I plan on motorbiking from Hanoi down to Ho Chi Min city too which should be fun!

I agree w/ mr moto's comment. The fun would be combined with intervals of terror. In addition to the dangerous traffic on the roads, you also have such an intense concentration of aggressive motorbike drivers in the cities that the traffic is both nightmarish and physically dangerous. Much better to use buses/trains and rent bikes to explore local more rural areas.

Really you're going to have a lot of decisions to make on your route. Starting in Vietnam, do you want to include Laos, or northern Thailand or Myanmar? if so your trip across SE Asia will make a giant zigzag.

We paied our accom on Principe in Euros, I'm sure your host will exchange a small ammount to Dobra so that you can pay in the small restaurants with them, I wouldn't expect him to change several 100,-- €, but you can ask.

We did a tour on Pricipe that was arranged through our host and we paied in €, during the tour we visited some of the higher end hotels and all of them accepted € as payment, we didn't need to many Dobras on Principe.

Thanks so much again, guys! I was indeed tempted by the cheaper accommodations. It seems everything is quite expensive on the small islands down there. I remember staying on the - back then - remote side of Phi Phi for 12 Euros a night. But well, that's 10 years ago..Any recommendations on the other direction? We were pondering going to Kao Sok, then we'd actually be closer to quite some other destinations the way I see it. Our flight back is from Krabi again, though.
Sorry for keeping you busy - but you seem to be the experts. If you ever need information on volunteer programs in the Americas or Indonesia or anything about Europe, let me know :)

HOTELS
Hotels in Pakistan are much more expensive than elsewhere in South Asia and, at any given price range, there just aren’t many options from which to choose. Also, a lot of hotels did not even respond to email inquiries. These hotels probably aren’t at all used to dealing with foreigners. We generally stay at mid-range (3*) type of places, and this is where we selected:
Lahore – Hotel One Downtown. The location is very convenient to the walled city and the major tourist sites, it is apparently a well-regarded Pakistani chain. The room itself was very clean and comfortable. They upgraded us to a deluxe room, which was very large. There did not seem to be any other mid-range hotels that were conveniently situated for tourist purposes. While hotel is close to the tourist sites, the hotel it is rather creepy and seems isolated. The hotel is on a desolate street and occupies several floors in what appears to be a deserted office building. We thought we were the only ones staying in the entire hotel until the last night, when we happened to run into another tourist (whom I know from travel forums) who also thought he was the only one staying there. Separately, it was really weird that the included breakfast was served in the room, but there was no menu and we were to tell the breakfast guy (who barely spoke any English) what we wanted without having any idea what was available. We booked directly with the hotel by email, and paid 4999 PKR + 16% tax per night.
Islamabad – Hill View Hotel. This was a mid-range hotel that seemed to be a popular upscale hotel for local businessmen. The room was spacious and everything worked properly, and there were tons of staff around. The buffet breakfast was fairly extensive and tasty. The hotel is centrally located in Islamabad, not that there is much in the way of tourist sites. Our main complaint is that we got woken up at ~4am by a seemingly nearby call to prayer, but luckily we fell back asleep. We could not get a response to our emails, and booked through ATP for $73 for the one night.
Karachi – Hotel Mehran. We didn’t actually stay there because we didn’t make it to Karachi (see above), but this was our choice of a mid-range hotel that had good reviews and seemed similar in quality to the type of places we generally choose.
FOOD
Pakistani food was great. Street food is everywhere, and we ate almost exclusively street food so we could see what we were getting and not have to deal with any menu miscommunication. Pakistani food is similar enough to Northern Indian food, with a big emphasis on meats. The sweets (similar to Indian sweets) are delicious and all over. Fresh squeezed juices are also great. And the street food is dirt cheap – most street food items were probably the equivalent of ten or twenty cents.
We thankfully did not get sick it all, but we were careful what we ate and took the usual recommended precautions.
The food is very heavy and the vast majority of food is fried and/or drenched in oil. We noticed that a good portion of the Pakistanis – men, women, and even children -- are overweight or even downright obese. This certainly wasn’t at all the case elsewhere in the Subcontinent. We weren’t sure if Pakistani food is less healthy or if the Pakistanis are just better off and can afford more food.
GETTING AROUND WITHIN THE CITIES
We heavily relied on Uber to get around within cities. Uber was extremely convenient because it eliminated the language barrier of having to communicate our destination to a taxi driver who likely didn’t speak much English, if any. It also saved us the headache of negotiating fares, dealing with scammy taxi driver shenanigans, etc. It’s worth obtaining cellular data access in order to use Uber.
Uber offers both regular taxis (sedans) and tuk-tuks. We used either, depending on where we were going. It’s faster to take a tuk-tuk for short distances in congested areas, especially near the walled city. A sedan is more comfortable for longer journeys.
As previously mentioned in the Wagah border crossing section, Uber and Careem do not work at the Wagah border. The only time we took regular (non-Uber) taxis was twice at the Wagah border (entering the country, and returning from the ceremony). The taxi mafia is awful at the Wagah border, as previously discussed.
FLIGHTS (PAKISTAN AIR)
Pakistan Air (PK) is a totally unreliable mess of a third-world airline. As previously mentioned (see Basic Itinerary), we showed up at ISB airport to find that our Pakistan Air (PK) to KHI had been cancelled. We have no idea why the flight was cancelled, but it supposedly had been cancelled three days prior. We looked online the afternoon of the flight, and it showed an on time departure. PK “said” they tried calling to notify us of the cancellation, which I don’t necessarily believe. PK certainly did not email us using the email that was on file and used to purchase the tickets. Absolutely unacceptable.
The next flight to KHI was not departing ISB until 10am the next morning, which would have put us at our hotel in Karachi until 1pm or so, thereby ruining two thirds of the day. After two unpleasant day trips in Pakistan with lousy guides and drivers, we weren’t looking forward to our day trip with a driver in Karachi. We then made a decision to call AA and change our QR award flight from KHI-DOH to leave the next morning from ISB-DOH.
We asked the PK agents at ISB to provide us with a hotel room for the night since it was 10pm and they left us stranded, and they refused. A nice young Pakistani woman who spoke perfect English overheard what was going on. She took sympathy on us and told us that PK is awful and not to let the airline be a reflection of the rest of Pakistan, and she argued with them and got them to agree to give us a hotel room.
The PK station manager took us into his office to get our tickets refunded and get us booked into a hotel. This guy was one biggest buffoons we’ve ever dealt with, and made American DMV workers seem highly competent. We figured that he must have got his job through family connections. We sat around for two hours watching him try to send emails to people to request refunds for our tickets. He kept doing nonsensical things like putting our PNR in the “To:” field of the email, and seemed totally confused why Microsoft Outlook was giving him an error message when he tried to send the email. We tried offering to him, and he just wouldn’t listen.
We got so tired of the station manager that we figured it’d be morning by the time he arranged our hotel. We figured we’d just try to check in early for our flight and sleep in the elite lounge. We told him that we were going to the bathroom, took all our stuff, and never saw him again.
Six weeks later, PK still hasn’t fully refund our tickets despite dozens of emails back and forth and saying they’re working on it and assuring us that it will be done. More incompetence from PK. We disputed the charges with our credit card issuer in order to protect ourselves in case the refund never comes through, which we suspect won’t.
For what it’s worth, QR’s check-in counters were open for the 3am flight to DOH but they would not let us drop off our bags for our 9am flight so that we could head to the air-side lounge. However, the QR agent directed us to sleep in a secured and private VIP section of the airport with nice leather couches. It turned out to be a much more comfortable night’s sleep than what the lounge would have been.

Thanks for the advice, that's great. Perhaps I'll reconsider Pai. Have you been - if so, what's it like? I've heard mixed reviews.

What other places in the Chiang Mai area would you recommend? I'm thinking of perhaps doing a hilltribe trip.

I think you're right - visiting less places will be more enjoyable overall. Thanks again.

I pseudo agree but am writing this from Thailand!! Not for AC... ..... Should be i agree, but Thailand is the land of the rip off these days.. ... I was originally going to say 1000 but prices are just insane... People dont think twice about paying, 600 for a crap bungalow with fan....... Better to go with a higher budget and be surprised then think OMG, i didnt bring enough..... Clearly its based on where you are... Eg.. Koh chang(burma side) vs phi phi........ OP you are in for a shock.... Pm me if you want some ideas that are still like the good ol days!

An bang beach in Hoi an has holiday cottages to let, and would tick my box for a winter escape over an apartment in Ho chi Minh. If you want a city base, Nha Trang or Danang might suit you, as the beach is on your doorstep.

Personally, I would want to check somewhere out in person, before I committed to a long term stay.

With 2 months in Vietnam, and so much to see, I wouldn't choose to be based in any one place, but if I found somewhere perfect for me, would happily stay put for a couple of weeks. Flexibility is the key, and there is no point in renting an apartment in Ho chi Minh, if you find out in week 2 that you would rather be in Mue ne or Phu quoc.