The ice and snow crunches under our feet and our breathing labours. They are the only sounds to penetrate the heavy silence of the mountains. The air is still, and a thick shroud of darkness hangs over us. The impenetrable night seems never-ending, a silent, black abyss into which we trudge.

Baku, Azerbaijan’s dazzling capital, is a city changing rapidly. In its 30 odd years of independence, Baku has shaken off the drab monotones and utilitarian architecture of the Soviet era and exploded with fantastic imagination and mighty ambition.

It is 11:00 o’clock on a Friday night, and the four men I am sitting with are about to spend their third consecutive night sleeping in their tuk tuks. Nearby, protests at the Gotagogama camp are continuing, as Sri Lanka faces its biggest crisis in over a decade.