Vegas Part 1

"Ladies and Gentleman, Good Morning and welcome to London's Gatwick Airport the temperature is 11 degrees, we remind you to please remain seated until the Captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign."

The now fuel depleted 747-400 Vegas Special Chav Edition (without premium economy refurb or power outlets for laptops) speedily taxis to gate 24.

Purple neon light eminates from the cieling, I ponder if I am staring at a Hard Rock Hotel towel? That was the last purple thing I saw in Vegas. I can barely stand up. I was taking absolutely no chances this flight home with work the next morning. I decided the best course of action was to abuse my medical degree.

No fewer than 2 different hypnotic medications were digested within 10 minutes of departure from McCarran airport in the Nevada desert and now I was unsteady on my feet as i reached for my carry on BUT I had slept the entire 10 hours. Or at least I think i slept it was hard to tell these pills cause amnesia, I could have been awake for 10 hours and now just could not remember. Either way I was in a bad mood to be home in London after 10 days of what can only be described as heaven.

The stewardess irritated me further - "We know you have a choice in your travels and we thank you for choosing Virgin Atlantic."

Really a choice? Who else flies direct to Vegas? Hmm that would be nobody.

The cold iphone had not been touched in a while, it took some time to power up. Contacts. Recent. Nadir. Dial. Photo of Nadir eating Boa Steak pops up on screen. Dialing. I hear Nadir.

"Yo Steve Wynn AKA Dr Sharawi I am home, how you doing?" I joked.

"Hey welcome home, I miss vegas bad and I have a flat tire, the consultant is going to have my ass!" Nadir sounded similarly pissed off.

"So just call in that you can't get to work till this afternoon."

"This isn't psychiatry man, I am an anaesthetist, I don't think you understand I'm actually important unlike you. I have to get there."

"Ok go get a cab into work and call the AA to do your tire later, I am at bag reclaim I have to go. Cheer up, things could be worse dude - you could be Kiran."

"True, speak later"

End Call.

Ok rewind one week to a very different morning conversation.

"Yo Bret Michaels are you awake?" Nadir stands over me getting up from his bed on the other side of the Hard Rock hotel room.

"I am now you Rock of Love fanatic, you do realise it is 6 am and we are on holiday?"

There is simply no way around jet lag, our bodies think it is 2 PM.

"Right so this is the plan, has Rock of Love 3 downloaded yet?" Nadir walks to the bathroom and I can hear him releasing a torrent of fluid into the toilet from his immature bladder.

"Yup Rock of Love the Bang Bus is ready to watch if you want." Downloads are super fast on American soil it seems.

I get out of my extremely comfy bed and I am dehydrated from the freezing air con and another late night of poker and watching Vegas's finest ladies dressed as school girls parade through the hotel.

"Ok I'm going downstairs to get starbucks, what do you want?" I grab my hotel key card.

"Get me a caramel latte, hold the whipped cream." I recall why the Americans called Nadir a fag in the elevator last time we were in the hotel.

"Righttttt, I will be back, don't start a Skype with your parents or Suha (his girlfriend), it is TOO BLOODY EARLY! Do you hear me?"

I leave the room, go down one floor, and the elevator doors open out into Starbucks, hard rock music is in fact playing at 6 am, this place is insane.

I leave the aforementioned coffee Mecca with a hot chocolate and caramel latte and take them to the room. I can hear him talking in the room before I enter. Unlike the last trip he is in fact not slagging me off for dragging him on his birthday to a strip club. But he is on skype to his girlfriend, and because I also love her I let it slide for 30 minutes, whilst I sip my drink in bed and listen to how much he loves and misses his "bug" - must be a Sudanese thing!?

He closes Skype and we proceed to watch Rock of Love 3 till about 9 am. Hard Core Sluts parade with no clothes on around Bret Michaels in an attempt to outdo each other, it is not too disimilar to what we see when we then go to the pool.

The sun beats down on us as we lay out at the HRH pool and waitresses with impossibly small waists, long legs and huge fake breasts offer us "poolside service." It soon becomes apparent that there is no point in saying a million times a minute to each other, "Oh my GAWD did you see that?!"

By lunch time we have had enough sun and we go for lunch, we order salads, but these are not European salads, they are American salads, they actually have food in them, not just iceberg lettuce. And they taste AMAZING.

The afternoon is spent chatting to interesting and funny poker dealers and poker room staff like Matt and Alexis. Everyone is fun and smart and witty. This is definitely not Luton town's very own casino. Yuk.

We go up and down in the winnings and losses of cash poker and enter small tournaments and even win a few. Work is forgotten. Being a trainee doctor in an unfair and demoralised national health service is forgotten. Bad weather is forgotten. Bad food is forgotten. That big ALL in push of the chips which gets called and blows the other player out the game is REMEMBERED.

Later we go to the airfield in North Las Vegas, we meet an enthusiastic and friendly instructor called Chase. I comment that I have not heard such a cool name since Michael Knight. We like him he gets our stupid South Park humour. I fly my best friend over one of the World's great wonders, the Grand Canyon. I refill the Cirrus 310 horse power plane after almost 2.5 hours of engine time, it comes to the same amount to fill half my car at home.

Dinner is approaching - Samba, Brazillian Rodizio is the order of the day at the Mirage hotel. It is packed. The food is amazing. We consider coming back every night, but we don't.

Collectively we have partied, drunk with, played poker with and danced and eaten with Gautam, his stunning wife and Kiran. We have heard about Katie's cats and her evolving Vegas modelling career. We saw her amazing blue eyes were bigger than her stomach at Lavo. I gave probably very bad dating advice to the one they call Joli!

Chase has guided us through Vegas airspace. We have skyped with Sally, Mrs and Dr Sharawi Senior and my parents. We fell in love with and fell out of love with the Monopoly 1 cent slot machine. We cashed in our 5 dollar comp at Mr Lucky's for some tasty beef sliders, whilst a film crew ignored us and filmed some MTV reality TV show.

We missed Mash "I raise All in with my great hand 7 - 2 offsuit" and Jez "Why do you make me play and win 1000s of dollars in poker till 3 am whilst you bastards sleep, I just want to go back to bed!"

We missed Maninder who said she was almost definitely coming until she admitted she was a fibber. We thought how great Lee was in getting us lounge access. I found that you can have overwhelming chemistry with someone you meet for a VERY brief time in strange circumstances. ;)

Steve Wynn proved to me that he really is as nasty as everyone says he is. 3 Blue Men showed me that I had forgotten how good it was to dance to KLF. I ate amazing food by the lake of dreams sitting beside Stephanie Seymour. Stephanie made me look good in XS. Cara taught me what Tiki is. Karen and Rachael kept my tired spirits up by texting me every day encouraging me to have more fun! AS if i needed encouragement.

Mike promised me that I might be able to meet his great Uncle, my hero, Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 one day.

What I think I learnt was what I think I and you already knew - was that I live for vacations. Well vacations as good as this.