[travel] Decisions, decisions...

While I'm totally excited about meeting my friends in Turkey on March 6th, it's forced me to really compress what I'm doing in Southeast Asia.

I basically have 34 days to see all I can, and I'm feeling like 50 would be a lot better.

Here's how they're allocated now (flights included in visit times)

Singapore: 3  (I'm staying with the family of a friend from college)
Cambodia (Ankgor Wat): 3
Thailand: 9 (4 in Bangkok with an excursion to Lop Buri, and 5 in Chiang Mai and environs ... this is tentative pending some advice from friends)
Vietnam: 15 (4 in the south, 4 in central, 7 in the north)
India: 5  (I know I'm basically just "tasting" India... seeing India properly would take at least a month, so I'm planning on flying into Mumbai, checking out the city, and then taking a quick hop out to see some incredible ruins at Ellora)
Dubai: 1   (basically I just want to run around and look at the architecture)

I've also discovered that my first flight would stop over in Shanghai, and now I'm thinking "Oh, I've never seen Shanghai... it would be so cool!" but that would cut another two days into the schedule at least.   I should probably fly to Shanghai on a later trip and do it properly.  It looks like roundtrips there from SF are currently about $900 if I'm clever with dates.

One possibility is that I could fly back to SE Asia after meeting my friends in Turkey, but that's an extra $1000 not covered by the round-the-world ticket.

Things I'm curious for advice on:
- Am I crazy to skip shanghai when I'm going to be right there, or is spending 2 days in Shanghai as silly as spending 2 days in New York City?
- Can I get a good sense for Singapore in 3 days, or is that silly too?
- Is Mumbai a fascinating illustration of India's passage into the modern age, or is it just a boring big city? 
- Is the excitement of Thailand more to be found in the little villages (Chiang Mai area) or big cities like Bangkok?