WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT – It your not comfortable with seeing roosters getting hurt and killed, DON’T WATCH!

Tourists often ignore this popular sport that happens daily, not only in Bali, but throughout all South East Asia (…well, apart from roosters crowing at night, near their villas and home stays).

In fact, cock fighting is a “multi-million dollar business”, with events happening periodically in every small villages, daily in the major cities, and yearly on Balinese Hindu ceremonies. Business man bet hundreds of dollars in each fight and roosters are bread in every corner, sometimes illegally imported from Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

I was fortunate to be invited to both a small fight, in a yard behind my home, in Tulamben and, in the following day, to the main arena in Amlapura (Karangasem, Bali – Indonesia).

Here is the gallery from the first one:

I tried to portray it as truly as possible, not being judgemental. After all, this is the community I chose to live with, so might as well try to understand it. Watch some video footage of the Amlapura’s event in here:

Next, the shots from the  same event:

Update: Uphill from the street where I live, there was another cockfighting event, as part of the celebrations for a temple’s anniversary. I was able to capture some moments, until someone shouted the police was coming and all the crowd dismissed. 

All footage made with Nikon D850, Nikon 16-25 VR f/4  Nikon 24-70 VR f/2.8 and Nikon 70-200 VRII f/2.8.