Los Angeles is an acquired taste. It is the victim of much snobbery, vide Woody Allen’s comparison
Getting your bearings
I’ve heard you can catch a bus in LA. I’ve never seen one. There are taxis, but don’t anticipate New York’s iconic phalanx of yellow cabs. In LA, you have to telephone for a cab, and the fares on account of the distances — this is the second largest city in the US — can be prohibitive. Rent a car. If you’re committed enough to want the echt LA experience, rent a 1969 Cadillac convertible. Negotiating LA’s freeways and streets, several of which share the same name, can be frustrating. If you have any instinct for self-preservation you will stay off the freeways during the rush hours and out of the way of America’s famously dedicated workforce. Of course, even your ’69 Caddy will probably come equipped with its own officious GPS tracking system that will nag you to your destination.
Driving in LA has its consolations. The views are often spectacular — taupe peaks, gigantic blue skies and the jewel-bright ocean. And then there are the magical street names, so familiar from the movies. None more so than Sunset Boulevard, which, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, “no matter how vulgar and obvious its origin, is quite something.” “I’ll meet you on Sunset…” Hitchens goes on, “It started on Sunset… Make a left on Sunset. You can’t say that doesn’t sound exotic.” Sunset, which runs across the city from east to west, is LA in microcosm, linking the gazillion-dollar haciendas of Beverley Hills and Bel Air, to the candy-coloured sleaze of the Sunset, to the theatres, studios, and guitar shops, oddly dingy receptacles in which are harboured the city’s outsize, precarious ambitions. Sunset was once famous for its prostitutes who gathered at the intersection of Sunset and La Brea, Joan Didion’s “dead centre of nothing”. There are other streets: Mulholland Drive, tracing the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood Hills; Rodeo Drive, with its European pretensions; Ventura Boulevard, so beloved of the Valley girl caricatured by Frank Zappa and countless movies.
The movies
Without the glitterdust of the movies, Los Angeles would be little more than a charmless conurbation wedged like a scar between the glories of mountain and ocean. The Hollywood Walk of Fame (www.losangeles.com has a list of attractions, including those mentioned below) comprises well over 2,000 pointy, salmon-coloured stars set into the footpath along Hollywood Boulevard honouring stars that run the gamut from Orson Welles to Kermit the Frog, Joan Crawford to Paula Abdul. Also on Hollywood Boulevard is Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, an absurd, opulent pagoda that hosts all the major premieres. On any given day, you will find tourists milling around measuring the size of their hands and feet against the stars’, enshrined in cement. Grauman’s theatre is like something out of Las Vegas, an ‘ancient’ Chinese building serenely oblivious to its alien surroundings, to the carnival of grotesques on parade for the entertainment of the reported four million annual tourists.
If, to quote Forster, it is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, and the average Hollywood blockbuster is not enough to convince you of the calibre of Hollywood’s vulgarians, visit their homes. Take the bus tour up into Beverley Hills, Bel Air or Laurel Canyon, peer through the obscuring palm trees, the 12-foot hedge, breathe in the air of the world’s most rarefied zip codes, adjust your binoculars… isn’t that Madonna’s gardener, a maid walking her dog? Oh my god! That’s Madonna’s dog! Be aware that no one ever spots a star on any of these tours, but the point of pilgrimages is always the act of pilgrimage.
Also popular are the open-air trolley tours of such classic tourist traps as the Hollywood sign, the locations of movies like Pretty Woman or LA Confidential, of the famous studios, and the Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars are held). For $160, you can get the ‘VIP treatment’ at the Universal Studios production backlot and theme park (www.universalstudios.com).
The theme parks
Universal Studios helps us make the none-too-graceful segue to LA’s many theme parks. Six Flags Magic Mountain offers in excess of 100 stomach-wrenching thrill-rides. The sheer number of theme parks is bewildering. To mangle Gertrude Stein, Six Flags is Knotts Berry Farm (www.knotts.com) is Disneyland (https://disneyland.disney.go.com). Yes, Disneyland. The first of Walt Disney’s theme parks, which have left a saccharine trail extending from Orlando to Paris to Hong Kong, was created in Anaheim, about 45km south of LA. The resort, though it pales in comparison to its vast Orlando sibling, is big enough to contain two theme parks, one of which, the Disneyland Park, is the self-styled Happiest Place on Earth. Knowing this will be a source of comfort as you hold your kids’ places in yet another queue, while they pose for yet another picture with Mickey Mouse.
The buildings
I suppose if you wanted architecture you’d travel to Europe. But LA has its satisfactions. The Case Study Houses, most of which were built in LA, is an intriguing experiment in engaging leading architects (the likes of Richard Neutra, Ray and Charles Eames, Pierre Koenig and Eero Saarinen) to create affordable, modern housing. There is George Wyman’s Bradbury Building, built at the end of the 19th century and, with its hydraulic elevators and projecting stairs, futuristic enough to feature in Blade Runner. There is also the remarkable Watts Towers, located in the south LA neighbourhood of Watts made infamous in the lyrics of West Coast gangster rap. Built over 33 years, it is an accretion of junk and a reminder of its power, of ingenuity, of making do, of resources. And there is the Getty Center (www.getty.edu), with its dramatic views from on high, its wonderfully open buildings, its Central Garden. It is one of those museums where the building that houses the art, rather than the art itself, is the reason to visit. The Art Deco buildings downtown are worth a gander, too.
The shopping
LA, to borrow from the city’s lexicon, is all about shopping. For high-end designer shopping LA offers everything…well, everything that is also on offer in New York, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and probably Dubai. The international brand is the curse of variety. Rodeo Drive is strictly for window-shopping, unless you’re a millionaire with questionable taste. Try instead the boutiques on Third Street or Beverley Blvd or even the increasingly tired Melrose Avenue, once the hipster haven.
The food
LA’s restaurants are stylish and the food is, for a town with a large proportion of people who consider eating one of life’s more decadent practices, surprisingly good. Rather than arbitrarily list the city’s hip restaurants (buy a Zagat guide), I recommend that you visit an In-N-Out outlet (www.in-n-out.com). In-N-Out serves the best burger of any fast food chain in the United States. It also pays its employees a decent wage and runs a foundation to help abused children. Ah, bless!
The information
Getting there
The return economy airfare to Los Angeles from Delhi or Mumbai is about Rs 65,000-70,000, though a flight + hotel combo might fetch you a better deal.
Getting around
LA has 200 Metro Bus lines and four rail lines. For information on schedules and fares, visit www.metro.net. A variety of passes are available.
Nine franchise taxi operators are officially responsible for the city’s 2,300 cabs. Usually, you’ll have to call to get a cab, rather than simply expect to hail one down. See www.taxicabsla.org for telephone numbers, areas served and fares. Cabs in LA are expensive.
Renting a car is a popular option. If you don’t want to try the usual suspects, if you fancy the wind in your hair on a hairpin bend, try one of the many ‘exotic’ car rentals in the city. A Ferrari Spider, say, will run you $500 a day. Look online for deals.
Where to stay
Los Angeles has a number of staggeringly famous and staggeringly expensive hotels. If star-spotting is one of the reasons you’re visiting LA, break open the piggy bank and invest in a room at the Beverly Wilshire (www.fourseasons.com) or the fabulous boutique Hotel Bel-Air (www.hotelbelair.com). Ian Schrager’s super-hip Mondrian on Sunset Boulevard (www.mondrianhotel.com) is another fantasy hotel. Designed by Philippe Starck, the hotel’s Skybar is LA’s It-nightspot.
Cheap accommodation is not easy to come by in this city, though a dormitory-style room at a youth hostel costs about $27 a night. See http://www.hostels.com/los-angeles/usa for a comprehensive list.