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Our last week in Bangkok was spent finishing off as much work as possible, trying to see a bit more of Bangkok and enjoying our apartment. Having been working different days and times since we got here, we had not had much time to explore the city together and had not seen many of the temples and tourist sites.

After much deliberation and feeling very tired we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and onto a tuk-tuk around 5.30am to go and watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. We realised that this is a very popular thing and were not too surprised by the hordes of people headed in the same direction. Walking across the bridge over the moat and through the main gates, you get a sense of the awesome size of Angkor Wat, and the huge grounds mean that people disperse fairly quickly. We were pleased to find a quiet spot to watch as the sky changed colour over the temple reflected in a small pool.

As our original 30day visas for Thailand were due to expire imminently, we decided on a visa run to Cambodia. This is quite a common trip to do as it is the closest border crossing to Bangkok and can be combined with visiting the temples of Angkor Wat, built between the 9th and 12th centuries, and often called the 8th wonder of the World. The thought of leaving our hassle-free life and apartment with all the mod cons to go back on the road again was not all that appealing...

We've suddenly found ourselves 4 weeks into our stay in Bangkok and 6 months into our year away. We have not been very good at writing blogs recently because we have settled into quite a routine here; and as it says on the popular t-shirts in the tourist areas, it is a little bit same, same.

Our last week in Kolkata was predictably a bit hectic. We had several loose ends to try and tie up and Drew had to offer to finish a few of the IT projects he was involved in remotely (it's pretty amazing that this is possible!) A new website is in the pipeline, which is quite exciting.

We had another hectic week at work from Monday – Thursday which included a teachers v students cricket match. This was the first such match to be organised and there was quite a big build up in the schools with special practices and the students wanting to talk about little else in lessons! A cricket academy very kindly donated their grounds and some uniforms for the teams and there was a great atmosphere at the grounds. The majority of the volunteers spectating however were from mainland Europe or America so had no idea what was going on or who was winning.

We had fun celebrating the Diwali weekend which in Kolkata (Bengal) coincides with the Kali puja festival (festival celebrating the Hindu goddess Kali). On the Saturday evening we walked around the local streets to see the different stands and Kali statues. Each community gives a donation towards their display so there is some competition between them as to who has the best Kali – there are 108 different forms of Kali, most communities opting for the blue Kali (more forgiving and easier to worship apparently) but there was definitely a recurring theme of severed heads and gore.

We had Sunday after we arrived to get our bearings and have a look around the city. So we walked up to the old central area around Dalhousie square. This is where all the impressive, old colonial buildings which are slightly crumbling in places but the courts and financial buildings are still in use and being restored. Walking around the city can be quite hectic – getting across the roads jammed with rickshaws, ambassador taxis, hundreds of buses and then trams can be quite an ordeal and frequently reminded us of the computer game 'frogger'.

We were lucky that we got a reasonable view of Khangchendzonga and the snow peaks through the clouds on our arrival in Darjeeling as soon after the weather turned and we were immersed in the clouds and could not see across the valley. It didn't take us too long of staring out into the mist and rain to decide against another trek and count ourselves lucky for the fine weather that we had on the Annapurna Circuit.

Having said good-bye to Pokhara, we arrived in Chitwan after a 5 hour bus journey. The journey moved us from lush green valleys with snow-capped peaks behind down onto the hot, flat plains of Nepal known as the Terai. Our hotel was located right beside the river and we were very thankful for the powerful fan as after 4 months in the hills the humid heat was a bit of a shock. We had opted for a package tour which crammed a lot in to a short stay.