Where do Condoms come from...

I attended a wedding in Bali last weekend and, in an attempt to keep certain members of the group off guests sober during the day on Saturday it was suggested that we take advantage of a guided tour around the west coast resort that we stayed in.

It was a "plantations" tour which showed how the Balinese had chosen to integrate a number of differing species in a single plantation rather than a mono culture with plantations each bearing only a single species. (Note, not a Bio Fuel Plantation in sight)



First things first it was decided a drink was in order and the coconut man was sent up the tree to hack a few fresh ones down..took him about 45 seconds to get to the top of the tree.



Out with the machete and instant refreshments all around.



Thirst free, he walked over to a rubber tree and opened the existing wound on the tree to allow the white sap to flow lazily down the cut and spiral downwards to the collecting cup.



The size of the cut is exactly right to create a drop rate of one drop per second into the cup.



After the "sap wound" dries up (each sapper "milks 300 tree's a day") the residue is collected and taken to the factory where the "rubber making" process starts in earnest.


The raw sap is poured into vats along with water and hydrochloric acid which makes the sap congeal into a less than recognisable pile off rubber shit.



This resultant goo is sent through two archaic presses to process the rubber into more manageable sheets.



Press number one sort of prepares it into a lumpy rectangular shape while press number two compresses it, ensuring all the water is removed and leaves a 1 cm thick sheet of latex rubber.



The resultant sheets are then laid out to dry in the sun. I may add here they fucking stink.



When dried, they are placed into a smoke room for four days and kept at a temperature of about 50 degrees C, curing the rubber.



The end result being raw rubber which is then sent as raw material to the rubber goods manufacturers of the world.



Packed into bales weighing 130 kg each they await collection...I noticed that nowhere in this process was there a fork lift, crane or pallet jack used. Everything was moved by hand and 130 kg is quite a weight. They manufacture one ton off rubber each day here!



So the next amourous moment you experience, just think off all that went into making that little "Anti Child Device" that you and your partner fumble with in the dark.