So that gave me confidence my trip would be hassle free.

Mongolia gives new meaning to the word "desolate". Stretching across central Asia and the size of Western Europe, the country is home to 2.5m people and 35m cattle. The majority of the people are nomads, living in tents on the steppe, moving every time their cattle have consumed all the available grass in the vicinity of their home. I stayed overnight in a traditional ger tent, literally in the middle of nowhere - the only thing for miles in ever direction was steppe, nomads and cattle.

I've finally arrived in Lhasa after 5 days travelling across the Himalayas. The first day we travelled by bus to the Nepal/China border and from there we travelled by Land Cruiser, along the 920km "Friendship Highway".

The Tibetan plateau, at 3,500m (11,500ft), is as flat as a pancake and interspersed with rows of mountains that rise up a further 1,500m. We'd drive for an hour on a completely flat straight road, then go over a mountain pass and go back to another plain which would take another hour to cross. And the scenery is spectacular: lakes, mountains, sand dunes, scrubland, grassland, farmland, meadows, monasteries, nomads, villages, cities - much more variety than I expected.

I've finally arrived in Lhasa, where I'll spend 2 days seeing various Buddhist sites, before taking the world's highest railway to Beijing.

From there, I took a 3 hour bus through the paddy fields of Uttar Pradesh (see photo) to the India/Nepal border crossing at Sunauli, a rickshaw over the border and then an 8 hour bus ride to Kathmandu. I'm staying in Nepal until Saturday, to do some trekking, before heading off on a 5 day drive across the Himalayas.

After seven weeks, my internship’s come to an end and I'm leaving Bangalore tomorrow. From here, I'm taking the overland route back to London, travelling north through India and Nepal, over the Himalayas and across the Tibetan plateau, before I head along the eastern part of the silk route to Beijing. I'll then cross the Gobi desert and Siberia, before crossing the Ural mountains and into Europe. The full journey will be around 9,000 miles. I expect the trip will take around 5 weeks, which means I should be back in London around mid-September.

About a year ago, Rajkumar, the most famous film star in Karnataka, the region Bangalore is in, died of natural causes. In an outpouring of regional grief, the local people rioted, which led to the death of 8 people, burning of over 100 vehicles and trashing of local offices (see BBC News article). Microsoft's office in Bangalore is a modern glass building, located 2 blocks from Rajkumar's home. This made it a prime target for the rioters, and every window up to the third floor (i.e. within rock throwing distance of the street) was broken.

Anyway, Rajkumar's fans decided to stage a repeat protest (read "riot") today in Bangalore. When I arrived at work this morning, the whole Microsoft building was covered in blue netting, like a large sack pulled down over the whole building. Thankfully the protest has now been cancelled, as the governor of Karnataka is out of town, so the fans are going to stage a mass fast instead. Which means I can spend the day at work without worrying about rocks flying through the windows.

On Friday, I became very sick and ended up spending the weekend in bed. The doctor visited me on Saturday and Sunday, before admitting me to hospital on Monday, where I was diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis.

Indian hospitals are quite an experience: nurses don't speak English, random injections without explanation, nothing (except thankfully the needles) was clean and air bubbles entering the drip tubes every time they changed the saline and antibiotics. The doctors though were great and, after 3 days, I've finally come home.

One of the great things about being home again is the ability to sleep. Like everywhere else in India, the hospital employs far too many people and they all seemed to visit my room regularly. During my last night, I was woken up by 3 nurses, 2 sisters, 5 doctors, 2 cleaners (one for the floor, one for the bathroom), 2 catering people, a man in military uniform with lots of medals (never figured out who he was but he popped into my room every 12 hours) and a patient who was lost. This excludes those who came in and didn't wake me.

I'm looking forward to a weekend of rest before returning to work on Monday.

The facilities at ISB are phenomenal. Although the school has significant downsides, being located in the middle of nowhere an hour drive from Hyderabad's town centre, the range of sports, social and academic facilities are first rate, leaving little doubt that in a short period of time, ISB will join the league of world class business schools in the global rankings.

I went to my first Indian film this week. It's called Sivaji and is a cross between comedy, action, musical and love story. The film was in Tamil, with no subtitles, but that didn't matter as the storyline was rather basic, which is lucky as few people in this part of India speak Tamil anyway. It's kind of like watching an opera - you know what's going on but don't understand a word. The main actor, Rajinikanth, is a 57 year old grandfather who looks and acts like Borat. The women in go seriously wild for him and, strangely, the men go even wilder.

I'm now in India, where I'll be spending 6 weeks undertaking my dissertation with Microsoft's research lab. The lab is very much like a university research department, just without teaching. The academics work on a range of basic and applied research, mostly whatever interests them, some of which might one day be commercialised. The office is great - lots of very smart people working on cutting-edge innovations.

I'll be working in the Technology for Emerging Markets group, which, as the name suggests, researches the technological needs and aspirations of people in emerging-market countries, particularly those for whom access to computing technologies remains largely out of reach. Much of the work here is social-science based, in fields as diverse as economics, anthropology and ethnography. My work will involve analysing the commercial viability of a recent innovation that aims to significantly lower the cost of computing in emerging markets. Seeing the poverty in India on a daily basis brings home the significant positive social impact this product will have if/when it comes to market.