I think you need to decide what you want to do with those extra three days before you consider your flights. I wouldn't go back through Bangkok unless you want to be in Bangkok. You can get from Siem Reap to Bali in one day on SilkAir through Singapore or AirAsia through KL. The fares may be higher, but you won't be incurring hotel nights in places that you don't want to be.

For your the three extra days, you have a lot of good options -- adding time to Bangkok, Burma or North Vietnam. Or fitting in a beach in Thailand or Vietnam. It really depends on how the flights work out for you.

You might consider a stop in Java -- Borobudur and Yogyakarta -- between Siem Reap and Bali. The Islamic holidays will be winding down by the week of August 3 (and the European holidays winding up). Another idea would be to extend your Bali time to include a detour to a Lombok beach.

Sorry, I just realized that your 9 nights in Hanoi includes possible side trips to Halong or Sapa. 9 nights is probably enough. I think you're a little short on your Bangkok time, but there's no reason why you couldn't do it in two segments. Your first three days on arrival are going to be such an onslaught of sensory experiences, that it might make sense to back track after you've adjusted to Asia.

That 6 a.m. flight is a killer. I'm not familiar with Bangkok airport requirements, but if you're a conservative traveler, 2.0 hours before your departure is a good target. Bali is a good place to recuperate.

I recommend Centre Point Silom for Bangkok. It's a short walk from the river and the BTS, well-priced and comfortable. It's not a luxury hotel, but an excellent next tier place to stay.

If you go there, ask for a room with a river view. We had a partial view (looking south), but it was very cool to be able to look out and see the water.

Paule

Since I brought up a visit to Sapa, I feel like I should chime in here to advise that the realities of making the side trip to Sapa are that if you decide to go you’re going to have to commit more than 1-night to make the trip. Most travelers opt for one of the 3 different night trains. On both of our trips there, we’ve booked soft sleepers in the Tulico carriage on the SP-1 train. It departs Hanoi at 9:10 pm and arrives in Lao Cai station, about a 45 minute ride to Sapa at 5:30 am the next morning. The SP-2 return departs Lao Cai at 7:35 pm and arrives in Hanoi at 4:10am.

By taking the overnight trains, you don’t have to pay for a hotel room those nights. In addition, you get a full day in Hanoi before you head off and then arrive in Sapa early the next morning. Same deal with the return: a full day in Sapa before you depart and arrive in Hanoi early the next morning.

Here is a possible schedule that fits your dates that would allow you visit one of the very colorful Sunday markets in a neighboring (actually a couple hours away) village:

Date - Activity - Sleep in
7/22/14 Evening arrival Hanoi - HAN
7/23/14 Full Day in HAN - HAN
7/24/14 Full Day in HAN / SP-1 Departs 9:10 pm - train
7/25/14 Arrive Lao Cai 5:30 am / transfer to Sapa / 1/2 day Minority Village - Sapa
7/26/14 Full Day Sapa or trek / Sat Night Sapa "Love" Market - Sapa
7/27/14 Sunday Market in Muong Khuong or Bac Ha / 7:35 pm SP-2 to HAN - Train
7/28/14 Arrive HAN 4:10 am / Full day in HAN - HAN
7/29/14 Hanoi to Siem Reap - REP

You don’t have to go to one of the area market days but these 2 really are pretty cool. Our thinking was as long as we’re going all that far and taking 2 overnight trains, we might as well spend a little time there.

FYI… Both above markets require a drive of several hours each way and both also take you right through Lao Cai going and coming from Sapa so what you would do in the above plan is arrange for your guide taking you to the market to drop you off at the train station in Lao Cai for your departure back to Hanoi. You would spend 2 nights on the train and 2 nights in Sapa but be away from Hanoi for only 3-days. If you're interested, here is our report from our first visit to Sapa http://www.se-asiatravel.com/vietnam/sapa-vietnam/. With a little navigating, you can find other info at the same web page.

A couple other thoughts: Look into Hanoi Free Tour Guides. As the name implies, this is a completely free service with guests paying only for transportation and any entrance fees. At the end of our first tour with the service, we attempted to give the guide a tip and he told us that he could not accept it as a tip but if we wanted to donate the money to a charitable cause, he would pass it on.

Also, your notes on traveling from Inle Lake to Hanoi in one day indicate flights via Rangoon and BKK. It doesn’t fly every day of the week but Vietnam Air has a non-stop RGN to HAN that leaves around 7:30pm.

I just posted this to a new topic, but wanted to share with those who have posted on here and helped us out already.

I am going to book our flights to get us from country to country during our Southeast Asia trip in July and August today or very soon. After looking at potential flight paths, times, prices and airlines to the point of insanity, here is what we've decided on and I would appreciate people's thoughts. The only thing booked so far is our long haul flight to Bangkok and home form Singapore.

NYC to BKK arrive July 9th around 10:00 AM

- Bangkok July 9th - July 12th
3 nights

BKK to Siem Reap July 12th
$75 each Airasia or
$125 each other airline

- Siem Reap July 12th - 16th
4 nights

Siem Reap to Bangkok July 16th
$70 Air asia
$200 Vietnam Air

- Bangkok July 16th - 17th
1 night layover

Bangkok to Mandalay July 17th
$60 each Airasia or
$175 each Thai Air

Will use Myanmar travel agent

- Mandalay July 17th - 18th
1 night
really just want to see the ancient capitals especially Saigang

Mandalay to Bagan July 18th
Is boat too slow because we would love to take the boat from Mandalay to Bagan?

- Bagan 18th - 22nd
4 nights

Bagan to Inle Lake July 22nd

- Inle Lake 22nd - 26th
4 nights

Inle Lake Yangon July 26th

- Yangon July 26th - 28th

Yangon to Hanoi July 28th
Direct on Vietnam on Vietnam Air $275 each or
Yangon to Bangkok to Hanoi $130 each Airasia

Hanoi July 28th - August 4th
7 nights
Marmot, you were right the first time, only 7 nights.

Mediakzar, You are saying we probably need more than one night for Sapa. Can we do a night in Sapa or it takes too long to travel to and from?

If not maybe we'll just do a night on Halong Bay.

Hanoi to Bali August 4th
$333 Singapore Air most direct, about 7 hours

Bali, August 4th - 12th
8 nights

Bali to Singapore August 12th
1 night layover
$100 each

12:45 Singapore to NYC August 13th

We are obviously taking a lot of flights. We are flying to maximize our time, but want to be smart about our money. We will spend some extra money to have more time in the places we want to be. We have discussed eliminating a destination, but we can't choose a place to eliminate without one of us becoming very sad.

1. First of all, if we use Airasia for most of our short flights, it will save us a good deal of money (about $1000 total). What are some things we should be mindful of if we go with Airasia for most of our flights? I know the cancellation policy is tough. We are only bringing carry-ons, less than 40 pounds and we'll make sure they fit the proper dimensions. We've used budget airlines in Europe but never in Asia. Any red flags we're not thinking of?

2. A little explanation about our choices:

- Getting to Bali from Cambodia, Myanmar or Vietnam is our most difficult flight to choose. From my research, getting there from Siem Reap or Myanmar is expensive and time consuming with multiple stops. We could have chosen a layover in Bangkok for a very early budget flight (not appealing) or a layover in Singapore, but the option we like the most is the Hanoi to Bali on Singapore Air. It is the most direct, about 8 hours during the day, with a departure time we like and a price I thought was decent ($333).

- With Hanoi as our stop before Bali, we had to choose between Siem Reap or Myanmar for the stop before Hanoi. It seems like either choice works. A person on these forums alerted me to a direct flight that Vietnam Airlines does between Yangon and Hanoi for about $275 and Siem Reap to Hanoi is about the same $220. Airasia doesn't fly between Siem Reap and Hanoi. We could use Airasia to go Yangon to Bangkok to Hanoi for about $130 so we choose Myanmar as our stop before Hanoi, but I would like to choose the direct flight Yangon to Hanoi if I can save some money elsewhere.

- Getting from Myanmar to Siem Reap or Siem Reap to Myanmar seems to have no easy route so the best thing I am finding requires us to do a layover in Bangkok. If we do this we can find a budget flight from Siem Reap to Bangkok, stay a night, then take a budget flight from Bangkok to Mandalay the next day. I am considering splitting our time in Bangkok, two nights at the beginning (July 9th - 11th) and two nights here in the middle (July 15th - 17th) so that we're not on and off the plane in one night on the 16th, but I like having those three nights at the beginning so we can get acclimated to the heat and get rid of any jetlag without having to move to another spot right away.

- We looked into taking an early morning flight from Bali to Singapore on the 13th so we could catch our return flight home without staying in Singapore at all, but at the slightest delay I would stress about missing our long haul flight from Singapore so I want to fly to Singapore on the 12th. If we can get there early, I would love to explore a site or two in Singapore.

3. We are anticipating using a Myanmar agent to help us plan our Myanmar domestic flights, travel and rooms. We've contacted Santa Maria and Golden Travel already. Any other suggestions people have used and liked?

I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on Airasia, Myanmar travel agents and any misconceptions you can find in my conclusions.
Sean

Again, I posted this elsewhere, but wanted to let everyone here know our plan.

My wife is looking into rooms right now and loving many of your suggestions. We cannot thank you enough for taking the time to help us out.

You can fly from Siem Reap to Yangon on the same day, but you can't get out of Yangon on that day, no matter who you fly, unless you arrive early in the morning (which you can't do from SR). I've been looking at this myself because we are also going in July.

Air Asia does the trip, but you arrive in Yangon at 5:30 pm. Our plan is to spend the night in a hotel near the airport and catch a 6am flight to Bangan the next morning. It's a pain, but there's no other way around it. Have you considered this instead of going to Mandalay first or staying in Bangkok?

As for carry on on Air Asia, I'm not sure if you will be able to bring bags of 40 lbs on the plane (if that's what you were saying). You'll have to check them, and pay for it, so make sure you do that when you buy the ticket. Cabin Baggage cannot weigh more than 7 kilos.

We've used Air Asia several times in Thailand, Myanmar, Borneo, and Cambodia.

We've never had any problems, in fact our experience has been v.good. But we always make sure we stick to their rules, especially with baggage.

If you read their reviews on the Airline Quality website there's a fair few moaners. Have a look...

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/air_asia.htm

It's also worth noting that Air Asia operate from Don Muang (DMK) Airport in Bangkok, which the old international airport

http://www.airlinequality.com/Airpor..._forum/bkk.htm

@ Crellston<<< We travelled from Bangok to SR by train and taxi via the Aranyaprathet/ Poipet border crossing. A lot cheaper than flying but we did have spend a night in. Aranyabprathet ( a bit of a dump) due to the train times.>>>

Getting from Bangkok into Cambodia by rail/road is a great little adventure.

The train from Hualamphong to Aranyapraphet takes about 6 hours and has 42 stops. The morning train deaparts at 0555 and arrives at Aranyapraphet around noon. It's a 3rd Class only service, and there are locals getting on and off all the time, with food and drink vendors shuffling up and down the carriages.

The cost of a one-way ticket is the princely sum of 48 (forty eight) bahts!

From Aranyapraphet it's a 15 minute tuk tuk ride to the border at Poipet.

We did the trip in the opposite direction last year, having travelled to the border from Battambang (well worth a few days) to Poipet, and stayed overnight at the Market Motel in Aranyapraphet before getting the 0640 train to Hualamphong. We sat with the monks in the rear carriage. One of the highlights of our trip!

Crossing the border overland at Poipet shouldn't be a problem providing you've clued yourself up on the possible scams and got your wits about you, and ideally got an e-visa (arriving by air a VOA is easy).