That's a good post Rob. I feel much the same.
I used to have a blog of traveller's tales on AM where I could post similar sentiments. My former writing disappeared into cyberspace and the blogging area seems to be now defunct.

I still have a snippet from a another site that has now also died the death.

Maybe it will post and maybe not.

A Tribal Trial
Although the extended family of my JW had known for some time what I’d been up to with one of their fairer daughters, there came a time when “form” or delicadezza demanded that I face them in person and make my intentions clear. Defining honorable intentions is a shifty thing but a major part of it is based on the South-East Asian concept of pakisama. At least that’s what we call it here. It has different names in different places but the concept is the same.
Basically it means “is this a guy we can get along with?” or “will this guy fit in?” Interestingly, a recent poll of company employees in a national newspaper showed that a majority of workers rated pakisama higher than the person’s ability to do the job. So, I was going to sink or swim by my people-skills – face to face.
The trip was arranged for the drier season when travel is less of a gamble. We left our relatively modern city on a rust-bucket ferry to our smaller island destination shortly after noon. Inter-island ferries normally sail at night when seas are calm but this carrier had worked out that it could arrive just before sunset, berth for a few hours and load up with passengers bound for more northerly islands on the evening sail. It made good business sense and what’s passenger safety go to do with anything?
We survived the bumpy ride with nothing more serious than sea-sickness and headed for the waiting bus for our destination hallway around the island.. When I say “bus”, don’t imagine a coach with curtains and air-conditioning. Imagine instead a dilapidated school bus with seats torn out and replaced with wooden benches. Around seventy people needed to ride this forty-seater, so a certain amount of compromise was required. People you don’t know from Adam or Eve could end up sitting on your knee or you on theirs.
It has to be said that we sometimes glided along on concrete roads whenever we were near a small town but once back among the coconuts only the real fat-arses were still smiling. When we eventually reached our stop on the “highway”, four more hours later, a couple of cousins with wide grins were waiting for us. Thanks be to God!
We mounted small motorcycles and after a terrifying ride of less than an hour we arrived at the road head. Astonishingly, the bamboo store was still open for business at nine in the evening. Somebody must have tipped them off!! Not wishing to be a party-pooper I bought a large bottle of rum, some fresh fruit and a bag of fried pig intestines. It would have been a major error to turn up empty-handed. The most important purchase was a bunch of palm-frond torches that would light our way up the mountain.
We set off in single file. Eerie noises echoed from the jungle and little streams splashed over our feet. But the path was mainly dry and we made good progress. Eventually the silhouette of a traditional longhouse appeared in the faint moonlight and we made our way inside to an oil-lit haven of light.
[……. Deleted]
During the night the heavens opened but I was warm and dry on my bamboo bed. The nipa thatch seemed to be very effective, except for the sound of small animals rushing to claim the driest places just like the passengers on the bus. Between dreams I wondered why we weren’t being washed down the mountainside. Twenty-first century to Iron-Age is a big demand on one brain in one night.
Morning broke bright and clear. There’s a ‘moat’ around the house which was not dug to repel invaders but to channel heavy rain. At one lower corner the water carries new batches of mud to the rice paddies below. The place is alive with chickens, goats, pigs and dogs that hadn’t made a sound last night. I feel grubby and need to take a shower. No problem.
A short walk takes me to a big flat rock. An ingenious aqueduct of bamboo pipes, connected to a natural spring above ensures a permanent shower on the rock. Is this paradise or what?
[…Deleted]
But morning ablutions are not always so delicate as shampooing with natural herbs. I need to perform a bodily function that is taboo to most of the civilized world, except for Americans who like to say ‘shit’ every five minutes. The communal latrine, a deep trench shielded by palm leaves is covered by rotting logs. What would I do if I fell in? Cough politely?
An alternative is to go up the mountain where less people are inclined to settle. So I set off with my wash-bottle until I found a place where the trees had thinned, snakes were few, and tall bushes provided plenty of cover. As I squatted and waited for nature to take its course, I pulled out my cellphone.
I had climbed high enough to get a signal. Is that friggin’ amazing or what?

Great writing Yan.

Of course.

Now, a small point. You shat uphill? Does that mean the rain washes it down to the village?



Leaving behind (pun intended) a gift to be savoured later had they turned you down, would have been a fine assuaging of your disappointment.