The sun’s coming up. I’ve missed the colours of the Bangkok dawn, which are still alien to my eyes and might always be. At this hour, the Melbourne sky is most likely to be moving through shades of delphinium and lavender, colours that seem as deep as space; clouds will glow iridescent pink and tangerine, and the east-facing sides of the glass office towers will be golden, the hot colours sharp and distinct as trumpet blasts against the droning blues. As the sky lightens to impasto pale blue the sense of endless depth reverses, like a dimension turning inside out, until, as daylight stabilises, there comes a sense of no depth at all: the sky is a paradox, it never begins, it ends before it begins.

Today’s dawn in Bangkok begins with  smears of celadon green, juicy red and powdery cool brown, a brown waking from a dream of purple. Layers and layers of cloud come out of hiding, wisps and veils that flush soft rose and apricot against the pale green sky, slivers of grey and smoky coils of brown. The distance comes vaguely to light in a pale cinnamon fog, housing towers standing up like matchboxes. A broad tide of gold announces the sun, which makes its appearance in glaring molten orange, looking more like metal than gas; the pale gold seeps through all the layers of cloud and mist, turning everything to a print in yellow that lasts for about a minute before the show winds down and the eastern sky settles into a palette of creamy blue and shades of palomino that meets the edge of a great raft of gunmetal raincloud, the latter overhanging much of the city.

Our apartment in Melbourne has views to the east and west, which I miss here. It was a luxury to have the sky at both ends of the day. Watching the sky is one of the great pleasures of life for me, but I’m a daytime skygazer; stars are lovely, but it’s the variety and unpredictability of the sunlit sky with its shapes, colours, textures and depths, its effects of light and atmosphere, that appeals to me.