The Vice Guide to Travel

The desert may be one of the last places on Earth you'd expect to find a beauty pageant. But on Christmas Day, while you were busy testing the limits of your digestive system, VICE's Charlet Duboc was traipsing through sand dunes in Abu Dhabi's remote Western Region, all in the name of beauty. In the West, we think nothing of beauty contests for dogs, horses, flowers, even women. But the leggy, doe-eyed lovelies on parade here are of the four-legged variety, and are judged on such criteria as having a nice firm pair of ears and floppy lips. Just like supermodels, at the height of their careers camels can command millions of dollars. Who knew? While the super-car or the SUV has replaced the camel as the most popular means of transportation in the modern Emirates, the animal retains an important place in the nation's heart. "Beautiful camel" may strike you as something of an oxymoron. But many a bedouin or sheikh will think nothing of dropping up to $3 million dollars on a so-called prized beauty, in the hope that she'll bring home the coveted Bayraq—the fairest camel in the land. In this episode of The VICE Guide to Travel, Charlet finds herself the only woman in the desert, looking for the elusive beauty in the beast.

In these difficult times, many Japanese are putting marriage and families on the back burner and seeking recreational love and affection as a cheap escape. We sent Ryan Duffy to investigate Tokyo's cuddle cafes and Yakuza-sponsored prostitution.

Tourists on India's Andaman Islands are taken by the busload to watch the Jarawa tribe go about their daily lives. The Jarawa are treated like animals in a safari park, with large signs urging visitors not to feed them or give them clothing.

We tried to find the best shawarma in Doha but ended up searching for robot camel jockeys (apparently this is a real thing) and drinking in very strange bars.

Takanakuy is a fighting ceremony with roots in the Andes’s pre–Spanish, pre–Incan history.

Indonesia's Muslim transvestites need a place to pray, too.

VICE co-founder Suroosh Alvi travels to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, accompanied by photographer Ariana Delawari. Together they witness the vicious impact left by the Taliban regime.

Libya is the latest nation to experience the violent civil unrest that has plagued North Africa since December. But in August 2010 things were much different.

Last August, motorcyclists Joanne and Gareth Morgan embarked on their most ambitious journey yet: riding the Baekdudaegan, a mountain range that stretches the length of North and South Korea’s shared peninsula.

Legend has it that the last remaining dinosaur lives inside the Congolese jungle

Heroin dens, teenage prostitution, cross-dressing cannibals... Welcome to the VICE Guide to Liberia. Things are about to get really hairy.

Vice Scandinavia correspondent Ivar Berglin travels to the front lines of the Vodka/Wodka Wars - and discovers that the tortured history of Russian-Polish relations can be saved in a bottle.

VICE founder Shane Smith romps around the hermit kingdom.

Jeepnys are Filipino hotrods, and there’s no better way to get around Manila.

South America’s lost Aryan colony.

Sampling some of Manila’s most questionable delicacies. First up: Soup No. 5.

Having a gay old time in China’s capital of consumerism.

VICE visits the arms markets of Darra, Pakistan, where the area's holy warriors come to stock up on guns handmade by men who live in caves.