Adventures in Indonesian Fitness

Trip Start Jul 05, 2008
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Trip End Aug 30, 2008


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Flag of Indonesia  , Bali,
Saturday, July 19, 2008

Today I drove out to Pura Besakih, the largest temple in Bali, up on one of the volcanoes called Gunung Agung.  It's the tallest one on the island, so of course it was totally obscured by cloud and I couldn't see it at all! But the temple was certainly impressive, except for the many people trying to make a living off you.  First, I had to pay a rather large entrance fee and a separate parking pass.  I checked the prices on the tickets, and was overcharged on the parking.  The guy refunded my money without even looking up: scam alert.  I wonder how many other tourists bother to check the prices on those things.  Anyways at the top by the temple I gave in my ticket, where the ticket agent told me that I'd be "given" a local to show me around.  In plain English: a guide, for a fee.  Of course I ignored this and told them to go away despite their persistent pleas that I would learn alot of interesting things; be taken to special places; have an overall improvement in the quality of my life... should I go up with a guide. 
The temple was very beautiful, but the harassment persisted no matter how hard I ignored them.  So I took a break and sat up on a wall to watch what was going down.  There is a big English sign that says only practicing devotees can enter the temple proper.  All the guides said that if you hire them, since they are devotees, you can go in with them.  Yet I watched group after group of tourists be led around the outside of the temple by their "guide", and not once did any of them get to go inside the temple proper.  Oh, the lies! So I found a service road that went around back of the temple, and explored the outer parts, which is exactly what everyone who hired a "guide" found themselves doing anyhow.

Steel thyself, Aaron.

I drove home smiling, because driving in Bali is at least five thousand times better than driving in Taiwan.  In Taiwan, no matter how far you drive, you are in a smelly industrial concrete jungle 95% of the time. And the sky is almost never blue.  In contrast, there is almost nothing finer in life than taking a motorcycle around Bali. Everything is green and beautiful, it really is just like you'd envision.  The air is crisp and clean and quite often scented with flowers.  The sky is the most perfect blue you could every imagine, and you weave through rice terraces that seamlessly blend into small clusters of habitation.  They drive way less agressively here, too.

This morning I finally found a gym (Ubud Fitness) and excitedly planned to go there this afternoon.  There was an aerobics class at five o'clock.  What a spectacle.  The instructor rolls in wearing a black mesh shirt and go-go boots.  She is followed by two of her friends, both look about 40 years old and about 15 pounds on the heavy side. Now, there is nothing wrong with that.  But there is something not right about them peeling off their clothes to reveal the tiniest booty shorts and bikini tops you've ever seen, and then proceeding to do aerobics in them.  I saw under-cleavage.. and not the kind that as a straight girl makes me go "coool", more the kind that makes me go "oh god, why?".  There was ass cheak cleavage, too (is that a real thing? what do guys call it?). The actual class was kind of silly, sort of Fonda in the 80's bouncing around to Indonesian pop.  They were into it though, hooting and hollaring away, and that enthusiasm was nice to see after countless stuffy Taiwanese classes.  However the overall effect was just too silly, so I left quickly.

Tomorrow is 17 hours of overland travel to Yogyakarta in Java. BOOERNS.
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