Naturally rain/bad weather upsets beach and sightseeing plans but whether you take it as it comes or 'allow' it to disrupt your vacation is very much down to the individual. Sticking with the Gulf side in Thailand for August is wise. Hua hin is very quiet, Koh Samui is busy that time of year, very lively place. If you are looking for realaxation close to Bangkok then Hua hin is relaxing, perhaps you could take a look at the Anantara Resort in Hua hin, the Marriott is very nice but if it is a quiet time, perhaps some spa, then the Anantara is a good choice. Chiang Mai should be OK, again if you do get some rain anywhere use the time to write postcards, fill up your journal, go off to the Spa for a relaxing massage, or actually 'relax' on a cool verandah somewhere with a great book! Also the rain brings freshness, makes things green and the flowers come out!! My personal opinion of the Marriott Bangkok is that it is somewhat of a 'haven' and being on the river gives character and atmosphere as opposed to some skysraper in the middle!
As far as flights go realise that you are packing in a lot of places in a very short time. I honestly would scratch Kuala Lumpur straight off, no disrespect to the place but you already proably will be rsuhed so if you have to scratch off somewhere start with Kuala Lumpur. You might also considor 'loosing' Singapore, again, nice city, but if you are doing Bangkok, Chiang Mai plus some beach adding then Hanoi and HK is going to be a rush. I am sure others will agree that even if you just stick to BKK, Chiang Mai and Hua hin you won't have too much time in each place.
Do think what you are going to Chiang Mai for, it is certainly the gateway to the North but it is also Thailands 2nd largest city, if you are looking for temples and natural scenary you could perhaps try Sukhothai instead. I know many will suggest Angkor Wat in Cambodia and I agree if you are comming so far it would be worth it if you can manage, but again you might then have to loose Hong Kong too!
You are looking at 19 days total, minus 2 for travel, that is just over 2 weeks.
If you are not 'into' temples and ruins but are thinking of Chiang Mai for a natural jungle experience then just go the couple of hours from bangkok to the River Kwai, river, history, jungle rafts, elephant rides etc, it's close to Bangkok but provides most 'jungle' and nature type experiences.
Back to the beach, remember Hua hin very quiet, nice restaurants, relaxing, Koh Samui palm tress and beaches, more tourists.

I have to agree with James. If anything will make your holiday unpleasant, it will be trying to go to too many places. You'll spend all of your time in airports. Remember that you'll usually be connecting through Bangkok, so it will take two flights to get from, say, Singapore to Hong Kong. You have seven places listed, I'd say you're pushing it to do more than four.

I agree that Anantara in Hua Hin is lovely, and a much better spot for a couple than the Marriot at Hua Hin.

James;
As always...you are great.
Thanks for clarifying.... After your email SHINE OR RAIN we are going in August!
1. Definitely wil go to Hua Hin ( we are looking for a nice, not very busy beach and mostly SPA. - Antara sounds perfect!
If it rains....we can do 1000 massages!!! ( WE LOVE IT)
2.We can cancel Kualulumpur.... good point. Done!
3. We are flying out from Singapur so we have to go anyway.
4. Hong Kog is a must for my husband...so no way of cancelling it.
5. We are down to two maybes????
a. Chiang Mai - We are going becasue we heard is a must. We would like to see temples and maybe some of the nature side of Thailand. Is Chiang Mai where we should go? Or is it better to go to Angkor (Never heard about it -- and everybody in this chat talks about it) and doteh little day trips near BKK?

b. I mentioned Ho Chi Min but you said Hanoi - What is your recomendation???? We want to have a taste of Vietnam...

It seems like we are finally closing the itinerary - at least the Cities...then we have to go into the details of each

MANY MANY THANKS<

DIANA

Diana, I only have a tiny bit to offer here, but whoever suggested Hanoi over Ho Chi Minh City was "spot on"; you seem to be seeing quite a bit of Asia, and I think that you'd find that HCMC was much like any other Asian city. But Hanoi is a different story! Smaller, less crowded, more easily managed if you have only a limited time, and quite captivating. Do Hanoi!

HELLO TO ALL
I was able to move the return date to the 8 of SEPTEMBER. Suggestions??? That means we have 7 extra days and -KATHIA- now we can take out SINGAPUR since we will be comming back from BKK....

In Hua Hin, the Sofitel Central is very relaxing and pleasant. It's in Hua Hin proper (if there is such a thing), but set apart sufficiently so that there's a feeling of isolation. The rooms are nice and spacious. I think we paid $129 per night booking through the Sofitel "800" number.

hate to jump in but on a related note-- is Gulf side (Ko Samui) preferable to Puket side ( Langkawi--sp) for mid to late Sept. as well ? travel agent said to avoid west side in Sept. but I'm not sure if that's true or just more agent bull. any ideas about hotels-- looking for something magical.

any thoughts ?

Ok so now you are looking at around 25 days.
Now if you want to do Vietnam ( and I am sure most would agree hanoi is more interesting )plus HK and you are flying back from BKK. You are not going to be able to do this on 1 airline. It may sound strange but by far your cheapest way to do this would be to do a BKK-HK return ( which are very very cheap, decent airline aroun #150-200 return ). The flight takes 2 hrs 50 minutes. The flight from Bangkok to Hanoi takes 1 hr 50 minutes with eirher Thai or Vietnam Airlines. Because this is not such a competative route the fare will be higher than HKG. It looks more sense to go BKK-Hanoi-HK-BKK but there is no one airline which can do that, nor even partners, so you would get stuck with a very high fare. There are 4 flights a day from BKK to Hanoi and about 20 a day between BKK and HKG, all wide-bodied flights ( except Dragonair ) and countless airlines on the route. Hence, highly competative.
I always use SEAtours in Thailand for my flights and thank goodness having recommended them on this forum to Bob (rhmkk) they came up with very good fares and great service. They are the agent for American express Travel so are 100% reputable yet they have acccess to all the great fares. If you are looking to collect airmiles to use on AA then Cathay Pacific might be your choice from BKK to HKG, for Hanoi I would use Thai Airways which have a morning plus an evening flight. I will post asking Bob to give you the person (Eddy I think ) he dealt with at Seatours, I deal with a young lady there but actually have my Thai staff deal with it, helps language wise.
Tell them you are looking at a HKG flight for about $150-200 and give your preference for Cathay or perhaps Thai, many other good airlines such as Emirates and Gulf Air also fly the route once a day each, ask what they can offer on Thai or Cathay though and see what they come up with.

Ok so now you have BKK, Hanoi and HKG, so then you just need to decide of to fly to Chiang Mai or go more locally around Bangkok such as River Kwai. I think as you have extra time you may as well do Chiang Mai but think about stopping at Sukhothai on the way for a night, Bangkok Airways runs a daily BKK-Sukhothai-Chiang Mai turbo-prop flight, good service, just short hops. Otherwise Thai has multiple flights to Chiang Mai and if you are fixed on date/time you can get cheapie flights on Thai Air Asia(737s) but only a few times a day.
For Hua Hin try :
http://www.huahin-hotels.8m.com
They also have Chiang Mai and other places.

I will leave others to suggest about Hanoi Hotels, unless of course you want to stick with Ho Chi Minh City.

Diana, no question your extra week will give more more options. As I understand the plan now, you are thinking of Bangkok, Hua Hin, Hong Kong, either Hanoi or HCMC, and maybe Chaing Mai (or Angkor). I'd stick to 5 places in your time frame.

My recommendations: at Hua Hin, I highly recommend the Deluxe Lagoon rooms at the Anantara. They are stunning. It's a wonderful setting. The Lagoon rooms are close to the spa and have their own swimming pool.

I do recommend Hanoi over HCMC. I stayed at the DeSyloia there, which we loved. Some people prefer the Sofitel, but I liked the small boutique hotel. For $110 a night, including breakfast, tax and service, we had a huge suite.

I won't recommend particular places in Hong Kong or Bangkok, as both cities have lots of fabulous places to stay. My one recommendation in Bangkok is to stay on the river.

I'm not a fan of Chiang Mai. I'd recommend either the Golden Triangle if you want to see rural areas or Siem Reap, Cambodia for the temples at Angkor if you want temples and architecture. Do a bit of research. Angkor is truly one of the wonders of the world.

You can take a look at my traveling companion's website for a preview of some of these places (especially Angkor) at www.marlandc.com

question for James A.
What airline/routing would you recommend for
US/Hanoi,Saigon/Singapore,overland to Kuala Lumpur/return US--considering price, service, etc.

Wow.... you are all great I dont get tired of sayin that.
This the deal - The Air pass with Thai Air gives me:
BKK-ShaMai or GldenTri or ShngRAi- BKK
BKK - HANOI (James - thank you) BKK
BKK - HKG -BKK
and finally BKK - BALI- BKK

All this for around 500 US dollars. The pain is comming back to Bkk but 1 hour and a half or so is not that much anyway.... I will still check with seatours

Since we have those 8 extra days and we also cancel KUALA and Singapur we added Bali (because of the great air deal)

I never heard of Angkor before but have read all your comments (Kathie) - I just need to see if we can get a good airfare (will check with seatours) my airpasss doen not include Camboia.

Once I decide on teh cities I will go ahead and follow all your notes on hotels..

Thanks to all...

Diana

Diana, if you've never heard of Angkor it may well mean that it's not something you'd be interested in. Find a good guidebook to SE Asia and read about your options. Also, check out the website I referred you to above. The photos may help you decide what you are interested in.

Kathie, Thanks for the referral to the website. The photos were great.

Kathie:
I sais I never heard about it before...now I am crazy about the place. I really want to go. Now we have to decide 2 out of threee options Golden Triangle - Hanoi - and Angkor. Following your advice to keep it to no more than 6 (you said 5) places in 30 days. - Now we added Bali for a week. I am following all your msgs for evrybody....
The only problem is that the air pass for Thay Air does not go to Siam Reap--- I am checking to see how much it would add to the cost..... Tha segments at pass are around 120 r.t.

Also... I heard you are teh expert on spas and the alike. I would liek to hear prices..

Thansk alot,

DIANA

DIANAS,
I have a similar itinerary to you. (Bangkok, Golden Triangle, Vietnam, Angkor, and Bali in 30 days.) I was thinking about going in the fall, now it looks like it might be the summer. Anyway, I've noticed that the problems with the airpass for the various airlines is that they have so many restrictions. Summer is an additional fee, more than 21 days is an additional fee, Vietnam is an additional fee. All ends up being around $1800. My new plan is to find the cheapest ticket possible to and from Bangkok, then buy the SE Asia tickets from an agent in SE Asia. (I believe that this is what Bob does). Anyway, this might be a good plan for you, too. Others can comment.

You may well be better off buying individual segments. Thai Air doesn't fly to Siem Reap, only Bangkok Air does.