Help please! Trying to plan an Asia/Middle East/Russia trip!
 

Hey guys, girlfriend and I are starting to plan our next yearly trip. We did Southeast asia in 2 and a half months this year and it was absolutely incredible. We visited Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand and Hong Kong/Macau/China.
The countries I am planning on visiting next are India, The Maldives, UAE, Jordan, Greece, Russia and Mongolia. The places I am very interested in seeing are what one would expect on someones bucket list: Golden Temple, Taj Mahal, anyplace in the Maldives, Dubai, Petra, Red Square.
We are planning on another 2 and a half month trip leaving Vancouver on the 3rd of May and returning on July 12th. We are planning on leaving from Vancouver and flying into New Delhi. Spending a week to 10 days there while doing one or two day trips to the Golden Temple and Taj Mahal. I would love to do base camp Mt. Everest but I'm saving this for when I start doing some cardio, haha, and making it into a separate trip. From there flying into Male and booking something for 10 days while there.. We both love scuba diving and tropical places just like most people so very excited for this. From Male flying into Dubai for 5 days as I believe it would start getting a little expensive, especially just coming from the Maldives.. From Dubai flying into Amman for a couple days then spending a couple days travelling and visiting Petra. Then back to Amman to fly to Athens. I'm from Greece so just visiting family as it is only a 2 hour flight for two-three weeks. From Athens fly to Moscow to see the red square and from there to Ulaanbaatar.. Mongolia was not on my bucket list but people online are starting more and more to praise it as a must see place.
We usually set a $20000 budget for the two of us. We definitely prefer hotels over hostels. On our two and a half month holiday in Southeast Asia we spent around $17K and the year before we did most of my bucket list places, including the world cup, of South America for around $22K.
Does anyone recommend any other places than the ones I have mentioned above that are a must see?? Has anyone made this trip and have any suggestions or advice?? Any input really would be much appreciated!

PS. I have looked at flights as that is what we will be doing for travel. Flights will run us just under $8000 leaving us with $12000 spending money. Greece will cost us next to zero as I have places to stay and food is usually free when visiting so do you think that will suffice??

just a quick comment: For the Jordan/UAE and Greece/Russia bits, you'll want to post on the Africa/Middle East and Europe boards respectively (I know Russia is mostly in Asia but on Fodors, threads about Russia live in the Europe Forum)

You want to go to Moscow and Ulaan Baator and you don't want to take the Trans Mongolian??

Oh, and have you looked at the train times to Amritsar? Do NOT do Agra as a day trip, you want to see the Taj at dawn and dusk.

so you are recommending that I take the trans Mongolian from Moscow to ulaan baator then? and I guess leave a couple days to do agra?!?!

Yes.

The best time to do the Mt. Everest Base camp would be Feb, March, April/September. Sadly, May & June would be too hot for north India including Amritsar, Varanasi & the Taj Mahal.Keep the weather conditions in mind while planning your itinerary for India & Nepal.
Happy travels!

Regarding India Travel I can advise you the following:

May is one of the hottest month so if you can start a month earlier (from April) it would be better.

from April onwards, Hotels reduce there prices by more than 50% due to the low travel season, hence you can get good hotels a t affordable prices. Also hostel system is not very popular in India

To beat the heat you can add some hill stations in your tour itinerary. Macleodganj will be good as it is closer to Amritsar, the city of Golden temple.

if you are planning to visit Nepal, than include Varanasi in your tour. Its in India but also a gateway to Nepal. Varanasi is considered as the spiritual capital of India and certainly a highlight of it.

Just wanted to ask if you have any idea of doing in South India, like: Tamilnadu, Kerala... They are good places to visit too... Also see Goa...