I decided to take a look at the Philippines over the Spring Festival. I had seen some pictures of white beaches and big blue skies and after being stuck in polluted Shanghai since the summer I was desperate to get away. Dasmarinas is a city in Cavite province and this is where I started by staying with a Philippino friend in her house in a local community.
The first thing I noticed was the number of children running around and the number of cockerels kept by the villagers. It seemed that every spare scrap of land had these birds with their little huts to shad them from the sun.
Cock fighting is supposed to be one of the oldest spectator sports in the world going back over 6,000 years but, because of the physical harm inflicted on the animals, has been banned in Britain in 1835. However in the Philippines it is still a popular spectator sport and the sound of cockerels was a familiar soundtrack of my trip overland from from Manila to Cebu. 
In San Juan in Siqujor I even came across the local cockpit although I don’t think I’d want to watch. Some might think that cricket fighting in China is a blood sport and maybe it is, but I more prepared to watch and take part in insect war than mammals – less blood!