Stardom, part II

I forgot to mention that I had my movie debut last Thursday. A group of college students were making a movie and brochure to promote tourism at a beach not too far from Yogya, and I got to be the star tourist. They picked me up at my homestay and we drove nearly an hour on motorbikes to the beach. Once there, they described to me the purpose and reasons for the project.
This beach was destroyed in the earthquake and tsunami two years ago and has failed to recover its main income source. The local government is still rebuilding and has already moved homes and businesses further back as well as repaved roads and walkways, but the tourists just aren’t coming. The students spent all summer here studying tourism and trying to find ways to help the village. I tried to ask if they had studied the negative side affects of rampant tourism, particularly on beaches (I was thinking now of my housemate Tomo who’s studying the negative affects of ecotourism in Bali), but that was something the program had failed to mention in the slightest. But, who am I to question the biggest income source of a region, or for that matter, this country.
We spent a couple hours at the beach, mostly eating. I got to splash around in the water, and get my feet wet and sandy. The ocean here is actually far too dangerous for swimming, but, as a tourist, I really enjoyed it. The area is surrounded by jutting mountains and green cliffs, sporting tall trees and the occasional abandoned hotel. Sometime in the next month, I’d like to spend some time there napping and basking in the calm that the ocean always seems to provide. All three of the students had varying opinions on the beach- one of them loved it and has spent much time watching the sun set and rise, another hates the beach claiming it to be just too hot (I couldn’t help wondering how he’d possibly survived 20 years in Indonesia), the third liked it well enough, but none of them had ever been swimming, I’m not even sure if they’d swam in a pool. But I suppose that’s what happens when you grow up next to an ocean whose warm waves are deadly.
On the path leading to the ocean there was an expanse of sand that Latif-one of the students- explained could be found no where else. This particular spot is used once a year, at the end of Ramidan, as a massive prayer site. He says sometimes 200 people are there praying together.
As for the food, on the beach we bought a fruit salad called rujak. It is comprised of papaya, cucumber, unripe mango, pineapple, some type of root, and a fruit that is cousins with the guava. Over all of this was a sauce called samballote made of tamarind and some other things that I’m not quite clear on. It created this mixture of spicy, sweet, sour, bitter, and peppery that was at times delicious and at times undesirable. After this we headed to another beach that I never really saw because we went expressly for a fish restaurant. We had barbeque fish and deep fried shrimp, all of which was delicious. Apparently that beach, though known to be the most dangerous, is a fish market so the fish we ate had been caught that morning. If you’re there when the markets are still open, you can choose your own fish and take it to the restaurant of your choice to be cooked up to your preference. And all for just a couple of dollars.