Vacation Complication

I've begun trying to pre-plan a potential vacation this summer which heavily relies upon some very shakey business travel.

There's a good chance that I will have to make a major business trip sometime this summer and a typical flight route for this trip would be through Narita. The nice thing about travelling for work is that we can break our return flights however we like so if you happen to fly through Honolulu and wish to stay over for a week or two, no problem. The cost incurred by the company is no different if you layover for one hour or one week.

The last two "big" vacations I've taken have been backpacking trips to Europe with the last one occuring in Summer '04. Since then I've wanted to shake things up a bit and visit SE Asia but with a typical plane ticket costing around $2k for such a trip that dream has not been much of a reality. However if I just happen to be laying over in Tokyo during a return from business travel, I can much more affordably get a rountrip flight from NRT to BKK, for example, and then eventually fly home on the company dime. My vacation airfare costs could be reduced by as much as 75%. Sweet!

Unfortunatley this all depends upon several factors coming into alignment:

1. it's not a given that I'm going on this trip (but a strong possibility)
2. our project has to maintain schedule so that the trip occurs this summer as opposed to next fall (when school is in session)
3. Avian Flu does not break out all over SE Asia
4. I can feasibly work out all of the travel logisitcs

In the meantime I'm trying to remain optimistic and deciding what's the best little backpiacking trip I can put together while spending a brief 7-10 days in country. Certainly at the top of the "desired places to visit" list are Bangkok and Phuket in Thailand and the Killing Fields and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Time to start shopping for travel books.