Doha airport, one of the worlds international hubs. At 04:00, though it’s a futuristic self contained city devoid of people. It’s clean, slick with sharp lines. It reminds me of The Capitol in The Hunger Games, opulent and false.

As time moves on people appear fleetingly wheeling their trolleys, with their smart phones held out in front of them as if they are but an extension of the phone itself, something the phone has built to carry it from one place to another!

The people are getting more numerous by the minute and the high end shops which seem to dominate, are used as a distraction to waste time, whilst watching the departure board. There are people of all ages, sizes and shapes, but there is one group that is obviously missing, children, there are no children or very few. There are no shouting and irate parents or crying babies, no children running playing games and no children’s laughter. Why?

To observe, is to learn and what have I learned…that people at 5:30am in the middle of a lifeless, sterile airport in a land of heat and desert are pretty miserable!

As you might have gathered I’m not a lover of these large lifeless airports, they don’t have the personality of, say, Barra’s airport in the Outer Hebrides. They are, however a necessity to travel anywhere with any speed. So onward and upwards as I wait to board the flight to Kathmandu and ultimately Paro in Bhutan.