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[Rice Paddy Daddy]

Singapore - the cleanest?
Japan - fairly clean compared to Taiwan and Seoul
Seoul - not too clean - air pollution
Taiwan, Taipei - dirty
Manila / Bangkok - which one is dirtier - I don't know.

[Ben H Nevis Jnr.]

Sure, Singapore has open sewers or flood drains in the likes of little india, but it's hardly third world. I dispute it's lack of soul/character too.

Now Malaysia on the other hand.....there's definitely a veneer there. Kuala Lumpur is pretty developed and clean but the other cities lag a long way behind. Cross the border as a foot passenger from Singapore to Johor Bahru and you'll see the difference. And you'd better hope you never have the misfortune to be looking for a hotel room in downtown Tawau at 10 o'clock at night....the Kompleks Sinsuran in Kota Kinabalu takes some beating too in the smell/rubbish/general decay stakes.

I found the Thais, in Bangkok at least, to be clean - even the dingier districts were well swept and generally kept as well as they could be. The same semed to be true of the restaurants. Malaysians restaurants were generally clean, it's more of a NIMBY problem they have there - at least their own patch is kept in check. Vietnam on the whole was probably none too hygenic - vegetables perpared on the street two feet from the open sewers etc, but at least it looked as if people were trying their best. Then there's China.....wonderful China. They (we ?) eat chicken's feet here. Who cares if the cabbage has been sitting on the road. Know what I mean....that said, central Dalian is as clean as any large city i've been in in Asia.