Mack's Gym is on Dundas Street West, just past Alcoholics Anonymous and the massage place where the female workers don't dress as if they're into rolfing. Mack, who moved from Vancouver to Toronto 50 years ago, is sitting out front, asleep. He's in a T-shirt that advertises his business and shows off the muscles of his arms and shoulders. He colours his hair jet-black, and a smudge of dye traces his hairline like the dark mark waves leave on a sandy beach. He works out two times a day. He's 82 and deserves his sidewalk naps.

I'm in town for a month on business and Mack's is a good home away from home. Mack is a welder and built all the exercise equipment himself. He used to put on shows with strongman Doug Hepburn and has the photos to prove it. A motley cast of characters passes in and out. It's an unusual place to exercise, but the world is full of unusual places to exercise. I ought to know-I've stopped by more than a few of them.

At first I did this to recover from long flights, to get the body working while on journalism and other assignments, and as an antidote to routine. Sure, in South America you may meet up with the wife of the coke-fiend ambassador you want to interview, or spend hours walking the hot streets of Phnom Penh where monkeys cavort on the hydro wires, but one needs a break. Then I realized this gym-visiting provides a unique look into the culture of the country one happens to be in.

For instance, years ago when I was new to this travelling sideline, I went to exercise at a place in Guatemala City that was located on embassy row. I pedalled a stationary bike next to a man with slicked-back black hair. He was dressed all in white-T-shirt, shorts, socks, and runners-but since I wasn't looking at him directly, it was a couple minutes before I noticed the automatic pistol in his shoulder holster. He saw me notice, and smiled.

I first visited a foreign gym on a trip to Fiji. I remember going down a lane in Taveuni, bougainvillea spilling over crumbling stone walls, heading for the "fitness centre" in the remains of a one-storey motel a hundred metres or so from the sign that marks the international dateline.

Besides the benefits to my health, this penchant has provided great experiences and curious views of the world. In Trinidad, West Indies, the fancy hotel where I was staying to cover a prize fight in Port of Spain had a highly touted fitness centre. But when I visited it, the gym did not resemble the many hand-drawn pictorial advertisements. Instead of gleaming modern equipment in a spacious, airy facility, I found two barbells rusting in the tropical humidity in what had probably been a tool shed. There was hardly any space to lift these barbells due to the presence, in these tiny quarters, of two extremely large black ladies-I mean 300 pounds each. I suppose they were attendants. They just sat there fanning themselves and watching me like I was a job perk, a white fellow the hotel provided for entertainment.

It gets very hot in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and even hotter in second-floor weight rooms. The one where I spent some time had no air conditioning, but it did have ceiling fans. You couldn't turn them on, however, because the ceilings were so low that if a fan was on and you lifted a weight above you head, a blade would cut you. A scruffy old parrot, whose cage didn't get cleaned, provided constant commentary. It would call any male who walked by a very nasty Mexican name disparaging to homosexuals.

The worst place I ever worked out was under the football stadium in a part of Antigua, Guatemala, where tourists never ventured. It stank so badly that it was fascinating. The outside walls were pocked with bullet holes.

At the beautiful and inexpensive Lan Anh Country Club in Ho Chi Minh City, some serious musclemen were working out, along with a small group of women bodybuilders who came despite family pressures. (Bodybuilding was not considered a proper activity for females.) One of the women admitted to me that they had to tell their parents, husbands, or sweethearts that they were training to be gymnasts and they were sorry but spectators were forbidden, so they couldn't come and watch.

But the absolute best, and strangest, place I've worked out was at the king's palace in Swaziland. It was in the late '70s, and I met the country's bodybuilding champion, Mr. Swaziland, in a bar at the Highland Village hotel complex. He appeared to have bowling bowls in the sleeves of his shirt and invited me to work out with him. A car appeared at my hotel the next morning. We pulled up in front of the palace, which was guarded by tall men holding lions on leashes. King Sobhuza II, at the time the world's longest-reigning monarch, had built an exercise room for Mr. Swaziland out of gratitude for his success at international competitions. The facility had everything one could want, the ultimate exercise experience. Two beautiful women stood by with towels to pat away our sweat.

In Sydney, Australia, a big floor-to-ceiling window provided a view from the gym across a narrow street to prostitutes sitting before plate-glass windows, Amsterdam-style. In Auckland, people worked out in a large first-floor gym while bargoers with drinks sat watching at tables on the mezzanine balcony. In Estevan, Saskatchewan, I was the only non-lesbian in the gym. Palm Beach, California, had the most frightening facility, occupied by 70-year old white men with brown bodies, who looked like they were products not so much of Universal equipment as genetic engineering.

The gym is where you see real democracy at work. Everyone pays more or less the same fee and everyone is equal. The CEO and stock boy are the same in their skivvies. The waitress may very well be twice as strong as the big-shot entrepreneur, and the computer nerd can show up the biker. South Americans, Africans, and Australians all make the same facial expressions when doing an upright row with a barbell.

Mack opens his eyes when I finish my workout. He nods and waves. I'm off somewhere else, and soon I'll be back home, at my regular gym, Cross Trainers in Gibsons, B.C.