Starting from Hong Kong, which route to take through South East Asia?

Hi guys. I've had some excellent advise from this forum before so thought I'd come back to ask this. Me and my buddies are looking to do 5 months in South East Asia starting from Hong Kong. We know we want to see the works: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia (and possibly Malaysia) and the Philippines.

We know we want to fly into HK, however the route or order in which we choose to tackle these countries will affect the flight ticket we choose, so we kind of need to decide before booking next week!

Basically, we can get a return from the UK into HK meaning we'd do a loop around South East Asia, starting at HK and then working anti-clock wise through Vietnam, down to Indonesia then up through the Philippines to get back to HK and fly home. OR we can get an open jaw ticket, into HK and out of Singapore meaning there is no reason to work our way back up and we work from the top to the bottom. This initially sounds the most simple and efficient way but not all the countries we want to see are in descending order. For example, making it to the Philippines means a detour while the circular route does kind of take every country into account while moving in a logical direction.

The difference in flights is pretty negligible with the open jaw being slightly more expensive. We are looking to book in a week so would be amazing to get some advice before then! Hope this all makes sense guys and thanks in advance!

I would book the open jaw and go down Vietnam, into Cambodia, up through Laos and enter Thailand in the north, travel down Thailand into Malaysia. From Malaysia fly Air Asia to Philippines and/or Indonesia and then return to Singapore before your flight home.
Great trip you´re planning. I´m glad you have allocated 5 month to do this trip as many other thinks they can do something similar in justa few month.
Have you had a look www.travelfish.org it´s a site just about SE Asia with loads of advice - it works a lot like a guidebook just online, a great forum and lot´s of accomodation advice.

I'd probably do the open jaw too..it makes more sense for this route.

You can then do most of it overland/sea,with just a couple of flights..your first one into Vietnam and to/from the Phillipines if you decide to go there.

Where in Indonesia are you thinking of? It is a huge country,and you can easily spend months just there.

BTW..you are missing Myanmar.East Timor.And Brunei (I wouldn't worry too much about that one though ;-)

Hey guys. Thanks for the prompt reply! I really appreciate it. Damn, I might go ahead and book today before the flights go up! To be honest, my instinct was to do the open jaw as I didn't want to find my self in a situation were we weren't organised and were stuck in Indonesia a week before flying home from Hong Kong. In that situation, even an air Asia flight would be extortionate. Although if we planned it properly, the loop could make sense. Just feels like Philippines is a bit of a detour as its not on route over land and if we fly into an an airport (say Clark) from indonesia, we'd most likely have to make our way to go through the Philippines then back track all the way to Clark to get back to Indonesia. Unless two one ways is cheaper or there are boats we can get?

Just for your information (irrelevant to this dilemma) here is the rest of my route:

Before SE Asia: fly into Dar es Salaam and explore Tanzania and Zanzibar, then make my way to Kenya to do a volunteer project for one month (all of this aprox 6 weeks)

Meet my friend in Hong Kong via Nairobi then explore the countries noted above until we arrive in Singapore and fly home. Aprox 5 months

A week later (this is planned but needs to be booked) we fly to South America via the US, into Peru and out Brazil open jaw. This will take around 3.5 months. Then, US road trip for one month before flying home!

No doubt will be posting questions on the Latin American / American leg closer to the time.

SO YOU'RE SURE ON THE ASIAN OPEN JAW INSTEAD OF RETURN? x

We can give advice, but you decide (regarding your final question in post 4)