Comdoms and Strippers

November 29, 2011

Condoms Anyone? I was so excited when first hearing about this restaurant. Cabbages and Condoms. What a funky name? I love the concept behind it the most. It is a restaurant spreading awareness of sexual safety and infectious diseases like HIV. I also believe it is a charitable restaurant as proceeds go towards those living with the virus. 

Upon approaching the restaurant, I was so excited and didn’t know what to expect. Are there going to be condoms flung about? Who goes to this type of restaurant? Are there going to be lady boys around? When walking in, it looked like your typical classy restaurant filled with beautiful and playful decor. It wasn’t until after I realized the decoration was entirely made out of condoms. Lamp shades, floral arrangements, mannequins—all made of colorful latex condoms. It was amazing to see this type of artwork down in such a detailed and classy manner, especially with condoms. To emphasize safe sex, there were posters all around that demonstrated which positions were safe to go bareback and which ones required protection. Girl on girl, boy on boy, girl on boy on girl on boy. There were detailed pictures of numerous types of condoms fit for different types of sizes and personalities displayed throughout.

We ate a spectacular dinner. Green chicken curry and papaya salad. All for the cheap price of five dollars. This is actually the most I’ve spent on a meal since being here. But it was worth it. This food was amazing. But the post-diner gifts we received were even better. As a token of appreciation, we were each given a condom; another way of promoting safe sex to customers. Why don’t we do this more at restaurants back home? 

After dinner, we went roaming around the restaurant and found some fun games to play with. First, we played Spin the ‘Safe/Unsafe Sex’ Wheel, a game in which you spin the wheel and find out your fate. Did you wear a condom? What diseases did you get or not get? Of course, I spun the wheel and got ‘No condom, HIV/AIDS’. Let’s hope that this isn’t true. Fortunately for me, three others joined me in this same dark fate. Misery loves company. We also found a mint box that did not give out complimentary mints but condoms. The categories were Republican or Democratic condoms?—I still don’t know what this actually means. Lastly, the gift shop was fun to wander through. T-shirts, key chains, and other souvenirs displayed safe sex tactics, fun phrases, and condoms. I bought a couple items from here. Not for my own personal use, of course. It was just a novelty gift for myself…

Where was this condom when I needed it?

Oh please, let it be gonorrhoea!

Ride ‘Em Cowboy! If you want to see kathoeys or lady boys, old white men with young Thai girls, and bare naked breasts and coochies, Soi Cowboy is where you want to go. This is what seemed to be the red light district of the area. Bars upon bars, strip clubs upon strip clubs, girls upon girls or boys. Each club had about a dozen girls cat calling the guys in our group. I was so intrigued by the environment that I tried to take picture of the girls. No one allowed it though. They seemed pretty offended. So I took some stealth photos of the girls when they weren’t looking. Some of the strippers were extraordinarily beautiful. But the girls’ appearances are quite deceiving since many of them might actually be men. I think the guys were smart enough to stay away, unless that’s the type of play they were looking for. 

Any of these lady boys? What do you think?

After walking up and down the street several times, we found a club to go into for a bit. Walking in, there are mirrors plastered on each wall, blue and red lights firing rays all over the small dark room, and half naked girls standing on the raised mirrored ledge—slowly moving their hips to the dreary techno music and strutting their goods to every passerby. We only were there for a few minutes though. Everyone in the club was required to buy a very pricey drink in order to enjoy the show. Makes sense but it was too expensive. So we all passed…for now.

This was just hilarious. What an advertisement!