The misty sunrise is blinding as I stand on the high point that overlooks the village. It’s as though the entire world is bathed in gold.

The temperature is in the high 20s, and this is about as cool as it will get. It’s about 6 o’clock in the morning, and I’m wide awake, thanks to about 36 hours of travel and an 8 hour time difference. We are at about 10 degrees latitude North here in the village, and this close to the equator, neither the sunrise nor the temperature varies much throughout the entire year.

We arrived last night In Darkness and so this is my first view of the village proper. Palm trees loom out of the glowing morning mists. It feels like an ancient place, like something from before time, and to be honest if a dinosaur roared in the distance, I wouldn’t be completely surprised.

I’m snapping pictures left and right, but I quickly realise what everyone realises who visits the village … which is that photographs will never do it justice. Like most people, I have seen the various videos and snaps, but that doesn’t prepare you for encountering this white and gleaming community hiding in hills and hollows amidst the green and chirping jungle. Apart from the cicadas, which are dying away away as the sun rises over the mountains, it’s a silent village at the moment, a little bit like a summer holiday camp during winter time with lines of chalet style housing lining the roads as I walk down from the high ground.

Through the still dawn air comes a puttering sound. The builders are starting to arrive for their day shift, passing me on mopeds loaded with cement sacks, which is the best and easiest way of negotiating the roads during the wet seasons – they are slightly more able to avoid the mud patches. The builders say good morning to me in English, and I blearily and clumsily respond with “Mayoong Aga!”

My pronunciation is doubtless all over the place, but it raises an appreciative smile from the workers as they chug through the village towards the far side, where the last few houses are taking shape.

There is a beautiful calmness to this place, and it feels like just as the sun is rising in the day, so too this is the dawn of a new community, one which will have its own traditions and histories, its stories and legends. But right here and now, it’s almost like being here on the first day of the world.

Part Two