The Vice Guide to Travel Season 1, Episode 15: Mecca Diaries

Bulgarian Dirty Bombs

Shane Smith and Eddy Moretti shop for dirty bombs in the Bulgarian black market.

The Gun Markets of Pakistan

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.

PLO Boy Scouts of Beirut

These kids are being trained to do whatever it takes, including turning their bodies into bombs.

A Day in Shanghai

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

The Radioactive Beasts of Chernobyl

Shane Smith hunts for mutant wolves in Chernobyl.

Filipino Feed Lot

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

Gypsies of Sophia

VBS tours the fetid garbage dump Bulgaria’s Gypsies are forced to live in.

The Last Aryans of Paraguay

South America’s lost Aryan colony.

The Dream Machine

Jeepnys: The Rolling Carnival

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

Nimbin Mardi Grass

The VICE Guide to North Korea

VICE founder Shane Smith romps around the hermit kingdom.

Gorillas in the Midst

VBS travels to Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the endangered mountain gorillas - 200 of the Earth's last 720 — are in a desperate fight for their survival.

Wodka Wars

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.

The VICE Guide to Liberia

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

House of The Setting Sun

VICE travels to Casa Xochiquetzal, a residential facility in one of Mexico City's shadiest neighborhoods that caters exclusively to the area's elderly sex workers.

Illegal Border Crossing Park

In El Alberto they offer tourists the chance to participate in a simulated illegal border crossing.

Last Dinosaur of the Congo

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

Prostitutes of God

VICE travels to the Indian city of Sangli to meet a group of bolshy sex workers selling their bodies in the name of the Hindu Goddess Yellamm.

Mongolian Yak Festival

VBS travels to the vast epic-ness of Khovsgol Province in northern Mongolia to check in on the second annual Yak Festival.

Libyan Lockdown

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.

The Holy Thugs of Venezuela

The Santos Malandros (the Holy Thugs) are an alternative set of saints whose common traits include sideways baseball hats, cigarettes, and guns.

New Years Eve in Kabul

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.

Jesus of Siberia

Vissarion's church of the last testament is the only reason to visit Siberia.

The VICE Guide to the Balkans

To commemorate 12 years without a major attempted genocide in the Balkans, we decided to rent a Yugo and take a road trip through the remnants of old Yugoslavia.

The Warias

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

Takanakuy

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

The VICE Guide to Karachi

VICE founder Suroosh Alvi visits Pakistan's ultraviolent metropolis.

The Tiny VICE Guide to Doha

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.

Blood Sacrifice in Sumba

Where Shamans and warriors worship holy sea worms.

Human Safari

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.

North Korean Motorcycle Diaries

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.

The Japanese Love Industry

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.

Miss Camel Beauty Contest

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.

Kingdom of the Little People

In a land far, far away, love flourishes in a kingdom quite unlike any other. In mushroom-shaped homes and old dormitories, a community of dwarfs—all less than 51 inches tall—can be found singing, dancing, and performing on a daily basis for visiting tourists. In this episode of The VICE Guide to Travel, we send VICE magazine's creative director, Annette Lamothe-Ramos, to visit the controversial theme park, Kingdom of the Little People.