I touched down in Dili, East Timor, on Sunday morning and right from the offset I knew that I’d let myself in for a life very different to how it had been in Thailand over the past three years. I’ve been lucky to have a friend working for an NGO in Dili who has been introducing me to people here and clueing me up on life in East Timor. Without that kind of extra know-how I think my time here would be a lot more difficult.

It will be a challenge for me to do the things I want to do in Dili. I spent today cycling around the city and it was a sobering experience. There are shells of buildings, twisted and torn and decaying; there is poverty on a scale that I have never seen before; there are UN vehicles everywhere and soldiers patrolling the streets; and there are people whose smiles are so full of hope.

None of this is surprising, of course, because I had some idea what to expect, but aside from a city and country shaken to its core, there remains that hope. There is construction work going on, people are full of ideas and plans, investment is coming, and the country seems poised for betterment, but you can’t escape the edginess of the place, even though people have returned to their homes after the internal fighting.

At the moment I am staying at a friend of a friend’s house. A couple of nights ago, two other Western males and I walked from the house to a nearby bar without incident. We had dinner and drinks and returned home about midnight. Last night, in the house on my own, I took the same walk down the street, which is unlit, at about 8 am and the vibe was considerably different.

A few locals said “Hello”, as people do, but then a young, shirtless guy, probably no older than me, approached me and said, “Come here.” I continued walking and he didn’t come any closer, but repeated his question, saying, “Come here, I want to show you something.” I pointed down the road and said I was going to carry on walking and he backed off.

A few more metres down the road and something similar happened. A group of youths sat around a fire called out, but not in the way a group in Thailand would call out – there was no softness in their voices. One of them motioned to follow, but then sat down again.

I carried on down the road and within one minute a middle-aged, weary-looking man in a tattered football kit was following me, less than two metres behind me. There were other people around so I gave him a sideways glance and crossed the road. Without hesitation he followed me until he was walking adjacent to where I was. I turned to face the man, looked him in the eyes and said, “Are you OK?” He backed off for a few moments, but then caught up with me once more.

The feeling that overcame me was mostly frustration for having put myself in this situation. I walked to the nearby street corner, which was lit and full of people, and swung a left, closely followed by my admirer, who soon caught the attention of a group of guys sat on their motorbikes chatting. They said something to him, told me, “No problem,” and my stalker skulked off and sat down in a doorway, looking unmoved by the whole affair.

It wasn’t a particularly rough walk, but being in a new country I decided to call it quits and catch a taxi back home as I really didn’t have a destination in mind when I left the house. Most shops shut at 6 pm here and the streets tend to be unlit.

But these are just the first impressions of someone who, at the time of writing, has been in Dili for less just a couple of days. I’m still feeling positive about East Timor and tomorrow is another day. Most important for me is that I don’t take this place for granted. Foreign workers here are of the mindset that the tension in East Timor could boil over and lead to further conflict. There are people here with nothing – no jobs, no money, no food – but at the same time there are organizations out to change that.

I really have no idea what my time in East Timor is going to bring, but I know that I have goals to achieve (study and work related) and I have to focus on those while keeping my surroundings in perspective and experiencing this place. I have several people in Dili to contact over the next few days, so that should keep me occupied for the foreseeable future.

The trouble that has been going on in Thailand over the past couple of weeks looking unequivocally trivial compared to the problems in East Timor.

So I’m in Dili, I’m safe and I’m insured.