Lavish Land

Dubai’s crown prince was said to have paid a total of $2.7 million for a camel while celebrating the Bedouin traditions on a desert festival in the emirate of Abu Dhabi last Tuesday.

Abu Dhabi’s ruling family organized this nine-day festival in a bid to preserve the nomadic way of life in the desert that predates the discovery of oil in the region in the 1960s.

Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and other oil-rich Gulf countries have brought 17,000 camels for the beauty contest. The contest earned millions of dollars in prize money and more than 100 four-wheel-drive vehicles and pickup trucks.

A long time ago, camels were knowns as beasts. However, today owning a fine camel is a symbol of prosperity and prestige among the Persian Gulf’s royal families and elite groups. Sheik Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s crown prince, didn’t think twice in buying a camel worth almost $3 million dollars.

Sheik Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum is the sone of Sheik Mohammed, Dubai’s current ruler. He actually bought 16 camels totaling to $4.5 million and added a female camel worth $2.7 million. Although this is not as expensive as the Green Monkey, a colt which was bought in Florida for $16 million in 2006, but would you buy a camel this much?

camel, green monkey, Sheik Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain