At the start of each day I have very little idea of what picture will end up being the ‘picture of the day.’ Sometimes, given the general location of the days events, I have a rough idea what the picture might be, but often times it’s those days that end up surprising me the most.

I had thought that today’s picture would feature a shot from one of the street markets I was going to visit. If not that then perhaps it would have been a picture of one of the many food stalls that I would surely be choosing from later in the day? At no point could I have guessed that today’s picture would be taken from ringside view at a cock fighting event that I found myself at.

The day got off to a fairly late start and, as I set out on the moped heading for Chaing Mai, I more or less ran into the cock fighting event as I went through a village on my way to the city. It wouldn’t be the kind of thing I would usually attend, but along with my friend Yolande who is visiting from Singapore, we decided to go investigate.

The event was taking place in something that resembled a cattle market. A large number of mostly men were gathered around purpose built rings of differing sizes. To begin with there seemed to be some kind of selection process taking place that included weighing and marking the birds, then the event quickly and noisily got under way.

I knew nothing about cock fighting before, other than it’s reputed to be a particularly cruel and bloody sport. I can’t say that it was as gruesome as I thought it would be, nor can I claim to be any the wiser as to how the sport actually works. What I do know is that after spending a little while at the ringside watching some fights, it’s not going to be something I’ll be giving up any time to follow in the future.