Thread: Bull Fights in Southern Thailand

FIGHT #1

Not a big money fight this one, but it was certainly the longest of the day.

Prize was 40,000 to the winner, nothing to the loser.

Firstly the bull enters the ring.......



After that he gets a bit of pampering which includes getting mashed banana rubbed all over his head. I asked why and was told it's just what they do....no other information offered.....



There is a white line pained in the dirt of one section of the ring. The handlers and the uaual family / friends that hang on and feel big because they are with a fighting bull sit behind the white line. In fairness the bulls seem to have no interest in the people and there was only one instance where a bull went near them..... onto that later.



And we're off...... the bulls are led together my a handler on both sides with a small rope through the ring in his nose. Sometimes they take a while to fight, especially with younger less experienced bulls. Once they start to battle the ropes are withdrawn and they are left to their own devices.

Maybe the mashed bananas is like Vaseline on a boxer?

At times there is not much action, the bulls lock forheads rather than horns and use their weight to twist their opponent or in the case of one fight, drop the body weight to pull him down and wear him out.



This guy was standing not far away and made a good picture, a few hours away from the farming life.....

The land here is very fertile and certainly the guys in the village work the land hard, 3 crops a year if things go well, and they certainly don't earn the 'lazy' tag that I hear thrown at someones wife's 'brother' in Isaan. Don't know I've never really been to Isaan.........

I see very little alcohol when I am there and I sit on the porch enjoying a nice evening beer the menfolk are all off to bed to rise at 4-5am. They do their work early to avoid the heat, but the cash they earn is wasted on sitting around during the afternoon drinking.

Anyway, I like this portrait.....





This fight didn't have any classic action, thse were two younger bulls finding their way in the fight game, some long periods of inactivity....

This is the VIP area..... and where the drummer and ring announcer sit. The guy with the glasses seems to control a lot of the gambling, he was there when i went 10 years ago, in fact I sat up there with him and he had a huge wedge of 1000 Baht bills in his hand.....





This is one of the bookmakers crew in the crowd, they sit on the fence at about 5 metre intervals and when the action hots up they announce the latest odds....



And then one decides it's had enough, turns tail and runs away. The victor generally just watches it go as it runs to the gate from which they leave the arena. This is the loser waiting for the gate to open.

lol @ preppy bookmaker!

Beautiful pictures! I had heard about bull fighting before but I had never seen any ''footage'' of it! Thank you!

I visited a fight in Koh samui back in 1987, and it was horrific to watch, one of the bulls got its horn locked into the others eye and was pushing it further into the socket somehow the bull set itself free and ran,i never returned again

I'm not sure why the bottom half of the horns is taped, my feeling was it is to show up any blood that runs down the horns, but that's just a gues.





The loser exits the ring reasonably quickly but the winner stays and has a bath and a bit of pampering......





...........before having some coloured woolly hats put on his horns so he can show everyone that he was a winner.

I think your pics are fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

FIGHT #2

I've lost the schedule so I can't remember the prizes for each fight or more interestingly the bull's names.....

I think this fight was about 60,000THB to the winner, and was a far shorter affair that the fight one.

Once again the bull gets some nice mashed banana all over it's head.





Had a pretty frenetic start....

It must be said these beasts are magnificent, very powerful. I don't know what they weigh maybe 250-300kg, very muscular and despite this strangely docile other than this environment.



Once again the loser turns and runs away and the victor just ignores this and grazes.......



The proud winner, with a lovely set of horns so I thought at the time...... but small in comparison to what was coming....

Loving the woolly hats!!

FIGHT #3

Fight 3 was a bout between this feisty fellow and......



this mellow chap....



Pregame I went for the calm guy, I was already 2-0 up against my lad and I thought the hyped up bull would not be successful..... I was wrong.

It was quite a long affair but the feisty bull had more power in the long run....

And after a titanic struggle suddenly the red bull decided he wasn't going on and on and on..... and trotted off to the exit gate.



On this one occassion the victor followed him and they had a short tussle in the peoples area but the loser had already decided there would be no more....



The winner complete with bobble hats.....

utterly sickening, while I know Thais were cruel with their chicken fighting I had no idea this sort of depravity went on here. Thailand is about 150 years behind the west, except Spain maybe.

Originally Posted by Yasojack

I visited a fight in Koh samui back in 1987, and it was horrific to watch, one of the bulls got its horn locked into the others eye and was pushing it further into the socket somehow the bull set itself free and ran,i never returned again

Double yuck!


Great pictures though!

RickThai

Lots more to come...... The sun went behind one clouds so some of the pictures coming are technically better.....

FIGHT #5

This was a bit of a barnstormer.....