Cock fighting

Whilst in n/e Thailand I was invited to view some cock fighting. Now I don't advocate such an event but having never seen anything like it before and seeing as it was sort of put on for my benefit it seemed churlish not to at least take a peek.

The cocks in question were preened for ages and I mean preened. They were washed down with some sort of lime water they had their throats cleaned out with a feather? and generally given a sort of bird spa pampering.

They didn't (thank god) have the usual knives attached to their feet as this was I guess used as a training event. Although I don't suppose the birds knew the difference.

Once thrown together they seemed to know what was expected of them and began pecking at each others backs (you can see the raw flesh in the above picture).

To be honest I got a bit bored after a while but the villagers seemed enthralled to the max. I suppose they don't get to watch much TV and certainly don't have a PS3 or an Xbox.

The thing that struck me the most was that the birds never backed off from each other. They just kept on pecking and pecking. Even if one seemed to be loosing it never seemed to occur to it to run away! It would just keep on attacking and get more bloodied. Maybe the birds were drugged? All the villagers were certainly well sozzled by the end of the first fight. I had to be quite resolute in refusing the kindly offered home brewed Lao Khao (lethal rice spirit).

All in all I found it all a bit pointless and cruel. I suspect with the razor sharp blades attached the fights are a lot shorter but that's defiantly not for me.