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.