Swim with whale-sharks, not!
I set the alarm for 0600 and forced some pancakes down before walking to the whale-shark (known locally as butanding) centre as it opened at 0700. It had rained heavily last night. The weather didn’t look promising.
The Dutch couple I had met on the plane got together with me and an American couple to form a party of five for our boat. After a video briefing, we left around 0730. We went quite far up the coast northwards. The sea was calm but it rained for most of the time. There were small patches of brightness that wasn’t even blue. We eventually turned back closer to home where the skies were blue.
We had absolutely no luck with the butanding today. I’ve heard before that with rainfall, the plankton sinks and the whale-sharks don’t surface. We were wet and cold for most of the time.
Fortunately it wasn’t too expensive a day; we had paid PHP1000 per person for the permit and boat plus PHP250 for snorkel gear. The guide (known as the butanding interaction officer) gave up at 1100 and we were back on land shortly after.
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Whale-shark spotter at work; try going to the end of the rainbow, perhaps. Both ends …
Cockfighting
After a wash and rest, I was heading out for lunch when my next door neighbour asked if I’d like to join him to go to a cockfight. His tricycle driver had offered to take him. The site was a little further out of town, which surprised me as I had seen a concrete cockpit (stadium) yesterday dedicated to the sport.I had never seen so many big beautiful cocks all in one place.
Their proud owners, men of various ages and some boys, stroked them with pride and held them-side-by-side to compare their sizes. Long razor-sharp blades were then tied to their spurs before they were set on each other two-by-two. The betting is absolutely raucous.
Surprisingly each fight only lasted seconds. In my ignorance, I expected the fights to be long and gory. With such sharp attachments, it is easy for one cock to disable the other pretty quickly with a gash or two. In fact, it seemed faster than home-kill chickens.
I noticed wood-fired pots in the background which I presume are for cooking the losing fowl. I bet fighting cock meat is tough.
A few things I learnt today:
- It is important to hold one’s cock pointing towards one-self. Otherwise, the cock goes beserk when it sees another one.
- Not all cocks have combs. I mistook some cocks as hens. I thought the male audience might have got additional thrill from watching two hens fighting, in the same way as female mud wrestling, perhaps.
- There are cock doctors on standby to stitch up any gashed-up cocks.
I know in these modern times, cockfighting is no longer politically correct. But it ain’t modern times right here and right now in rural Philippines. It is a traditional past-time or sport in the region, eg. Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. It appears cock-fighting (a form of gambling) along with dog-eating was stamped out in many areas of the region with the arrival of Islam. It still continues in Christian areas as there are no strong prohibitions along these lines. In the Philippines, there are legal and illegal cock-fights.
Animal ethics aside, I actually enjoyed being part of Filipino life today. It gave me a glimpse that foreigners don’t always get to see. It is something that is very underground in Malaysia as gambling is illegal; only bad eggs go to cockfights!
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- Betting game; red or white. Two balls come out from the funnel and settle on the check-board.
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- It is important to hold one’s cock pointing towards one-self. Otherwise, the cock goes beserk when it sees another one.
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- Man and his precious cock.
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- The pre-fight waiting area with a bit of cock-teasing.
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- A very nice big cock.
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- Attaching spurs.
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- Blade for the spur.
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- Attaching a blade to the spur.
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- Taking the bets; it is a raucous affair.
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- The audience watch excitedly most of the time.
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- Setting the two cocks up to fight.
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- Cocks in action.
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- Cocks in action.
