midnight, people started shouting like crazy and I saw the best ever fireworks display in my life. I am in love with the place and I am already planning my next trip there.
After that, there was again traffic jam and it took us 1 hour just to get from 7th floor of parking lot to
First floor. Finally after 2 hours we were out of the town and were heading for Kingman, our night halt, at around 2:30 am. We lost another hour at the state border and finally when we reached the pre booked hotel at 5:30 am local time, they said, they thought we won’t come and gave it away. We gave them the worst of shouting. And yes, I shouted too.(Unlike me though). But then we started searching for another hotel. Thankfully, we got some motel, and good gracious, it was an Indian patel uncle ka motel. He agreed to extyend the checkout time till 1:00 pm in afternoon instead of usual 11 am. That’s what Indians are for. He was a great help and inspite of the helplessness, he charged very nominal rates.
Oh I forgot, it was 1st jan 2006 already. But better keep this with the 31st.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
posted by Sandipan Mitra | 6:20 PM
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