In her eyes (and ears and nose and skin and mouth), it was the most exciting thing she had seen in all of her 15 years.  The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and the streets were mostly empty, but already she could feel the buzz of the city coming to life.

Boys and men raced through the quiet streets pulling wooden carts laden with various objects.  She couldn't tell what many of them were carrying – one cart was filled simply with branches and sticks – but they all seemed to be hurrying to wherever they were going.  Bamboo scaffolding made greenish-brown cages around buildings that were bigger than anything she had ever seen in her village.  As she walked along a tree-lined street – so dusty even the leaves seemed brown – a strange device, like a bicycle but with a motor on it, whizzed by loudly, kicking up more dust.