Reading about Safari Club International holding its Ultimate Hunters’ Market in Las Vegas, I remembered how much I detested Las Vegas when I visited three years ago. SCI gives its members “an opportunity to compete with other trophy hunters to earn awards for killing the largest or most types of animals”. The rarer the better, according to the idiots who take part. No matter that 45 major airlines have banned the transport of some or all types of hunting trophies. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, remember?

When I checked into my hotel on that four miles of monstrosity known as the Strip, I was handed a key card adorned with a photograph of a pouting bikini-clad woman, with a telephone number underneath, urging me to call if I wanted to “party”. In my room I found several leaflets telling me I could order a “girl” to my room to keep me company. Outside were several men wearing T-shirts advertising various sex entertainment establishments.

Locals will occasionally tell you that this is not the “real” Las Vegas, perhaps adding that the Strip isn’t even within the city limits. But the Strip is all that most outsiders ever experience, and it certainly felt real to me.

After a relaxing hour on my kingsize bed listening to the screaming stag party in the room next to me, I decided to give up on the jet lag and head downstairs for something to eat. It was 3pm. I had to fight my way through crowds of gamblers, many on motorised scooters (often not because of actual disabilities, I later discovered, but sheer laziness) smoking (yes, casino hotels allows smoking indoors), with giant soft drink containers in the holder, and burgers or popcorn on their laps. They were milling around between slot machines and poker tables, looking broke, miserable and addicted. I looked for somewhere to eat, reckoning there was no point in leaving the hotel as the Strip merely connects you to other hotels and shopping malls, all as grotesque as each other, and saw something that literally took my breath away. There was an actual McDonald’s in the actual hotel, and the queue for it was massive.

I did not have to eat there, of course, as I had other choices. There were three Starbucks, one Fatburger and a Dunkin’ Donuts.

I had travelled to Nevada to research the sex trade (it is the only state in the US with legal brothels) but there is more to Vegas than strippers, gambling and gangsters.

There are, for example, the wedding chapels. For $350 you could have use of the Elvis Presley Graceland wedding chapel, inside the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, for 45 minutes, get married, then use your complimentary tickets to visit the Elvis exhibition in some other resort and casino, all without stepping outside at all. But don’t worry about the lack of exercise, as you will find yourself walking at least five miles each day just getting from your hotel room to the lift. Once in the lift, the sounds of Cirque du Soleil, Blues Brothers, or whichever “showtime experience” is being advertised, will ensure you do not relax for one minute.

Sunset in the Nevada desert is a thing of rare beauty, but on the Strip there is literally nowhere to see it

Then there are the “all you can eat” restaurants, where folk pile five kilos of steak on their plates, that don’t have a liquor licence. Most men walk around in flip-flops, and the women are in head-to-toe stretchy tracksuits, with those stupid bum bags round their waists.

Sunset in the Nevada desert is a thing of rare beauty, but on the Strip there is literally nowhere to see it. Having to walk through the ugliest malls in the world to get to your hotel is bad enough, but queueing an hour for a taxi to then have to listen to the driver tell you how he is a budding actor/screenwriter/hand model is not much better.

The whole place is so ugly it is no wonder many visitors say they would never go again. Given a choice between a week in Vegas and one in a silent, alcohol-free yoga retreat, I would seriously consider the latter. For a whole minute, at least.