Southeast Asia forum

With such a long trip and so many locations, weather and expenses (flights vs. overland jumps, etc) get so complicated that it would be really hard to give a comprehensive recommendation on any of the permutations of your trip.

Overall - cut option 4 as it has you flying in and out of a different places and usually you'll get better airfare if you book the round-trip ticket. That way you know you'll be doing a book loop that eventually ends up back in BKK.

It is confusing because option 1 has you going to Hanoi from BKK without hitting central or northern Thailand, while those are included in option 2 - and I agree with MadMac's recommendation of a northern route through Laos to Hanoi.

You're also skipping central Vietnam and I think that Hue/DaNang/Hoi'an area of Vietnam has been my favorite thus far, so I'd reconsider that and think about how you could include at least 1 1/2 weeks in that region - maybe save cash on internal flights that way by taking overnight trains between Hanoi-Hue-HCMC.

Budget wise - think about Malaysia carefully, I found it was more expensive than most other countries in the region and while parts are enjoyable I wouldn't fasten too much of the trip there (don't know about Borneo portion) - Indonesia and Philippines are both very big and will require a lot of internal fights to bounce about - so including all that island hoping may put Myanmar off this trip.