Searching for Sabung Ayam
This narrative includes depictions of cockfighting, a practice associated with animal cruelty and illegal in many regions. Its inclusion serves to portray the cultural and situational reality of the events, not to promote or romanticise it.
“Bro, is that a fucking chicken in there?”
The question ripped me clear out of a heat-induced daze. My eyes tracked his pointed finger through the thick air, past piles of semi-burnt noodle packets, to three upturned wicker baskets. Eyes framed in red followed me as I stepped closer, unwavering even as a heavily laden scooter buzzed between us. Crouched beside the faded wicker I saw mottled brown feathers and flecks of iridescent red. I breathed in deeply, inhaling the must, compelled to stare by a rumbling urge. I turned back to Mike. “They’re roosters mate, maybe for cockfighting,”, he sent sparks of sweat flying as he clapped his hands together
“They have that here?!”
My fingers tensed as I gripped his sunburnt shoulder,
”We have to go find one”
Street dogs corralled us up the thin road, rimmed by dusty square shop fronts the colour of fried tofu. Drawn into one by colourful bottle openers, Mike haggled and after a small bundle of notes changed hands, I asked the owner in Indonesian, “Di mana ayam - Where is chicken”, then clawed at Mike’s neck with three fingers. Turning back to her, she was eyed closed, tapping her forehead, then snapped back with a crooked grin, “Ahhh! Di mana sabung ayam? She replied, turning to the owner of next shop. He sauntered over, adjusting his sun-faded gucci t-shirt on the way, through broken English we interpreted there would be a fight tonight, at 10pm, with an arthritic finger he pointed to my phone. It was only 10 minutes away.
After dinner we locked our door and strode to the place on the map. Dogs sprung from the dark front porches, barks sending jolts through me, epicentered at my achilles tendon -where I imagined they would bite. Mike showed much less fear and refused to follow my quick step. When we did arrive at the proposed spot – beside the markets – we saw little more than rolled down metal, even the mobile sate stand was gone. In the one shop still open the shop keeper had no idea about sabung ayam. But, he did serve good soup.
Walking home, muttering disappointments to each other, a beam of light rose out of the dark. We stepped left, it swung left. Mike looked at me and with a slight facial expression said “What the fuck?”. It stopped right in front of us. A helmet-less man rattled off some Indonesian and pulled out his phone, it rang and through it spoke a thin voice. “Halo?”
I stared at the driver, searching his face for even a sliver of information. Motionless. Hesitating as I strained to remember, I cleared my throat, and asked “Di mana sabung ayam?”. His reply was rapid,
“Klungkung...tomorrow...I give you transport”, was all I could understand, we traded numbers. The scooter pulled away, leaving Mike and I questioning gossip and small Indonesian villages.
The next morning I woke to a voice note in English “You need taxi maybe? For the chicken fighting? Today?”,
I played it to Mike, he said “Could be suss man, if we take our own bikes at-least we have a getaway plan”,
I nodded, “Yeah, it doesn’t seem super legal”
On our way to breakfast we replied saying we could make our own way there, and asked where it was. Over our black Balinese coffee I tapped the bamboo table I looked up at Mike “He still hasn’t replied”,
“Mate, we have to get to this fucking fight”, he said, pouring sugar into cup.
He never replied – denying us the location. After a hunched over breakfast, we made our way back to the room, kicking gravel and decaying frangipani petals on the way. Outside our room a young man in an immaculate white sarong and shirt was sweeping away cigarette ash with a wad of reeds. After the usual ‘how are you’ and ‘where are you froms’, I asked about cockfighting.
“Ahh! Many of different sabung ayam in Bali, you like gambling?” he said
Mike nodded
“Nearby to Klungkung, many gambling”, I pulled out my phone and asked if he knew where.
“Ah last time long time, but we drive this road” he said, pointing to the map.
To bypass the relaxed Indonesian approach to time and directions we went with a more direct approach, hiring 150cc scooters and trying to find the source. After settling the nerves with a short joy ride around Sidemen we took the long route through rice paddies studded with half built Villas, before pulling up at the pin on the map. A nondescript road lined with bamboo and banana, we pushed on, finding a safe spot to pull over further up. A handful of men emerged from under a square bamboo platform, “Mau ke mana – Where are you going?” one shouted as he pulled his tee-shirt up over his stomach.
“Sabung ayam” I replied.
“Tidak sekarang – Not now” he said rubbing his stomach, “later later”
“Sini? – Here?”, I asked, looking back at Mike and giving him a thumbs up,
It was at the nearby soccer pitch and it started at 7, or maybe 8pm.
Confident we had narrowed the search enough, we returned home, stopping to refuel from a roadside stall with water bottles housing translucent green petrol. Slowly we ate our banana leaf wrapped fish dinner, pushing water droplets around bottles of Bintang to pass the time. When the taxi arrived we said goodbye to the raised eyebrows of our host, Komang, and drove winding roads for 30 minutes. As we closed the car door our driver called out “Hati hati – Be Careful”, he left us outside an abandoned soccer pitch and pulled away.
“Fuck’, I said, “there is nothing here”.
Skirting the pitch we found a small brightly lit shop, an Indonesian couple sitting out front told us the fight was around the corner. We followed her directions to an empty concrete pit, a solitary man sat under a bright lamp, gate keeping a wooden box with ‘TIKET’ written on it, he told us the fight was at 10pm.
Once out of sight of the old man we turned to each other and fell into a soft laughter, during a firm hug I breathed out and said, “We fucking found it, dude”,
“Thats right mate, we fucking found it”
There was two hours to kill and the condensated fridge back in the shop was full of Bintangs. We settled in and spoke English to a 12 year old who said he had learnt from watching Mr beast videos on YouTube. After trading stories about school and life goals, they suggested we go. Pausing to smoke a thought collecting cigarette before placing 10k in the clutching hand of the ticket man. We slipped past hordes of men in pock-marked tees shirts buying snacks from one of two impromptu stalls. We then climbed the steep concrete steps to the top of the stadium. From there we could see the whole ring. Illuminated by ten bare light bulbs hanging from a lattice of thin wire. Bamboo lay on the sandy square centre in the shape of a hexagon, denoting the inner ring, behind that were the squatting owners and referees. Then, a two foot high concrete wall where the more invested of the crowd stood, one foot on the wall and one on the seats behind. A black steel fence separated them from the rest of the four-tiered concrete stadium of seating.
In the middle of the ring stood two owners holding their roosters, stroking them and pulling at their neck and tail feathers. Taking a step closer to each other, the birds flashed their neck feathers and the crowd began to flap their right hands, shouting “sala sala sala sala”. Only once someone pointed at them and nodded did they quiet and turn their attention back to the ring. Under no clear instruction from an official, the owners walked backwards and dropped the roosters. With a clenched jaw I watched as they lunged toward each other, colliding with flared wings and somersaults. Twice they came together, the black one righted itself quickly after been flicked onto its back. I couldn’t blink, the desire to experience a different culture overrode any form of moral questioning. After thirty seconds, both roosters were still alive, standing head on, neck feathers flared to a silenced crowd. Continuously they leaped over each other, the crowd responding like a great collective heartbeat “ahh ahh, ahh ahh”. Specks of blood began to spray across the creamy sand as the birds locked beaks and dragged each other down. Then stillness. A microphone blared and the owners picked up their birds, flicking at their feathers. I could hear Mike say something, but I just stared at the defeated mass of feather and foaming blood. When I could turn to Mike and tried to speak, I realised I had been screaming too. When by heartbeat softened I consoled myself with the knowledge that the losing bird would be cooked up by the owner of winning bird.
There were more fights, maybe 10 all up, each lasting less than 2 minutes. Men grinned, passed around wads of cash and stuffed them into their jeans. Some of them kept us entertained between the fights, asking if we wanted some good girl prostitutes in Denpasar when we passed through. We didn’t, we needed to go home.
It took a backseat scooter ride and a twenty minute hitchhike to get home. Sitting in the dusty tray of a black ute we watched passing pockets of light illuminate the closed doors of Balinese homes. We had nudged that door open just a touch, taking a glimpse at a culture successfully combining karma and ritualistic blood sport. A population possessing a great deal of life and an, albeit quick death.
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