The Jakarta Post

Get fit, get active, get out to the Senayan sports ground

Tue, 03/25/2008 11:20 AM

You're a fitness freak. You draw energy from large crowds with the same urge. Go to the Senayan sports complex. The main stadium of the huge sporting grounds in Central Jakarta is the magnet for weekend morning joggers, calisthenics buffs and go-slow strollers.

On a fine day, perhaps more than 2,000 Jakartans revolve around the 88,000-seat stadium built for the 1962 Fourth Asian Games. The official name of the sports compound is Gelanggang Olah Raga Bung Karno, the Bung Karno Sports Hall, in honor of founding president Sukarno.

The Gelora Bung Karno area is not just a multitude of sport venues. It also has offices and shopping centers. The 1,297-hectare grounds cover the Forestry Ministry and the House of Representatives complex to the north and the Senayan City, Plaza Senayan and Ratu Plaza malls to the south. Golf links are to the west and a convention center to the east. Star-rated hotels are within its environs too: the Mulia, the Sultan and the Atlet Century Park.

I did my most recent Senayan fun run on Sunday, March 16, a shiny bright morning. Start from the main stadium's VIP West Entrance. This is between Gates I and XII where you see the 3-meter-tall landmark statue of Rama the archer in a shooting stance. Rama is the hero in the Indian-based Ramayana epic. Go with the flow. That's counter-clockwise. At Gate XI you pass the offices of the PSSI, the Football Association of Indonesia. Other sport offices down to Gate I are the Indonesian Squash Association, POBSI (The All-Indonesian Billiards Association), PERCASI (the Indonesian Chess Association), PERWOSI (the Indonesian Association of Physical Education and Sports for Girls and Women) and GABSI (the Indonesian Contract Bridge Association). In between the sport offices, clusters of university students in their colored campus jackets in canary yellow and navy blue offer to check your blood pressure and cholesterol level.

Watch out for the phalanx. This is a joggers' pack as tight as a swarm of locusts that won't stop at anything before it. The pack paces briskly with as many as 10 abreast and 30 lines deep. It tends to grow and crowds out single joggers like yours truly.

As you stride along the stadium's 20-meter-wide ring road, you might be tempted to join one group of 200-plus dedicated, if not enraptured, aerobics enthusiasts following the moves of a shapely female exercise leader. She's wrapped in a blue track suit with a yellow pullover vest and is perched on a makeshift platform. Her limbs are in hyperactive gyration sustained to the beat of hard rock music.

Another sight is the number of futsal matches among school-age boys on the ceramic-covered East and West plazas of the stadium.

After a sweat-producing turn around the stadium, you want to take a break. You might try a glass of teh kesehatan (health tea) or antilipemic tea. At Rp 3,000, a shot of the beverage purportedly can pulverize excess fat and cholesterol. It's also claimed to prevent rheumatism, high blood pressure and heart disease. I passed.

You're also hungry. Go to the food stalls along the West plaza just outside the West entrance. Have your pick: bubur ayam (chicken rice porridge), sayur tupat betawi (cubed rice paste with string beans and young papaya in a coconut milk-based broth). Or try sio may (potatoes, cabbage, hard-boiled eggs, tofu, tenggiri fish paste and the bitter pare plant, all steamed and smothered in tangy and hot peanut sauce). The average charge is Rp 6,000. The vendors do a roaring trade but have no permits. The only problem is the fat you burned in your run around the stadium may rebuild itself with the high-cholesterol food you just spoiled yourself with.

Aside from the exercise and the food, the Senayan scene offers another attraction. In the past five years, other than the renovation of the main stadium, Senayan has been designated as the lungs of Jakarta. Some 67.5 percent of the grounds have been converted into green zones. The 97,000-square-meter Parkir Timur (East Parking Lot) has been redone with paving blocks and grass blocks. To the west of Parkir Timur is a green belt called Kridaloka. For an entrance fee of Rp 3,000, you can enjoy a jogging loop in the midst of exquisite tropical trees: bintaro, damar, khaya, mahoni, maja and trembesi. The rich foliage serves as a bird habitat. It also acts as a battery of polluted air absorbers, oxygen generators and catchment wells.

So if you want to burn your calories and go green, Senayan's main stadium is a choice place.

-- Warief Djajanto Basorie

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